Electronic Drum Machine Using Arduino

The project is using DIP switches to control he drum beats from the drum machine which is created by an Arduino system.

There are two 8-way DIP switches used to control the beat while a potentiometer controls the sampling rate and another potentiometer the time between notes. The two DP switches work together in order for each 1/8th note can have four possibilities. They are connected to the Arduino using 2×4021 shift registers.

It is possible to use 2 or 3-position toggle switch as replacement for these types of switches since they are difficult to manipulate. If the position of the switch on both right and left is 0, nothing is played. If the setup is 1 and 1, hi-hat sample is played.

An 8-bit R2R DAC is being used as the sound output, which is the board connected to the digital pins 0-7 on the Arduino. Rather than scrounging around for suitable resistor values all the time, this is so much easier to deal with. The timing is being tracked by 2 LEDs where one lights up on every ¼ beat and the other lights up at the start of every bar.

Rest of the project