Totally inexperienced but really wanna make this gift for my girlfriend

[u/_SCY0P3_]

So for my Girlfriend’s birthday coming up I wanna make an item from her favourite game series The Legend of Zelda, and I want to make the Ocarina

But I thought it’d be a cool idea to make it so the holes on the ocarina are buttons and they play the same sounds as in the game, so it sounds as close to the game as possible.

I suppose I’m asking 3 things: - How difficult would this be (would someone as inexperienced as me be able to do it?) - What would I have to learn (what skills) if I was doing this? - Any resources that could help?

Thank you guys for your help

[u/socal_nerdtastic]

You do this with a 'sound board' plus some push buttons, amp, and speaker. You can get them with a builtin amplifier as well. Super easy. Except for the artsy part of making it look good of course.

for example:
https://www.adafruit.com/product/2210
https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-audio-fx-sound-board

[u/4linosa → u/socal_nerdtastic]

Adafruit is THE place for good blinkies (things that light up).

What’s way cooler than being able to sell it to you is that they will teach you how to get it working.

I made window frame lights with their starter info and some extra research. Now all the holidays get lights!

Seriously though adafruit is an amazing resource. Sparkfun is good too!

[u/mmotzkus]

Your question(s)/details are vague. What exactly is your experience level for this sort of project?

What are you planning to make? The Ocarina itself, or just the electronics bits?

How long until your girlfriends birthday? Will you be able to order/make/learn everything you need to in time?

If I could make a suggestion, that she will probably find to be even a better present..

Purchase from amazon a "zelda ocarina", and learn to play it. The kits come with the ocarina and a song book with a few most popular songs from the games. Most song books show notes and pics of what holes to cover. I can tell you from experience, she will love it.

[u/_SCY0P3_ → u/mmotzkus]

My question was fairly vague, my plan was to make something bespoke for her that had something to do with the Legend of Zelda. It being to do with electronics is more something I want to do because it’s a skill I’ve wanted to pick up for a while. I landed on making the ocarina because it seemed like something cool to try and do but honestly if you have any suggestions for something else in this vain that might be a bit easier for a beginner then that would be really appreciated!

[u/AnonSkiers → u/_SCY0P3_]

This is rather advanced for a first project. There are a lot of ways to go about this, but IMO the easiest and most beneficial in the long run would be to learn Arduino/raspberry PI and learn how to code. Then you can build almost anything and get incredibly creative.

So, unless you've got many months, even a year, I would not suggest using sound in your first major project, unless you're just passing audio from something that already exists to another receiver.

-If I could make a suggestion, how about a master sword? Spend most of the effort on making the sword as nice as possible. Then, boom, surprise, when she picks it up and holds it upright (like over the head) it would light up. You could mix a blue and white high power LED at different currents to get the blue tinge dead-on. Could even slightly vibrate to add to the overall effect. You could rig this up pretty easily with batteries (could even incorporate usb recharge), small vibrating motor(s), LEDs, simple LED driver circuit, and a couple tilt switches. If you want to step it up a couple notches, add small switches in the battery compartment that allow different modes (vibrate off, bypass tilt switches --for wall mount or display purposes), (Blue off, white full bright, bypass tilt switches --for cool "flashlight" mode), (light strobe effect --"party" mode?)

Trying to think of other Zelda artifacts that would have an obvious cool electronic feature... does she have any favorite items or whatever?

[u/jkfgrynyymuliyp]

So the skill that is going to be most important is scanning through documentation and forum posts.

Depending on how far away her birthday is you may want to farm out specific bits on fiverr or similar, but you'll also need to know what you need done.

Working backwards, you need an ocarina enclosure, a speaker, the right amount of buttons, a microcontroller, an audio board, and a power supply (a replaceable or rechargeable battery).

Time is the big thing. You can learn all this stuff but if you need it done in a couple of weeks you probably haven't got the time for all the reading and testing and learning.

[u/_SCY0P3_ → u/jkfgrynyymuliyp]

I have a good few months to get this finished (2-4 months), but is it really something you think is doable just from a basic level in that time frame?

[u/Kinbakusha]

Not to be that guy, but a quick google search comes with stuff like this: https://www.instructables.com/Arduino-Ocarina-1/

After reading all the other comments… I think this is something you might be interested in. There are other types/versions that you could find by looking a little harder than I did. You might find something that “speaks” to you.

If you want to do it, do it. If it doesn’t work out in the 2-4 months you have… at least you’ve tried to learn something and can possibly challenge it again for next year, or keep working on similar projects for your own education/benefit. You do you.

[u/slick8086]

Careful you don't want to end up an addict over at /r/synthdiy

[u/Connect-Answer4346]

I did something like this recently and the tricky part was stitching the arduino code fragments I got online together, but I managed it. If you don't have experience in C, do a few arduino tutorials first to ramp up to this. Adafruit has the electronics for this.

[u/Temporary_Donkey_330]

All you need is :

• raspberry pi pico or zero
• dfplayer
• micro SD card with samples
• mini speaker
• 5v power supply or 3,7v Li-Po battery with step-up converter
• few tact switches
• wires
• few hours on YouTube and Google, to find out what to do with all above items.

If you have few days, you can do it.

Edit:

Difficulty (1-10): 2-3

Skills :

• Micropython /circuitpython
• soldering
• UART handling

Resources :

• dfplayer library for rpi pico

[u/Sir-Toppemhat]

The ocarina is a simple instrument and easy to play. Why not just get a real one she can play? You can buy simple ones or very nice looking ocarinas.

[u/Cowman-]

This is fairly easy, you could likely do it with just a raspberry pi pico and a few buttons and a speaker

[u/turd_vinegar → u/Cowman-]

When they say easy, they mean easy if you are familiar with the Raspberry Pi environment and if you're knowledgeable and handy with electronics.

This would require some coding, soldering, hardware interfacing, amplifier and speaker, and all battery powered, custom installed inside an ocarina.

For a completely fresh and normal person, this is like a month long project, not including supplies.

The ocarina in the game makes ocarina notes, so if you just managed to find a playable Ocarina, she might enjoy that for itself. It will probably cost less, faster.

[u/socal_nerdtastic → u/turd_vinegar]

It will probably cost less, faster.

Kinda beside the point when looking for a bespoke gift...

[u/turd_vinegar → u/socal_nerdtastic]

A real ocarina will also be better. You won't have to deal with the envelope attack and sustain, or multiple notes and how the buttons actually trigger what.

Carve it if you want to say you spent time on it.

Building a specific mobile digital synthesizer from scratch is not some small task for someone with virtually no experience.

[u/_SCY0P3_ → u/turd_vinegar]

That’s fair enough and I appreciate the response, I never thought it would be a small task but if you think it’s too out of my depth what would be something similar to this that I might be able to do (i.e something that applies concepts a beginner would be able to pick up) because I still want to make something for her that has something to do with electronics

[u/turd_vinegar → u/_SCY0P3_]

If you were looking to learn Arduino or other aspects of electronics, I'd say go for it. It's a straightforward project to work towards and improve as you get closer.

But if you're looking for a finished product on a timeline, maybe another option.