RAMPS 1.6 A4988 MIDI stepper synth

Using Arduino Project Guidance
1

I'm still on the fence about the electromechanical music machine but I still want to do something music related. I recently got a RAMPS 1.6 board and some A4988 drivers for my robotics endeavors. A4988s are not known for being quiet so I figured I could make one of those stepper synths based off of this stuff on GitHub. It's not that ambitious but it should keep me busy for a while.

My questions:

  1. What would be involved in setting up MIDI to serial on my Linux machine?
  2. The tone() function on the step pin can be used for one stepper. How complicated would it be going up to two? Could I use micros() and the note period to manually do the frequency?
  3. If I wanted to make this thing louder, how would I do that? 3D print an acoustic enclosure?

Thanks in advance.

2

Do You intend to use the steppers as loudspeakers?

Sorry but plowing through entire projects will not be done today.

3

The Tone library (as opposed to the tone() function included with the IDE) can play tones on more than 1 pin at the same time. See the Ugly Details section of the linked GitHub page.

That is kind of what I did and got acceptable results (for me anyway). I just rubber banded the stepper to a small plastic box a bit bigger than the stepper.

4

@groundFungus 2 and 3 answered then.

@Railroader Google "stepper synth" to see what I mean.

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