+++
title = "Making a Drum Sequencer"
date = 2026-05-27
+++

I always looked at Teenage Engineering and thought it was pretty cool and given I have a sem break right now, I thought I can make one too. shouldn't be hard right?  
and after i started composing music, Techno was a genre I always wanted to try but i couldn't, and then an idea popped up, maybe I can create a suite of instruments  

> a Synth  
       
> a Drum Sequencer  

> a Vocoder  

and start making techno on them? Sounds nice innit?  
<br>

# The Design
I wanted the design to look a little retro 80's esque, and I wanted it to be little simpler (because I will have suite of appliances to generate different sounds, so would rather have one that is simple and does it job well)
and I drew a few sketches and ended with something that looks very nice
<div style="display: flex; justify-content: center;">
  <img src="/dq_sketch.png" alt="Drum Sequencer Rough Sketch" style="transform: rotate(-90deg); width: 50%;" />
</div>

# The Prototyping
with the _beautifully_ crafted picture in hand, now the plan is to prototype


I needed around 16 Buttons -- which I am going to pull of some keyboards i archived (They paid off innit?).  

I might need to get some more potentiometers and find a way to make a matrix the LEDs and Buttons, Once That is done, Getting the whole thing shouldn't be that tough (atleast I hope it isn't)  


<!-- -- 28 May 02:00 AM   -->

<!-- I am about to order stuff from flyrobo and i found this website called [ifuturetech](https://ifuturetech.org) which i am really unsure is legitimate, but yes. I might order from it, the total cost excluding the MicroProcessor and the Speaker (which i might borrow from a friend for prototyping) come around to 616.   -->

<!-- Including the speaker and the MCU let's call it a even 900? and then the chassis -- with a good cnc machine and alumium -- would roll everything up to a nice 1500 - 1700? That still is cheaper than Teenage Engineering or any SOTA, selling it for around 2400-2500 should make up some good profit. this is getting exciting.   -->

<!-- I look forward to any outliers that would increase the cost by 10x -- i don't see a reason something like this would but yes. -->