flowerseven

2008-02-07T20:25:00.001-05:00

power

2008-02-07T20:19:00.003-05:00

I got the cabinet finished and installed the power supply recently.

2007-10-28T20:37:00.001-05:00

Drilling...

2007-10-28T20:35:00.001-05:00

Rails

2007-10-28T20:31:00.001-05:00

Dual Burst Generator

2007-09-01T17:45:00.001-05:00

Two CGS Burst Generators behind one panel. These reply to a trigger input pulse - with a rotary switch selectable string of from one-to-nine pulses out, great for short percussive bursts There's a choice between the adjustable internal clock or an external one, or they can be cascaded together.

Bench Power

2007-09-01T16:39:00.001-05:00

I built a small rig for supporting and powering a few modules on the bench. Its pretty simple and can supply +/- 15 volts at 350 mA. Perfect for testing and tweaking. [as always, click image for enlarged view]

Cabinet

2007-09-01T16:11:00.001-05:00

I started work on my synth cabinet this weekend. The oak is over 100 years old and came from some church pews (from the church where my parents were married). Luckily my father was on hand to help with the word working. Cheers, dad!

Slow but Steady

2007-09-01T15:42:00.000-05:00

Despite my lack of any recent posts, things have been progressing steadily.
I've made many front panels (about 15) and have been slowly populating pcbs. So far I've completed about 5 modules.

Aluminum Phosphate Crystal Simulation

2007-06-09T11:08:00.000-05:00

DS7 Drumbox

2007-06-09T11:06:00.001-05:00

I built two of these DS7 clones last summer. One for myself and one for my friend Michael. They both have sliders and an onboard drum trigger pad. They can also be triggered by an external device. Lots of fun. Michael has a guitar strap on his.

Rollz-5 Drum Machine

2007-06-09T10:49:00.001-05:00

Here's my implementation of the Ciat-Lonbarde Rollz-5 drum machine. The geometric jack arrangements are pulse generators. The banks of knobs are filters: the left produce drum like sounds, the ones on the right tones. The upper four filters heterodyne and make weird shortwave radio-like sounds. You connect the pulse generators to make patterns then patch thru a filter to output. [click on pics to enlarge]

jerk style

2007-06-07T13:14:00.000-05:00

Here's my panel for

Ian Fritz's Jerkster chaos generator. Ian's doing some amazing stuff applying chaos theory to sound generating circuits.
If your interested, take a look his site and while your there check out his homebrew wind controllers.

For this one I let the panel etch for 2 hours. The etch rate slows down when there is more exposed surface and I wanted enough depth so I could buff the black paint off the X Y Z lables without removing the letters completely. Better pictures soon. I'm having a hard time getting the auto focus on my camera to deal with the reflectivity of the brass.

Close-up

2007-06-07T13:08:00.001-05:00

Here's a close-up of the mixer panel showing the etch depth. The photo was taken prior to filling in the letters with black paint. This particular panel etched for 1 hour (4v/1A). The letters are 14 points tall (about 3mm). [click photo to enlarge]

so it begins....

2007-06-07T11:29:00.002-05:00

So I'm building a modular synthesizer. I've been building electronic instruments on and off for about 10 yrs or so. I started with a Paia theremin kit in '97 then migrated to circuit bending after seeing an article by Reed Ghazala in the Journal of Experimental Musical Instruments. From there I started building stuff from scratch based on schematics from books and on the web. Through all of this I've been developing a better feel for the type of sounds I'd like to be able to make and was feeling limited by my current gear. I decided to put together a modular system that would be uniquely suited to my particular sonic inclinations.

After a few months of planing, stuff is starting to materialize. I have pcb's to put together at least 2/3rds of the system and the first couple of parts orders have been dispatched.
A big part of the planning has been devoted to how to make the front panels. I ultimately decided to make the panels from brass because I could etch the graphics myself and also because I can solder to brass reasonably easily, so things like standoffs can be attached directly to the panel. [ click picture for big but blurry version]