1. Open Hardware, DIY,
80s sonic aesthetics...
... and where they meet
Olivier Gillet

2. Outline
! History
! Choices
! Congruence
! Moving forward

3. History

4. 2009

5. 2009

6. 2009

7. 2009

8. 2011

9. 200 500+
150 2200+
2012

10. Mutable Instruments
in december 2012
! 4 products: monosynth, polysynth,
monosynth+drum machine, MIDI processor
! Volumes comparable to some established
manufacturers
! Organic growth, 100% bootstrapped
business, financially in the green, with 0
marketing

11. Can be spotted in the wild!

12. Specificity 1

13. Specificity 2

14. Open source HW
! Circuit analyses / simulations
! Schematics + PCB layout
! Bill of materials, cross-references for
up to 4 suppliers
! Plexiglas enclosure design (laser
cutting)

15. Open source code
! Open source firmware for all
instruments (~80k LOC)
! Avril / Avril-X: C++ development
frameworks for AVR microcontrollers
! AVR MIDI bootloader + tools

16. The Mutable in
Mutable Instruments

26. Choices

27. Cursor 1
Technological stack
Home/Hackerspace Factory

30. Cursor 2
Toy vs Tool

31. Cursor 3
What is sold?
Bag of parts 1 year of R&D 1 year of R&D
+ Bag of parts + Bag of parts
+ 1 hour of
consulting

32. Cursor 4
Which concessions to openness?
Proprietary at the Open architecture, but
architecture level, proprietary at the silicon level,
open tooling closed tooling

33. Congruence

34. DIY ♥ music
! Musicians are geeks
! “Solder your cables” = the gateway drug
! Self -expression. Uniqueness
! Workflow customization

35. DIY ♥ 80s
! DIP microcontroller =
computing power of a 80s
home computer
! Hackerspace-friendly tech
= 80s high-end consumer
electronics tech
! Most accessible DIY synth
techniques = those used in
early 80s product (digitally
controlled analog, hybrid)

36. DIY ♥ 80s
! “Survival of the
shortest”. Generative
music/graphics trick
from the 80s are
relevant on low-cost
embedded platforms
! Publication of
programs as source
code in zines = proto-
open-source

37. Electronic music ♥ 80s
! Analog synthesis as a mature tech
! The point after which synths became boring
! British synth-pop, then birth of techno

38. Electronic music ♥ 80s

39. DIY in 2012 sends us
back to the golden
age of synths

40. What’s next

41. Things the 80s got wrong
! Software quality... Thanks C++!
! Discipline
! Zero-cost abstractions
! Idioms and patterns useful for
embedded
! AI

42. Intelligence in 16k of SRAM
! Complicated stuff is offline anyway!
! Boosting
! Bloom filters/maps
! “Lossy computing”
! ... Coming soon in new MI products!

43. Not a Dogma
If it can make great sounds but requires modern tech...
... MI will still build it, with modern tech

44. Stumbling blocks
! Open source business ! transparent
vs
! Cultural clash between old-school
industries and DIY/maker movement

45. Questions?
mutable-instruments.net

46. Cursor 5 / Curse #3379
Education Hardcore openness

47. (I’m not the only one... )
! x0xb0x: Open-source (but clone of existing
design)
! MIDIbox: Platform for designing controllers
+several synth projects (but not open-source)
! Many modular DIY projects (not open-source)
! Meeblip, PreenFM, Rockit, LushOne (open-
source)