Elk Audio Blackboard plus Pi Hat audio dev kit with Pi 4 2020 Black

The Elk Blackboard and Pi Hat are an add-on to a Raspberry Pi  4 (included) that allows you to develop custom virtual musical instruments. This kit is a development system and is intended for software engineers to develop code on.   It does nothing at the moment without connecting it to a network and controlling it from another system.    Working examples are included.

The basic idea is that you develop code for either a Linux LV2 plugin or VST and then you cross compile the C++ using the supplied tools to run on the Elk board. Integration with JUCE and OSC are also possible.

The switches and knobs are controlled using a hardware abstraction layer written in JSON.

Please do not buy this unless you really know what you are getting into.   If you understood everything I've said so far you are probably in good shape.

The attached YouTube video is a quick guide to getting started with Elk Audio OS using the Elk Pi Hat. The Elk Pi Hat sits beneath the Blackboard.  The video  is not specific to the Blackboard which has additional options and examples available.  Support can be found at forum dot elk dot audio.

I have already installed the latest Elk Audio OS and example code on a 16GB SD card, saving you some time.
Examples are supplied showing the following:

• Soft synths (including JX-10 emulation) which can be triggered using a MIDI keyboard plugged into the USB port, or by pressing the Blackboard's switches.  Some of these synths have many pages of parameters that you can adjust - they are plugins after all.
•  A few different sequencers  which drive a virtual analog synth whose parameters you can tweak using the sliders.  The buttons are used either to turn notes of the sequence on or off, or to transpose the programmed sequence up and down. - and more!
• Multi-FX for guitar - drive, filter, flanger, stereo delay.   Note that in order to use the 1/4" analog inputs you have to put a shorting plug (not included) into the aux jack.
  

Visit elk dot audio and search for the word "Blackboard" in the documentation to get up and running. Elk Audio OS for Raspberry Pi has been made open source and can be found at Github.

This also includes the Raspberry Pi 4 and Elk Audio OS already burned onto an SD card.
5 volt 3 amp USB-C AC adapter included. Finally, a base support plate with "Elk" on one side and what looks like Grace Jones on the other side is included.  No, I don't know what's up with that.