Tags

While waiting….

While waiting for Mr. Braska to arrive to Michel at synth.nl, and while feeling pitty for the little frog having Christmas in a cold and dark envelope, I made some stuff to drown my despair.

The DINx1 and DOUTx1 are components of the midibox SID that I want to build. I want to use all the keys the laughtop provides so I followed the scan matrix approach.

Schematics for the modules are here (DINx1) and here (DOUTx1)

And the built modules are here:

IMG_7730


IMG_7728

The build quality is as usual crappy to say the least. I just discovered that the DOUT module gets a bit hot when plugged so I need to test what is wrong (again).

This distracts me from Mr. Braska being partially lost in the post. snif :(

 

Chill out, Mr. Braska

Mr. Braska was invited by Matthias and his lovely wife for candle-light dinner!

Matthias confessed that he was surprised to see Mr. Braska have both his legs after his trip to France and Mr. Usson. After all, French have a thing for frog-legs.

DSCN5274

 

Mr. Braska was surprised himself, seeing that dinner didn’t consist of pork and sausages!!!

DSCN5275

 

Then there was the time for the frog-test.. A woman’s kiss could transform Mr. Braska to a handsome prince. But the test failed! Mr. Braska, stated that the fact the test failed was because Mrs. Fonik had spent all her magic to turn Matthias into a human. Of course he couldn’t admit that he wasn’t really a prince deep inside.

(thank god for the rest of us because we would have to pay first class airplane tickets to get him back if he ever transformed to a human prince!!!)

DSCN5276

 

There is the family photo. Mr and Mrs Fonik and the “prince”!

DSCN5278

 

Mr. Braska wanted to check some more gear and there he is!

DSCN5280

 

on the Klee sequencer!

DSCN5281

DSCN5282

 

In-between modules

DSCN5284

DSCN5285

 

Again on top of the Klee

DSCN5287

 

And he checked other (more digital) gear by the way!

DSCN5288

 

Doepfer modules of course were present too!

DSCN5289

 

Then both Fonik and Mr. Braska, got down and did some patching.

DSCN5292

 

And, to seal their friendship, they got a picture together!!

DSCN5298

 

Thank you so much Matthias for the wonderful tour !!!!

 

Now, OFF TO NETHERLANDS!!!!

Fonik's Synth-DIY lab

Mr. Braska arrived safely at fonik’s to receive a warm welcome and an immediate tour of the laboratory!

Mr. Braska forgot he was packed tightly in an envelope for some days as soon as Fonik put him to listen to some ambient music
DSCN5248

Then, after soothing time, Mr. Braska started climbing on the modular just left of Fonik’s desk.

He is sitting almost inside a eurorack row that Fonik is currently filling, and he is sitting right besides the prototype for a professional manufacturer pre-built version of Fonik’s attenuverting mixer. Fonik will be probably publishing it somewhere in 2010.

And there, he posed:
DSCN5250

DSCN5251

After those publicity shots, Mr Braska got his froggy hands on a divider that Fonik was testing at the time.
DSCN5253

So, after Fonik explained to Mr. Braska the inner workings of the divider, they opened together a fresh batch of the ADC controlled sequencer prototype PCBs.
DSCN5254

DSCN5255

And then, Fonik got Mr. Braska A PRESENT!!!!!!

Rejoice little frog! you can open your own mail from now on!

Mr. Braska got overly excited with his gift (a razor-sharp swiss army knife) that he almost got a pcb surface scratched. When he calmed down from the surprize, he helped Fonik open another PCB batch! Lets see..
DSCN5256

And here he is posing with his new present on top of Fonik’s expansion board for thomas white’s LPG!. If you buy this PCB from Fonik, you will have the privilege to own some of Mr. Braska’s butt-hair with it! So rush now!
DSCN5257

And there is a photo of Fonik’s lab (do I spot an OLD oscilloscope under the desk?). Here, Mr. Braska is learning the ins and outs of breadboarding!

DSCN5258

Mr. Braska, sitting on the neatly-boxed soundlab oversees a sea of pcbs. I spot the ubiquitous midibox at the lower part of the photo!
DSCN5259

And here, a closer look at the SoundLab. He has changed the frequency pots to more precise ones from what I can see…
DSCN5260
DSCN5261

We might get a look at his “behind” (ass), but Mr. Braska is getting a look at the inner workings of a hardware incarnation of the VSTfx “breakdown filter”. the audio steps through eight (8!) state variable VCFs.

DSCN5262

DSCN5263

DSCN5264

Here, the divider that Mr. Braska saw on the first pictures, is being put to the test!
DSCN5266

DSCN5268

And there is always a dedicated drill lying around somewhere in the lab.. Let’s get some photos with it too!
DSCN5265

Well, that was one helluva tour! Now Mr. Braska, happy with his life is going to get a good night’s sleep.

