SynthFrog » yusynth

Making a module case

aris — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 20:17:00 +0000

It is about time me and Braska started making a case for modules/synths we’ve made. The panels for the modules I’ve made are 12×12cm a unit and I have some standard panels made with 16 holes evenly spaced. These are the generique type that may house vcos, filters etc.

The big one is for midibox seq. which slowly but surely manifests on my desk. The others are for the soundlab I’ve finished and for an AVRsynth I’ve repackaged so this is a no-go.

So, the construction started by drilling holes for wooden dowels

… and marking the other wood panel where they should land

.. thus constructing the raw cabinet sized aprox. 72×36cm

The hard edges on the front side where smoothed with a router

.. and then it was painted with four coats of satin walnut finish (Water based, doesn’t stink, washes easily until it gets dry. Quite nice actually)

.. the balcony was a mess (and still is because I started something else

.. and here is after first coat

… and this is its current state, with soundlab fitted

The WSG is the next thing that will be fitted along with a yusynth filter and a midibox Midi2CV

(you can see that it is getting warm here on the white thermometer on the right!!)

Tempcos in the missed

aris — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 20:08:00 +0000

The yusynth VCO was missing a tempco. So I ordered some from Vintage Planet and as soon as I got them (ultra fast) I put them on both the VCOs I’ve made and TADAAAAA! ONE OF THEM WORKED almost as expected (the other one is still too unstable). So I will hunt down and kill the wrong component. (I hope)..

(Thank god I had the oscilloscope.. the first frequency I could read was 43 KHz!!!!)

It wasn’t the micas

aris — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 22:27:00 +0000

The silver mica 220pF capacitors arrived, substituted and failed… Still no response. Only random noise (if it wasn’t random. it wouldn’t be noise, would it?). So the only thing that remains to be done is to follow the schematic and have the soundcard probing various positions on the circuit so I can see (hear) where the signal ends.

Ray Wilson from musicfromouterspace.com has a nice article on using your sound card as an oscilloscope and I use http://zeitnitz.de/Christian/Scope/Scope_en.html for display

(Ray Wilson’s article is here)

Not quite functional!

aris — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 22:22:00 +0000

Made two yusynth VCOs the other day.. None works… But the real problem is that at the schematics it mentions using a 1% silver mica capacitor. I have used plain ceramic and multilayer. Voltages are OK. The comparator and OP Amps get nice voltages. No electrolytic capacitors are the other way around. So it has to be this. While I wait for the silver micas, I might put together a yusynth moog filter clone.

Yusynth modular

aris — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 21:04:00 +0000

New parallel project starts: The yusynth modular.

this is based on this which is a rather easy DIY set of modules.

The boards are etched, some even drilled, the panels are made (that means that someone else will make them for me, I just drawed (eg designed) them) and the components have arrived (very cheap postage fees to where I live and all components required for this project available..).

Will get some photos of the panels once made.

For now, there is always Braska, lurking in the shadows of DIY.

Basic modules are made: 2 VCOs, 2 LFOs, an ADSR, a VCA, 2 Filters for starters (and the psu that has already been made)

Now I will have to make a case for it..