Synth DIY (1 Viewer)

[chutneyfarmer]

Anyone here built their own synth before? I know a few of us have built the dronelab but has anyone every built one from scratch?

Thinking of building a simple mini-modular one, kind of based on the Lunetta synths discussed here...

http://www.electro-music.com/forum/forum-160.html

and a few other ideas and schematics I've picked up over the years.


Thinking of building one with a few oscillators, a few gated oscillators, a mixer or two, ring mod (either active or passive), possibly a passive low-pass or high pass filter with different settings for the frequencies it sweeps, possibly a distortion or fuzz, who knows what else.

Just looking to bounce around a few ideas, share tips etc......

What would be the best way to power all this stuff from a single source actually?

 

[theoootini]

i'm pretty clueless when it comes to this stuff, but this is the next thing i'm going to build. i have the parts and a pcb.

http://mypeoplepc.com/members/scottnoanh/birthofasynth/id22.html

 

[theoootini]

i think a klee sequencer would also be an amazing thing to build...

 

[chutneyfarmer]

i think a klee sequencer would also be an amazing thing to build...

yeah I've seen that before. Looks great! Some cool beginners sequencers here actually...

http://milkcrate.com.au/_other/sea-moss/

 

[theoootini]

yeah I've seen that before. Looks great! Some cool beginners sequencers here actually...

http://milkcrate.com.au/_other/sea-moss/

the 40106 chip in your link is the master clock from the drone lab i think...

 

[chutneyfarmer]

I think the 40106 is the ocillator section on the dronelab if I remember right.

You can get a total of 6 oscillators from 1 chip I believe so gonna use one to make 4 audio oscillators and 2 sub-oscillators.

 

[theoootini]

chut if your interested, i have some spare SN 764677 for the synth i'm building...

764677

full infor here.

 

[theoootini]

hmm. those chippy lunettas look really cool!

 

[chutneyfarmer]

chut if your interested, i have some spare SN 764677 for the synth i'm building...

764677

full infor here.

Aw cool, thanks, might take you up on that! Can't check out them sites in work but I'll have a look at home later.

Yeah them Lunettas are pretty cool. Really like the whole ethos of them. Simple and noisey

 

[theoootini]

yeah.. there was a guy that made a load of boards specially for them, but you could just do em on perfboard? really cool idea. dead easy ot make a whole rack of em too i would imagine...

 

[chutneyfarmer]

yeah a guy put together a nice board which would give you some nice building blocks for starting off. Mainly oscillators and a simple mixer and ring-mod. Tempted to order one or two off him actually. You could easily get a few different modules on a decent sized perfboard if you planned it out right though if you wanted to go that route. Might pick up that board and add a few passive filters, maybe the low pass one off the WSG too, and I'd be flying. Want something pretty droney to go with the rest of my gear so a few oscillators and filters should do the trick for me

 

[RFeng]

Anyone here built their own synth before? I know a few of us have built the dronelab but has anyone every built one from scratch?

I've been building on my modular synth for almost three years now...
It's a great hobby - but very consuming of time...

Ray Wilson's "Music from Outer Space" is a great Synth DIY resource to start with.

If you've not built much before, a WSG would make a good first project, although it's a noisemaker, not a synth.
The Soundlab mini-synth is a nice starting point for an actual synth.
And he sells PC boards for building a modular. MFOS is just one of many plaes to start - but it was a good start for me...

The Electro-Music forum has a very active DIY forum - lots of sources and ideas... and extremely helpful for troubleshooting or bouncing ideas around.

Lunetta's are really fun and simple - but you need to be able to appreciate raw squarish waves - and they are unpredictable. Which I kind of like.

bruce

Edit to clarify - Although I've been building on it for a while, I actually had a useable instrument after a couple months....
I just tend to obsess and it's continued to grow... sdiy.org/rfeng for some pics and info, if you are interested.

 

[theoootini]

I've been building on my modular synth for almost three years now...
It's a great hobby - but very consuming of time...

jeebis!

 

[chutneyfarmer]

Mr Feng's stuff looks amazing!!!!!

This page has been essential for me planning out what little modules I want to make. Tis the same guy who's making them Looneyboards actually.

http://www.fluxmonkey.com/electronoize.htm

 

[theoootini]

lookie

 

[chutneyfarmer]

lookie

Ooooh interesting!!!

Will have to get the auld thinking cap on so

Still thinking away of ideas for a mini modular noise maker jobbie. Once I get my gristleizer out of the way, it'll be next in line

 

[theoootini]

this schematic posted by pete casper can be used to add cv control for an oscillator in the drone lab...

 

[Space]

Just bread boarded some stuff from this page using the 40106, getting usable sounds but lots of shite too.

http://www.beavisaudio.com/Projects/CMOS_Synthesizers/

Looking at this site that one of ya linked before, handy stuff in there too. Hopefully have something usable in teh next few days.

Also gonna get an atari punk console up and running asap.

 

[theoootini]

i had a good bash recently with the 40106. it's quite fun to break out all the oscillators to patch points which can be fed to various mixer channels or back into each other. i gutted a cheap 5 dolla ebay mixer yoke and put it all in that...

 

[theoootini]

been meaning to do this one up for ages...looks mad.