open-xsynth

Run any software using the controls — and the OLED screen — of Google's Open NSynth Super.

open-xsynth replaces the NSynth Super's on-device neural-audio app with a thin OSC bridge. openFrameworks stays on the device doing what it's good at — reading the hardware and rendering the OLED — and everything else happens in your program, in any language that can speak OSC (Python, Node, SuperCollider, Max/MSP, Pure Data, TidalCycles, a game engine, whatever).

  ┌──────────────── NSynth Super (Raspberry Pi) ────────────────┐
  │  open-xsynth (openFrameworks)                               │
  │     hardware (touch grid, 6 pots, 4 encoders)              │
  │        │  controls OUT  ── OSC ──▶  udp :8001              │
  │     OLED 128×64                                            │
  │        ▲  drawing IN    ◀─ OSC ──   udp :8000             │
  └─────────┼───────────────────────────────┼─────────────────┘
            │                                │
       your program (any language) ──────────┘
       receives controls, sends what to draw

Two independent OSC streams:

• Controls OUT — finger position on the touch grid, the 6 potentiometers, and the 4 rotary encoders are emitted as OSC on port 8001.
• Display IN — your program sends /oled/* drawing commands to port 8000 and openFrameworks renders them on the OLED.

See docs/PROTOCOL.md for the complete message reference.

Status

Working and deployed on hardware:

• ✅ Controls stream out (/grid/xy, /grid/touch, /pot, /rotary)
• ✅ OLED renders inbound OSC drawing commands (/oled/text|line|rect|circle|pixel|bar)
• ✅ Auto-starts on boot via a systemd service

Quickstart

On the device (already set up — see docs/DEVELOPMENT.md), open-xsynth runs on boot. From any machine on the same network:

Draw to the OLED (Python, no dependencies):

# set the device IP (see clients/osc_send.py), then:
python clients/osc_send.py static      # a title card + meter
python clients/osc_send.py animate 15  # bouncing ball + sweeping bar, 15s

Watch the controls (run on the device — controls are sent to localhost:8001):

python3 clients/osc_dump.py 8001 30    # prints every control event for 30s

Repo layout

Path	What
app/open-xsynth/	the openFrameworks application (C++) — control OSC out + OLED in
app/open-xsynth/src/RemoteScreen.*	renders inbound /oled/* drawing commands
app/open-xsynth/src/InputThread.*	200 Hz threaded MCU poll → control OSC
sc/	SuperCollider instruments — phase2.scd = multi-engine groovebox (VOICE + BreakSlicer, current build); phase1.scd = single-voice fallback
systemd/	autostart stack — xsynth-stack.sh (bundled jackd+SC), install.sh, unit files
clients/osc_send.py	zero-dep OSC client + OLED demo
clients/osc_dump.py	zero-dep OSC monitor for the control stream
clients/osc_relay.py	forwards controls 8001 → SC's port (57120)
scripts/rebuild.sh	one-command rebuild + service restart (on device)
firmware_backup/	verified backup of the stock MCU firmware (recovery image)
docs/PROTOCOL.md	full OSC message reference
docs/DEVELOPMENT.md	device access, build, deploy, gotchas
docs/INSTRUMENT_PLAN.md	SuperCollider instrument plan + Phase 2 status
docs/FIRMWARE.md	MCU build/flash/backup + touch-resolution (2a/2b) work

Credits

Built on the Open NSynth Super hardware and openFrameworks app by Google Creative Lab. Licensed under Apache 2.0 (see LICENSE).