Check the two four-position switches on the lowest board of your module. Make sure the switches are positioned properly according to the orientation of your module (in which of the three cases is it located?). Check here (hyperlink to tutorial) to see how.

3dPdModular is a synthesizer that runs on a Raspberry Pi micro-computer. The computer needs to boot up and launch all the necessary applications for the system to work. This takes approximately half a minute.

Remember that this synth runs on a computer, so it’s best to first shut down the computer and then power off the system. Even though you’ll probably won’t damage anything by just unplugging it, it is recommended that you use the main button found in the Main module, to shut down your system properly.

You can get any sort of banana patch cords you want, but the 3dPdModular patch cords include a diode inside them which prevents signals from flowing both directions. The signals traveling inside these patch cords are digital pulses, and without the included diode, if you connect two outputs to one input, they will cancel out each other. With the integrated diode, this cancellation is prevented and you can patch any number of outputs to any number of inputs.

The official Raspberry Pi power supply unit provides the current that is enough for the Raspberry Pi to run. 3DPdModular uses additional hardware (the main Teensy micro-controller, or additional Teensies, or “breadboarduinos” – Arduino on breadboard version), so more current is likely to be needed, if you’re using modules with displays, or LEDs that fade in and out. Additionally, the included PSU in the main case provides extra filtering so the power is more noise-free.

In order to be able to use a single Teensy micro-controller for the whole system, the modules need to be daisy-chained so that all digital information is passed from and to all modules. Some modules include a display, fading LEDs, or more knobs, inputs or outputs that the main interface provides. These modules need additional internal wiring so that the additional hardware they include can communicate with the main Teensy micro-controller.

Since 3dPdModular is an integrated system, it cannot communicate with other hardware by simply connecting any output to some other system. Also, the banana terminal seems more comfortable for live performance because it is slightly bigger that the 1/8” jack, and because all banana terminals can be stacked. Since 3dPdModular doesn’t need Multiple module to connect a signal to many inputs, utilizing the stacking of banana terminals seemed like the best way to achieve something like this.