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Do it yourself crew in the house?


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17 minutes ago, user said:

Mine does the same thing where the display and the leds start freaking out, it does register knobs turns/button presses but it can take up to 10 seconds or something like that. 

Yeah maybe I'm just not waiting long enough.

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On 7/18/2020 at 10:06 PM, rhmilo said:

Just watched the first two parts of a series on building a V/oct VCO from scratch. It’s really basic, but really good. I learned a lot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBatvo8bCa4

 

He explains how an oscillator works and, in part 2, how you control the pitch. ?

 

This made me want to try my hand at breadboarding synth circuits, so I'd really appreciate any further valuable resources, books, what-have-you! 

Liked this article a lot: https://secretlifeofsynthesizers.com/the-vco/. That thru-hole SH-5 VCO! 

Edited by chim
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I hadn't been on Secretlifeofsynthesizers in a while, that substitution for the 808 noise transistor is really hopeful, I've got ebay searches saved for the Panasonic and Matsushita variants in case any turn up.

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  • 4 weeks later...

mogami.thumb.jpg.6a448abe25d8adfb76e27c74f1fdee72.jpg

 

Buncha free Mogami cable I got a while back, finally getting started on making myself a bunch of nice patch cables now that the Monoprice stuff is starting to die. Should be able to make about 2 dozen 18"-24" cables and maybe 8 1-meters.

 

I've only got T/S plugs handy right now, though, so I just did a few short ones for now, no sense using it all up on unbalanced.

 

I've also got an old, 48 point Switchcraft patch bay that came with the same bunch of stuff, and it's wired up to a big terminal block.  I've been holding on to it hoping that some day I'll be in a permanent enough situation that it makes sense to use it but at the same time I could cut the wires and have 48 more 2 meter pieces of Mogami...

Edited by TubularCorporation
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I dabbled a little in circuit bending, just so I could have some original sounds from stuff I bent, but nothing as good as stuff my friends have bought online. I’ve put together a decent modular- two standard size racks and a small pulp logic zissou case. Nothing that was a kit, tho I’ve always wanted to. They just aren’t that much cheaper, but I’m sure it would be fun.

I think the best DIY stuff I have done is de-fretting. I got pretty obsessed with it if for a while after getting into Mick Karn. First I did a guitar, then a bass, then a couple friends guitars- one of which is in an indie rock band, and he wanted a halfway one. So it was like half de-fretted (the high note frets were all fretless). I liked the results and decided to do this aria pro ii that was kind of a death metal bass. I ended up liking it better than the Ibanez manufactured fretless I owned ($300 ish active) so I gutted the Ibanez for the active pickups and Frankensteined it with the de-fretted aria. Then I decoupaged comics all over it. You can see the main problem was the red bleeding through, but it took a couple years for that to happen. I put veneers in the gaps so it wont easily warp. Sorry for so many pics, but I wanted to show the shiny-ness and angles, plus where the errors were.

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Having to solder a metric fuckton of cables sounds like a real pain. Although it’s fun to think about what kind of distance they could cover, like all the way to imperial valley for example. 

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It would be really cool to have every cable a mogami gold that was exactly the right length for everything. I could see DIYing something like that, if it’s possible. My problem has always been constantly rearranging. But- still it would be awesome to cut down on cables that are too long or whatever. I don’t even want to think about how much excess cable is really in my studio.

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Mogami plugs are like $8 each or somehing, I'm just using counterfeit ProCos that cost about a dollar on eBay  They're actually fine.

As long as the salvage cable holds out, every time a Monoprice fails I'll make two replacements.  Then when I run out of Mogami I'll start putting new plugs on all the dead Monoprice stuff.

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That’s a pretty awesome plan. I’ve always wondered if there was anything special to using different types of metal. I get that the conducting is different, but is that actually relevant in audio? For about the past 5 years, every time I go to guitar center I buy one mogami to replace a random cable. It’s really stupid, but it’s not like I’m buying them all at once. That’s been the appeal to modular for me lately. I don’t know if I’ll ever want to spend $5000 on a synth all at once, not because I think it’s a crazy amount to drop at once, but because it seems too much like a golden ticket thing. Like, “now you have an expander so you better make some awesome shit.” But with modular of you spend $5000 you have this totally unique thing. 
 

That being said, I would love an expander

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That's how I was able to manage the Kijimi, buying the parts a little bit at a time.  I couldn't even come close to affording to buy one but I could get bits and pieces as I had money available, and it only ended up taking about 14 months before I was ready to start building (I expected closer to two years). It didn't end up being that much cheaper (maybe 20% less, still two or three weeks rent though) but being able to spread it out made all the difference.

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https://www.tindie.com/products/kassersynths/dafm-synth-genesis-ym2612-ym3438-diy-kit/
 

This would be a really awesome project. I actually would probably get it if it was in stock. Must be the sega ym chips are hard to get. I would also totally get a MegaFM if they were in stock.

