Daisy Audio — formerly Electrosmith — has released three Seed3 Dev Kits: open-hardware platforms for building custom synths, Eurorack modules and pedals, in Desktop, Eurorack and Pedal configurations.
The Daisy platform is already inside a lot of commercial gear. Digital modules from Qu-Bit Electronix and Noise Engineering use the DSP, as did the now-discontinued Chompi sampler.
The Seed3 itself
All three kits run the new Seed3:
- ARM Cortex-M7 at 480 MHz
- A new audio codec at 32-bit, 192 kHz
- 65 MB of internal RAM — enough to hold audio buffers up to ten minutes
- 8 MB of flash
- USB-C (the original Seed is micro-USB)
- microSD slot for firmware updates and sample configuration
The RAM figure is the one that changes what you can build. 65 MB of internal RAM on a microcontroller is an unusual amount, and ten minutes of audio held in fast memory is the difference between an effect and an instrument. A granular processor, a looper, a long-tail convolution reverb, a sampler, a delay with genuinely long time — all of these are memory problems first and DSP problems second. The common workaround on embedded audio platforms is external SDRAM with its latency and its board complexity; having it on the module removes a whole class of design difficulty.
32-bit/192 kHz is more headroom than most finished products ship with, and matters mainly for what happens inside the processing chain rather than at the outputs.
Three kits, three shapes
All share the Seed3, USB-C and microSD, and differ in I/O and controls.
Desktop — stereo line-level audio in and out, eight 10K-B potentiometers, 16 tactile switches, two toggle switches (ON-OFF-ON and ON-ON), 2 CV/gate ins and 2 CV outs, 5-pin DIN MIDI I/O, and a 3.5mm headphone out with volume control.
Eurorack — a 28HP mountable module, stereo audio I/O (AC-coupled), eight potentiometers, two toggles, two tactile switches, four CV ins, two gate ins, two CV outs, MIDI I/O over mini sockets.
Pedal — stereo audio I/O, expression pedal input, six potentiometers, two footswitches, two tactile switches, three toggle switches, two LEDs (RGB and red), and a 9V DC barrel jack.
The differences are exactly the right ones. 5-pin DIN on the desktop and mini-jack on the Eurorack module reflects what each format actually uses. The pedal’s 9V barrel jack and expression input mean it drops into a pedalboard without adaptation. These are not three enclosures around one board; they are three sets of format-correct connectors and controls.
No enclosure, and that is the better choice
The previous equivalents — Daisy Patch and Patch Field — came with matching hardware enclosures. The Seed3 kits are bare circuit boards, and you build your own.
Synth Anatomy’s reviewer prefers it, and the reasoning is sound: an included enclosure is a design decision made for you, and for a prototyping platform the enclosure is the part most likely to be wrong for your project. A bare board is cheaper, and the Eurorack kit is already panel-mountable at a standard width.
The practical consequence is that the kits are useful at two different stages. They are designed primarily for prototyping, but a finished board in a box you made is a personal instrument — which is how most Daisy projects actually end up.
What you need to bring
The hardware is ready and waiting for your code. That is the honest framing and the main thing to understand before buying one: these are platforms, not instruments. Nothing makes a sound until you write or load firmware.
The ecosystem helps — the Daisy platform has an established C++ environment, an Arduino path, and a reasonable body of community projects you can flash. But the gap between “I own a Seed3 dev kit” and “I own a granular processor” is a DSP programming project, and the kit’s appeal is precisely that it is the shortest version of that project currently available.
For anyone who has read our coverage of the Seed2 board, this is the same proposition with substantially more memory and a sensible connector.