After a little hiatus, this month I put a lot of time into getting DrumKid closer to the finish line. I had a moment of clarity, where I realised a few things simultaneously:

1. DrumKid couldn't really call itself "hackable" without an easy way of reprogramming the chip
2. DrumKid had too many features and was running slowly/unreliably as a result
3. The circuit had too many components and was going to be a pain to assemble each time

Suddenly I knew what I had to do:

• I replaced the ATmega328 chip (and its accompanying components) with an Arduino Nano, allowing users (and me!) to easily reprogram DrumKid
• I rewrote the code from scratch, brutally eliminating several of the features until the Arduino was no longer struggling to run the sketch
• By making the sketch simpler, I was able to increase the audio rate, which meant I no longer needed to filter out the PWM carrier signal, which simplified the circuit
• By not having a filter in the circuit, I no longer needed to amplify the audio signal, meaning I could simplify the circuit even further!

The upshot of this is that I now have a design that works better, sounds better, and will be easier to hack. This new design is version 6, and if I'm lucky will be the first version that I can actually sell. I've ordered some prototype PCB's, and have uploaded a new breadboard design to GitHub (see below).

I'm currently fine-tuning the code and updating the manual. Very excited to be nearly done!

In other news, I'm learning how to design and order ready-assembled PCB's with surface mount components, so that I can build more ambitious projects in future and minimise the amount of soldering I have to do. My hope is that the next version of DrumKid (if there is enough demand to warrant another new design) will make use of surface-mount LED's, resistors, capacitors, diodes, and optoisolators, thereby making assembly much easier for me, and freeing up space on the board so I can perhaps reduce it back to its original, smaller size (V6's MIDI ports mean it is a couple of cm longer than V4, and I don't think it's quite as aesthetically pleasing!).