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I can't afford it right now and have other stuff I should build first anyway, but this is pretty interesting:

 

https://www.tubeohm.com/de-generator.html

Edited by TubularCorporation
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  • 3 weeks later...

After dinner I'm building a Rare Waves MIDI Narrator.

 

I've got an old Milton machine, this weekend I'm going to open it up, find a part number for the voice synth chip, and do some research. It's probably a long shot, but there's a chance it's the same basic chip but with a custom sound set, and I'd LOVE to be able to swap it in and have a MIDI Narrator that sounds like Fat Albert.

 

 

Edited by TubularCorporation
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That’s really cool. I asked on the YouTube channel, but do u know what the chip they show is from, or primarily used in? They seemed to say it reminded them of the vic20, but it reminded me of the Atari 1040st.

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The manual nd site say it was used in a lot of old computer speech addons and DIY projects, probably the most common one of the era.

 

Sounds good, not performance friendly at all but it'll be a lot of fun to sequence it from a DAW. Easy build.

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I think I'm going diy Buchla.  Start off with pabz 208p and take it from there.  This may be a terrible idea, but my super 6 has stopped any desire for a kijimi/DD/oberheim clone and I'm close to end of my diy backlog and need another big project for a couple of years.

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5 hours ago, kakapo said:

I think I'm going diy Buchla.  Start off with pabz 208p and take it from there.  This may be a terrible idea, but my super 6 has stopped any desire for a kijimi/DD/oberheim clone and I'm close to end of my diy backlog and need another big project for a couple of years.

Awesome plan.

I have a similar one, but with Serge. Probably from CGS designs.

Do you have a link for the “pabz 208p”? Google comes up with nothing.

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Last week I ordered the transformer to finally finish building a Serge power supply.  Not sur ewhen I'll be able to start building actual modules, but I should have a powered rack tested and ready in a few weeks.

 

Before that it's lyra 8 (big parts order is in but some stuff is backordered, and I still need to get jacks and pots and a few other odds and ends, plus wood for an enclosure), and I also ordered the Parralax Propeller for making a Ming mecca World Core (got a great price on a PCB set last year) but I don't have a front panel yet so that might be a while, too. Anyhow, I think the next two-three years of DIY are going to go Chroma Cauldtron Wavecomber (kit is in the mail), then a eurorack breakout panel for the 3trinsRGB+1c (I've got one built in a BUD box right now but it's unnecessarily big, and I want to rack the 3trins and breakout together to save space) then Lyra 8, then Ming mecca, then Haible Krautrock Phaser, then crOwBX, and finally Haible Subtle Chorus, with Serge scattered around in between until I have a full panel worth, and some inexpensive utility video modules. I have PCB sets for everything but the Serge and video stuff already.

 

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6 hours ago, rhmilo said:

Awesome plan.

I have a similar one, but with Serge. Probably from CGS designs.

Do you have a link for the “pabz 208p”? Google comes up with nothing.

http://www.portabellabz.be/208pcb.html

https://www.samodular.com/buchla-cases-and-parts/buchla-diy-parts/parts-kits-buchla-

I think I'm going to go 208p and then marf, but that's a pretty big rabbit hole, so may look at 218 options instead, so in effect an easel and a bit more self contained.

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2 hours ago, kakapo said:

http://www.portabellabz.be/208pcb.html

https://www.samodular.com/buchla-cases-and-parts/buchla-diy-parts/parts-kits-buchla-

I think I'm going to go 208p and then marf, but that's a pretty big rabbit hole, so may look at 218 options instead, so in effect an easel and a bit more self contained.

Ooh ... *very* nice. How is the availability of parts for Buchla systems?

4 hours ago, TubularCorporation said:

 

Last week I ordered the transformer to finally finish building a Serge power supply.  Not sur ewhen I'll be able to start building actual modules, but I should have a powered rack tested and ready in a few weeks.

 

Nice. I think that ‘ll be the first thing for me as well. I’ve got some Eurorack stuff to get out of the way (Muxlicer and a wave folder I still need to finish the stripboard layout design for) but then it’s off to Serge land I’m a gonna go. Ideally before that time the 73-75 home built will be back in stock but if it isn’t I’m going to start, other than with a power supply, with a half panel with a DUSG and an SSG.

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I've got a panel and PCBs for the CGS version of the SSG+noise as a single module.

 

My tentative final plan is a sort of modified version of the Eidelweiss panel done with CGS modules:

2xCGS114
1xCGS36
1xCGS381
1x CGS97/CGS92
1x CGS40
1x CGS64
1xCGS334

Plus a breakout box for the MBSeq with CV and trigger outputs on banana that I can use with it.

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