VOGONS


First post, by dreamblaster

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I made a new waveblaster board, PicoPango
available soon at https://serdashop.com/products/picopango
EDIT:
It features several synth engines (selectable by midi command) :

  • Wave based synthesis (GU-Wave, Pocket)
  • FM synthesis (FM Classic, FM Classic FX)
  • Chip tune (Chip, Speaker)



Features :

  • Switch easily between engines, using the Pangoset utility.
  • 48-voice polyphony, all 16 MIDI channels
  • USB-MIDI, class compliant: no drivers needed on Windows, macOS or Linux
  • 3.5 mm stereo line out
  • Compact PCB : 34mm x 34mm
  • High quality Stereo DAC
  • Powered from the sound card or from USB
  • Easy firmware updates over USB: drag and drop a file (RP2350).
The attachment PicoPango_connections.jpg is no longer available
The attachment PicoPango_front_wb2.jpg is no longer available

Doom E1M1 Demo of 'GU-Wave' synth : https://youtu.be/A-C0Wr8Dc-c
Doom E1M1 Demo of 'FMC-FX' synth : https://youtu.be/Ql318iBo9h8
Doom E1M1 Demo of 'Chip' synth : https://youtu.be/vmddvVdgW0k
Doom E1M1 Demo of 'Speaker' synth : https://youtu.be/uKuUDefiNYE
Doom E1M1 Demo of 'Pocket ' synth : https://youtu.be/GWEXfo7XpH4

Last edited by dreamblaster on 2026-10-11, 21:07. Edited 11 times in total.

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Reply 1 of 18, by keropi

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mmmm fresh wt 😁
will add it to the ever growing collection !

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Reply 2 of 18, by Angus.Young

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Looks great.. will Grab one from SerdaShop when available.

Reply 3 of 18, by SuperDeadite

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Looks fun, but what is GU-Wave? Searching for it just gives me AI slop about the standard Microsoft Windows GS soft synth....(dead internet theory is real!)

Also, which FM source is this modeled from?

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Reply 4 of 18, by NeoG_

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SuperDeadite wrote on 2026-09-30, 00:01:

Looks fun, but what is GU-Wave? Searching for it just gives me AI slop about the standard Microsoft Windows GS soft synth....(dead internet theory is real!)

Also, which FM source is this modeled from?

“GU-Wave” is the name of the mode on the PicoPango that uses the GeneralUser GS soundfont

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Reply 5 of 18, by dreamblaster

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NeoG_ wrote on 2026-09-30, 00:15:
SuperDeadite wrote on 2026-09-30, 00:01:

Looks fun, but what is GU-Wave? Searching for it just gives me AI slop about the standard Microsoft Windows GS soft synth....(dead internet theory is real!)

Also, which FM source is this modeled from?

“GU-Wave” is the name of the mode on the PicoPango that uses the GeneralUser GS soundfont

yes it is a wave based synth engine, that uses GeneralUser GS samples as a basis. it is not literally an sf2 soundfont player, but it uses the same samples and loop points.

Visit http://www.serdashop.com for retro sound cards, video converters, ...
DreamBlaster X2, S2, S2P, HDD Clicker, ... many projects !
New X2GS TE & X16GS sound card : https://www.serdashop.com/X2GS-TE ,
Thanks for your support !

Reply 6 of 18, by igna78

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A really interesting wavetable module... fantastic!
OT: any news on the mixer that was in development?

Reply 7 of 18, by NeoG_

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dreamblaster wrote on 2026-09-30, 09:09:

yes it is a wave based synth engine, that uses GeneralUser GS samples as a basis. it is not literally an sf2 soundfont player, but it uses the same samples and loop points.

Are there any features that had to be dropped from the GUGS soundfont to fit into the Pango?

98/DOS Rig: BabyAT AladdinV, K6-2+/550, V3 2000, 128MB PC100, 20GB HDD, 128GB SD2IDE, SB Live!, SB16-SCSI, PicoGUS, WP32 McCake, iNFRA CD, ZIP100
XP Rig: Lian Li PC-10 ATX, Gigabyte X38-DQ6, Core2Duo E6850, ATi HD5870, 2GB DDR2, 2TB HDD, X-Fi XtremeGamer

Reply 8 of 18, by dreamblaster

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NeoG_ wrote on 2026-09-30, 12:46:

Are there any features that had to be dropped from the GUGS soundfont to fit into the Pango?

