3

Meet The Maker

REGULAR

programmer by profession – I knew a lot about
coding, so getting in an Arduino and code was never a
problem, but the electronics I never really knew much
about. I think the digital side of it was kind of easy
because it’s really just an extension of programming,
so working with shift registers, multiplexers...
they’re just an extension of code. I’ve been trying to
understand a bit more analogue stuff, which is a bit of
a black art, but it keeps life interesting trying to do that.

MAKING MUSIC
I do love the fact that MIDI is so well crafted. To do so
much so efficiently and yet be so simple and it’s stood
the test of time. It’s, what, nearly 40 years old, and it’s
still going strong.
There have been all these other things that have
come out and have been supposed to replace it but it’s
still the de facto standard.
I like making music and always have done, so I’m
a bit of a synthesizer junky and play guitar and bass
in bands, so music’s always been my main passion
really. It’s not like I got into music because I thought
I’d sell lots of kits; more that I started doing music kits
because that’s what I learned first – my first Arduino
projects were MIDI.
But I think the reason that some of the things have
sold well is: the feedback I get is that the functionality
is good – I think that’s because I come up with lots of
things because I am (or try to be) a musician. I have
ideas that seem to translate quite well into features
on things like that. I think that’s why that’s
eventually become the focus –
it’s something that I

Below^

Hot-swap up to six

MIDI outputs with

near zero latency on

the Banana Split

Right^

The first step to selling

is getting noticed, and

YouTube is a great place

to start showing off

your makes

can think of good functions and features for. I’ve used

lots of similar products myself and I think ‘oh, wouldn’t

it be good if it had this feature or that? I’ll make one!’

FACING CHALLENGES

The biggest problem for me is always time. Everything

takes longer, by probably a factor of ten, than you think

it’s going to. Especially because, at the moment, I’m

working around the day job. I only work three days a

week, but it still gets in the way quite a lot. Apart from

that, there haven’t really been a lot of big problems.

I think that because I’ve not tried to do things too

quickly, the money side of things has never really been

an issue. I can invest the money I’m making off things

into new parts or whatever. The outlay is never very

high. At most, you’re talking a few hundred pounds to

start something.

Space is getting a bit limited because as it’s

grown, certainly my wife thinks that I’m starting to

fill the house up. I’m thinking of getting just a small

business space because I’ve started to employ a

couple of friends as well, with some of the work

for manufacturing.

Everything takes up a bit more space – finding space

for someone to work, finding space for somewhere to

keep things.