July 17, 2026

Here’s a quick demo of the breadboard prototype still fully assembled. It sits on top of the piano now. Audio has been enhanced with Ableton’s instruments. meedee serving its purpose!

July 15, 2026

I didn’t know KiCad could generate hi-fi 3d models of the PCBs. Really cool to be able to see so many details of something no one would ever see. Love this! While I wait, here are some cool cheap renderings of a blown-up PCB.

July 13, 2026

Sketching ideas on a Claude session where it has all the knowledge about a project (hardware, software, web and how everything connects) is so good! I put a landing page and a MIDI viewer online. As soon as press stop (on the device) it’s already available for download. The MIDI player UI is all the same, but the palette is very inspired on Ableton (one of the best). Both on software and on web, the notes change from purple to black when the density increases.

July 12, 2026

I finally paid to manufacture the PCBs! In parallel, days ago, I sent a even more basic version of the breadboard just to understand the process and how much it cost. The basic version cost almost nothing, and the delivery took around 6 days. I couldn’t fully test it because I made a mistake (Claude didn’t), and one component wasn’t fitting it. So, I took 3 days to think and refine the process with Claude. I sent a version to PCBWay, they flagged a few things and Claude was helping me with BOM and position files, and replacement components, all that. Then finally - finally! - I had the courage to pay way too much for 5 fully assembled PCBs. It’s gonna take a month to arrive, can’t wait! There’s a very good chance something will go wrong? Yes, but that’s part of exploring.

July 10, 2026

This is not the final look, but this exercise helped me understand how the components live inside of the enclosure. To my surprise, I noticed on time that I needed an external power button. Claude had placed the power button on the board itself - which is not a wrong decision, but for a device like this, an external power button is definitely better. I have to get back to this when I finally have the boards in hands. No rush!

July 8, 2026

I could simply stop on the breadboard and maybe upgrade to a solder board. I was ready to jump to enclosure designs (bought a 3d printer!) when I got access to Claude Fable! One agent already had the entire context of the hardware and the software, all I needed to do was literally tell it: "can you design a PCB on KiCad based on these specifications? Here’s a photo of my working breadboard prototype. I want USB-C for everything, I hate mini-usb. What can you do that?" The result on the right took days. That breadboard, with all the wires and manual connections, is now this tiny, elegant PCB. I could not believe it! A big thank you to Andras Fuchs who created FreeRouting for KiCad, without it, I’d spend way more time asking Claude to create the routing logic.

July 6, 2026

“Why not just be obvious?“, I thought. After spending just a few minutes on the previous concept and deciding to not move forward with it, the next very obvious choice was to make a midi-style. Used a very simple grid of squares and followed the basic characteristic of a MIDI file: the length and space between notes. I really like the letter “e” on this one. I still think the letter ”d” looks like ”j” - still, it reads like “dee”.

July 6, 2026

Checking how the logo sound... and it’s terrible! haha

July 5, 2026

I’m far from being a good brand designer, but while working on it, I thought I could give this device a name, just for fun and come up with a simple visual identity for it. As usual, it starts with a domain search and a few minutes later, I purchased meedee dot io. “meedee” is a fun name. In the initial sketch, I wanted to pursue old keyboard logo vibe – specially the Yamaha DX7 or Casio. I still see potential in this approach, but for lack of time and just trying to focus on the right thing, I gave up on this direction. Ended up with nice letter “e”.

July 4, 2026

Very patiently and many sessions later, Claude helped me pick up all the components and tools I needed for the breadboard prototype. I burned one (expensive) Raspberry Pi Zero 2W with trash solder work (found out later I needed to have flux!). For a few days, only the backlight was lighting up. An annoying blank screen. Several probe-testing attempts later, we (me and Claude) figured out an issue of how he wrote the software for one of the 8 pins the display uses. I just had to be patient and do whatever Claude was asking me to do in the physical world. I was being the one get instructions this time. The last image is from the last solder work, absolute perfection, factory-grade. I can move to China now.

July 2, 2026

I forgot how direct the UI on custom devices can be. Differently from a web app or phone app, the device has a physical body, with buttons, touch display, USB ports, and it reacts to all those things. So, for the sake of moving forward, I’m keeping it super simple. I did that whole process of adding as much as I wanted, then removing what didn’t make sense. The BPM screen is one example of that: at first, I added the arrows, so that "the user" knows where to tap. But hey, there’s no user and this is a special personal device, remove the arrows!

June 30, 2026

From this point on, you have to assume I had 5% of the knowledge required to make stuff like this. Years ago I dedicated some free time to understand how small displays worked, how to write code for Raspberry Pi and how to mix all the ingredients together to make something good enough. Fortunately, now AI knows everything about anything related to software and what I needed to make it real, and I knew what to ask for. The screens here were my “proof of concept”. I gave Claude a screenshot, and from there, I started iterating on designs directly on code, testing the notes density, refining typography, colors and all.

June 26, 2026

This simple mockup it’s how it started. First of all, I know this is not solving any big issues with music production, but it does solve an issue I’ve always had in the apartments I lived (including the current one). I’ve had all the ”music production at home” setup you can imagine, but I ended up settling with digital pianos somewhere nice in the apartment. Each time I wanted to record something, I needed to grab a laptop, open Ableton, connect USB, select any piano sound, record a few takes, save, export sketch and be done. This solves that. So I thought, why not having a local device that sits right there, next to the piano? I bought a 3D printer, so, let’s see where this goes.