Hey everyone!
I wanted to share a project I've been working on and get your feedback. It's called Sound Center, a retro audio platform running on the Olimex ESP32-SBC-FabGL board.
I pushed the ESP32's dual-core to its limits to build a full audio mixing and streaming engine from scratch. It outputs a classic GUI via VGA and supports PS/2 Mouse & Keyboard.
Key Features:
🎹 4-Channel Synth + Piano: Supports continuous waveforms and 30+ drum loops. You can even use a PS/2 Keyboard to play it live as a piano!
📡 SD Card & Live WiFi Streaming: Plays 8-bit WAV files locally, or streams real-time audio over WiFi using a custom Python PC client (which auto-converts audio using an advanced FFmpeg pipeline).
🎛� Real-Time DSP Effects: Dual SFX slots (Schroeder Reverbs, Echoes, Bitcrushers, Pitch Shifting, etc.) plus a 5-Band EQ and Overdrive.
Optimization: To prevent audio stuttering during WiFi streaming, I wrote a custom 8KB Ring Buffer allocated entirely in the external PSRAM. Core 1 handles SD Playback/UI, while Core 0 manages the TCP WiFi Streaming.
If you have this card, I would be really grateful if you could run the code and let me know your feedback on the project.
Link: https://github.com/UfkuAcik/FabGL-AudioMixer-And-Streamer
(https://preview.redd.it/i-built-an-8-bit-retro-audio-mixer-wifi-streamer-on-an-v0-vhxek9x8d45h1.png?width=1120&format=png&auto=webp&s=1f60df6723659d1bdff9740930b6514fae50a486)
(https://preview.redd.it/i-built-an-8-bit-retro-audio-mixer-wifi-streamer-on-an-v0-0wfijn2ad45h1.png?width=744&format=png&auto=webp&s=bd708a5177c4c4fd65ea1b455931579aee178f81)
(https://preview.redd.it/i-built-an-8-bit-retro-audio-mixer-wifi-streamer-on-an-v0-i7md6fabd45h1.png?width=745&format=png&auto=webp&s=7cd38822c0df5559139371af93a14044563a5bc7)
Looks neat. I will add a link to the project's GitHub at the ESP32-SBC-FabGL's product page under "Community".
Thank you very much. Please upload the code to the board and test it out when you have the time. It is particularly important to me that the DSP block meets expectations, so I am very curious to hear your thoughts on this point.
As a quick note, I plan to include the following features in the project in the future:
Remastering the algorithms in the DSP block to ensure full academic compliance and optimizing the related functions to the highest possible degree.
The ability to import short external audio files (1-2 seconds) from an SD card into the synthesizers (signal generators) and synchronize them to the tempo.
Real-time recording from the master output to the SD card during runtime.
Improvements to make it impossible for the master audio output to clip/distort, even as a result of heavy effects and boosting.