The interesting issue about magnetic tape is that by various the pace at which you perform it back again, you can change the pitch of the output. [Issac] determined to choose advantage of this, executing a fancy digitally-controlled pitch mod on his Tascam Porta 02 tape deck.
The develop uses a Raspberry Pi Pico, which employs PWM to handle the speed of the tape drive’s motor. This is achieved with the use of an NPN transistor driven by the PWM output of the Pico. This lets correct manage of motor speed, and thus pitch.
With that sorted out, the undertaking was fleshed out with an OLED screen and a rotary encoder. These allow for numerous patches or scripts to be run on the Pico, managing the motor speed of the tape participant in numerous ways. With a bit of perform, [Issac] was also equipped to create a function that transformed MIDI notice values into PWM values that identify many motor speeds.
The organic point to do up coming was to put in a tape with a looping sample at a established pitch, and then differ it in a sequence managed by the Pico. The 8 actions of the sequence can be manually set with the rotary handle, and in foreseeable future, [Issac] even options to increase a serious MIDI enter, letting the procedure to act as a monophonic synth.
If you desire other routes to pitch shifting shenanigans, test out this undertaking. Movie after the split.