All instruments are there, including all 13 drum kits. To fit in flash every sample is stored with ADPCM compression, mostly at 22 kHz (cymbals and hi-hats at 32 kHz), and a lot of it was tuned by ear on the hardware. It runs on my own engine, not FluidSynth — simplified, but the instruments, layers, envelopes and drum kits are all there, with 48 voices of polyphony plus reverb and chorus. Compared to the SoundFont on a PC it sounds a little warmer and grittier, more 90s. It is based on GeneralUser GS samples but it doesn't sound identical.

Visit http://www.serdashop.com for retro sound cards, video converters, ...
DreamBlaster X2, S2, S2P, HDD Clicker, ... many projects !
New X2GS TE & X16GS sound card : https://www.serdashop.com/X2GS-TE ,
Thanks for your support !

Reply 9 of 18, by dreamblaster

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I had developed different synth engines and am still testing what will be in picopango, as i want to combine multiple engines for more choice.
so for now i change the specs to 'multiple engines' -- will update soon with the final descriptions.
Once it is more finalized, i will also record some demos. (too busy right now)

Visit http://www.serdashop.com for retro sound cards, video converters, ...
DreamBlaster X2, S2, S2P, HDD Clicker, ... many projects !
New X2GS TE & X16GS sound card : https://www.serdashop.com/X2GS-TE ,
Thanks for your support !

Reply 10 of 18, by FreddyV

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I was suppose to write its firmware, but Serge did it (I was too busy on the PicoMEM 2)

Some of it may be back ported to the PicoMEM 2 (I hope)
Reverb ?? 😀

Reply 11 of 18, by M-HT

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Is this the result of PicoRhino project or is PicoRhino still in the works ?

Reply 12 of 18, by dreamblaster

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PicoPango is a first synth release, based on the same development. PicoRhino is still under development (may take much more time as i plan to add some more features)
See a first PicoPango demo here : the new 'Pocket' synth engine, playing Orcs theme 1 from Warcraft 2 : https://youtu.be/TrJM8KsrYKk

Visit http://www.serdashop.com for retro sound cards, video converters, ...
DreamBlaster X2, S2, S2P, HDD Clicker, ... many projects !
New X2GS TE & X16GS sound card : https://www.serdashop.com/X2GS-TE ,
Thanks for your support !

Reply 13 of 18, by digger

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Cool little device. 🙂 Congrats on bringing this to production.

Are there any plans for adding support for L/A synthesis to it, specifically emulation support for the Roland MT-32 and CM-32? Perhaps by porting Munt to it?

Reply 14 of 18, by zaphod77

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Any chance at programming a full AWM2 engine into something like this?

Reply 15 of 18, by dreamblaster

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PicoPango demo of GU-Wave engine playing Orc Theme #1 : https://youtu.be/3nDtdRAQKwo

Visit http://www.serdashop.com for retro sound cards, video converters, ...
DreamBlaster X2, S2, S2P, HDD Clicker, ... many projects !
New X2GS TE & X16GS sound card : https://www.serdashop.com/X2GS-TE ,
Thanks for your support !

Reply 16 of 18, by DevanWolf

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I am curious; is the Pocket bank a port of the SONiVOX Embedded Audio Synthesis?

Reply 17 of 18, by dreamblaster

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DevanWolf wrote on 2026-10-07, 15:32:

I am curious; is the Pocket bank a port of the SONiVOX Embedded Audio Synthesis?

Yes !! (as you can also see in the user manual)

Visit http://www.serdashop.com for retro sound cards, video converters, ...
DreamBlaster X2, S2, S2P, HDD Clicker, ... many projects !
New X2GS TE & X16GS sound card : https://www.serdashop.com/X2GS-TE ,
Thanks for your support !

Reply 18 of 18, by dreamblaster

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The new firmware update 0.9.4 of PicoPango adds 'Chip' and 'Speaker' engines, and some general improvement.
'Speaker' makes a PC-speaker 1 channel interpretation of the MIDI music...

Some demos of Doom E1M1 for your comparison :
'GU-Wave' synth : https://youtu.be/A-C0Wr8Dc-c
'FMC-FX' synth : https://youtu.be/Ql318iBo9h8
'Chip' synth : https://youtu.be/vmddvVdgW0k
'Speaker' synth : https://youtu.be/uKuUDefiNYE
'Pocket ' synth : https://youtu.be/GWEXfo7XpH4

Visit http://www.serdashop.com for retro sound cards, video converters, ...
DreamBlaster X2, S2, S2P, HDD Clicker, ... many projects !
New X2GS TE & X16GS sound card : https://www.serdashop.com/X2GS-TE ,
Thanks for your support !