“Live music gigs are always a very special thing, but to produce it, you need humans, and humans are not always available. I occasionally play gigs equipped by my guitar and my voice, but music generally features many others instruments, like percussion, and these instruments tend to only sound when played by humans. This problem could be solved by just using a recording and playing over it, but that would somehow feel against the idea of the live concept.
So, I decided to get rid of the human element entirely, and build a robot drummer… The idea would be to make something portable, which could move and play sounds in different rhythms with no use of samples/recordings, that could be played or stopped at will, and that its sound could be amplified in a gig/band situation.
Disclaimer 1: As I said in my previous project, I have no formal electronics education, so I’m sure that many of the circuits described in this tutorial could be arranged in a better and more efficient/effective way. I’m open to suggestions. Btw, the same applies for all the code I wrote in this project.
Disclaimer 2: In order to keep this tutorial as short, easy and useful as possible, I decided to focus in the main functions of the projects. These being, how the sound is produced, how is captured and amplified, and how the arduino keeps everything under control. With this in mind, I simplified many aspect of the project, like the use of a simple tact switch instead of a rotary encoder.”