DIY electronics.

pt3r · Post by **pt3r** » Wed Nov 26, 2008 9:27 am

Are there any diy electronic heads out there? I just ordered this kit

from bugbrand.co.uk to hone my soldering skills. Really looking forward to this build. It's been a while since I did some soldering (except for the occasional audio cable) so this will be pretty interesting to say the least.

drewzle · Post by **drewzle** » Wed Nov 26, 2008 9:33 am

that looks nice, it's the little 3-oscillator synth yeah?

Tom Bug's clinics seem like a really interesting activity to take part in:
http://musicthing.blogspot.com/2008/11/ ... ng-in.html

let us know how the building of it goes

pt3r · Post by **pt3r** » Wed Nov 26, 2008 9:44 am

yep that's the one , there are some mp3 on the website with some sound examples, I think it will produce some really freaky results in combo with the 404 fx.

http://www.bugbrand.co.uk/audio/worksho ... ctones.mp3
http://www.bugbrand.co.uk/audio/worksho ... _syncs.mp3
http://www.bugbrand.co.uk/audio/worksho ... _touch.mp3

iG9 · Post by **iG9** » Wed Nov 26, 2008 3:27 pm

can't wait to see the enclosure. that's where non EE majors have a chance to shine. =) this book has lots of finishing tips. http://tinyurl.com/5sgmc8

Euclid Ov Oåklånd · Post by **Euclid Ov Oåklånd** » Wed Nov 26, 2008 6:29 pm

Looks cool.

Rhua · Post by **Rhua** » Wed Dec 03, 2008 6:40 pm

What it do? Is it really a pocket synthie? Excuse the question but I have not the slightest knowledge of electronics and shit *g*

pt3r · Post by **pt3r** » Sun Dec 07, 2008 7:33 pm

Some news from the DIY front,

I finally found the time this weekend to assemble the kit I ordered a couple o weeks ago. The building instructions are very clear and are really helping in getting comfortable with soldering all these tiny components on the PCB (which is really good quality). You basically start of with soldering resistors and diodes which are the less sensitive components of the circuit and you end by installing the IC's and the battery. Last double check of all the solder joints and then I flip the power switch. And next thing you hear is this deafening silence... shit I fucked up... I turn op the level potmeter and all of a sudden the little on-board speaker shrieks at me; it's alive.
I spend the rest of the afternoon trying out all the different switches and potmeters, and the speaker beeps, whistles hums and drones in all possible tones and frequencies.

Once you finished the build you end up with a 'synth' consisting of 3 oscillators that can be synced together, a mixer part to mix the individual levels of the 3 oscillators, a distortion circuit to dirty up the signal, a little amp for the on board speaker and last but not least a lo-pass filter.
The speaker is turned of If you plug a cable in the on-board output jack, this allows you to route the signal of the kit into a mixing channels or more interestingly the mic input of an sp-404.

My next project will be to midi this thing up, through some micro controller that can translate midi signals into analog signals to control the different switches and potmeters of the synth. But I'm still waiting for my microcontroller to be shipped. In the meantime I'll google up some more info on designing and building elecronics.

kristoffer1989 · Post by **kristoffer1989** » Sun Dec 07, 2008 8:39 pm

very very cool! Would love to try some of that myself man!
sounds great!

iG9 · Post by **iG9** » Sun Dec 07, 2008 9:04 pm

can't wait to hear the beats you make with it man. if you keep going with it this book might be of interest:

http://tinyurl.com/5hjssm

doorjamb · Post by **doorjamb** » Thu Dec 11, 2008 10:09 pm

Nice, I'd love to hear how that turns out.
I have one of Tom's bugcrushers and it has become my secret weapon!

pt3r · Post by **pt3r** » Fri Dec 12, 2008 12:40 pm

This W.O.M. (workshop oscillator machine) has has really opened me a can of worms :-)

I did some more reaserch on DIY midi controlling and I stumbled across this post via make magazine

http://mrbook.org/blog/2008/11/22/contr ... h-arduino/

And this sounds like a really cool idea to get the W.O.M. controlled via midi cable to be able to squeeze some kind of melody out of it.