He is going to dream about …. THE MODULAR!

Quick travel status update

Mr. Braska has arrived at Fonik’s.!!

we synth, yusynth ! (part two)

Mr. Braska was accepted into the lab of Dr. Yves Usson, creator of the yusynth modular.
There, Dr. Usson took the frog on a tour.

“First we started by the brains ! Working on the computer to elaborate the schematics of new modules
and designing the PCB…
braska-design1-1
pcb_design-1

Next we payed a visit to my fellow french speaking analog froggies on the forum Anafrog
where we love to chat about vintage analogue synths and SDIY !
braska-meets-anafrog-1

Mr. Braska is well known on the Anafrog forum, and he met there a lot of friendly frogs
braska-anafrog2-1

Then we moved to my humble workshop where one stumbles on the usual scope, voltmeter
soldering iron and so-on. There sits my old US1 synth, the very first modular synth I built
some 30 years ago!
the_workshop-1

Mr. Braska was inspired by the five PCBs of the yusynth VCO waiting for being drilled, and decided
to play me some magic trick… I picked a card and even after an intensive shuffle
Braska managed to find that I picked a VCO card, what a magic!
Pick_a_card-1

Next we were ready for testing a prototype of the forthcoming yusynth masterclock module !
testing-1

Then we performed some measurements on another new module, the Sequential Router !
ready_2_measure-1

Mr. Braska gave me a lot of advices while I was trimming the V/OCT tracking of the new yusynth CV/GATE keyboard scanner !
trimming_kbd_scanner-1

Then Mr. Braska got a bit silly and had fun with all he could find !

See my nice VCO cabin !
see_the_VCO_shelter-1

Nothing like heatsinks to warm old bones !
warming_bones-1

See my tophat !
braska_is_a_clown-1

And this is the end of the long tour of Dr. Usson’s lab!

Tomorrow Mr. Braska will get himself in a nice padded envelope and will travel to a new place to visit fonik !

Thank you Dr. Usson for your hospitality..
We will all wait for your new modules to show up on yusynth.net!

Simple parallel resistor calculator.

Ever faced the state where you need a resistor with an uncommon or absurd value? Did you try to make one yourself by connecting other resistors in series (and failed?).?.

WELL!! Now there is a parallel resistor calculator here. You can set which resistor values YOU have and it will make a combination of them to give you the resistor you want.

You can set the precision you require (1% or 5%) and the maximum number of resistors that you want to use.

Just remember that because I still want to make the cookie system work and keep the resistor values you enter, just copy and paste them on each successive use for your own mental sanity.

GO THERE

A quick update on MFOS seq.

This is it’s present state:
MFOS analog sequencer boards

and this is how it was done :)

Quick and dirty VCO

Bumped in the Lunetta sub forum on electro-music.com here. Tried it, (have no Midi/CV converter yet) and it gives a rather interesting Saw waveform.

40106 VCO prot

It does not need +12/-12 Volt supply. A simple 12V will make it work. When the sequencer is complete (still waiting for parts), this could be more thoroughly tested

The sequencer now is in this state…. :(

IMG_3778

I synth, YUSynth

Mr. Braska is now at the hands of synth doctor, Dr. Yves Usson and his monstrous modulars.

They got aquainted and Mr. Braska got a little over excited! Who wouldn’t.

Yves describes their meeting:

“Mr. Braska is a smart little frog, and he managed to arrive right on the “Baujolais nouveau” day !
beaujolais

As we are in the French Alps, Mr. Braska could not resist treking and climbing the Mount Yusynth.
climbing_yusynth_mount

It’s a tough climbing unless you use a Moog ladder to reach the VCO rock !
reached_VCO_using_Moog_ladder

Eventually Mr. Braska reaches the summit and appreciates the scenery.
Mount_yusynth_conquered

Have_reached_the_top

Then Mr. Braska treked the MOS-LAB/COTK peak but it’s a jungle out there !
its_a_jungle_out_there

Anyway, Mr. Braska is having a rest wondering which synth is sounding best : a Minimoog or a SH5 ?
Moog_or_Roland

This week-end Braska will visit the workshoop !

580 photos at the flickr pool

I uploaded some photos of my works. They include Mr. Braska too.
There are almost 580 photos in there, of various stuff. From wide open synths like the SY77 and
the QY 70 (I have to gut the QY 700 too). And some side stuff like eg. a colored octal clock that
counted time in octal, by lighting RGB leds. B was bit 0, G was bit 1 and R was bit 2.

Etching stuff, UV box stuff, you name it..

If you leave a comment on a photo, I will give you detailed info about it. It is not too easy to remember and comment
on all of these photos :)

The pool is here

All my photos are here