Synth workshop today with friends. Assembled three APCAPCAPC synth boards. Got all of them working, now we just have to figure out how to play them! #kosmo#synthdiy
I needed more attenuverters, so I designed my own 4x attenuverter module. I made a few mistakes. The power header silkscreen footprint is the wrong way. Not a big problem, just mount the power header the other way. Another mistake was that I did not put resistors between the op-amps and the outputs. This means that if I patch an output into another output, the op-amp will probably be fried. But, at least it works, and that's not bad for a first PCB design. #SynthDIY#eurorack
I've upgraded from the ice cream box front panel to an aluminium front panel. It's not very easy to make precise holes using a hand drill, but I got it close enough to fit.
Picophonica — A Raspberry Pi Pico synth engine for a toy keyboard, with instrument presets and Midi out.
A friend gifted me a cheap toy musical keyboard. The sound quality was atrocious, and it could only play one note at a time. So I removed its circuitry while keeping its enclosure, speaker, and keybed, and with some tinkering and a Raspberry Pi Pico I turned it into something usable.
How about a complete battery-powered MIDI monosynth in CircuitPython synthio? Three oscillator w/ 2-pole resonant low-pass filter. Great for basslines! Both USB & Serial MIDI. Responds to MIDI velocity & CCs to adjust loudness, filter, vibrato, and release time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1-TDjxE3Qs #CircuitPython#SynthDIY#MIDI#synthio
Fun fact: the hardest thing about #synthDIY and DIY electronics is not soldering (takes practice but most folks can do it) or knowing how electronics work (a lot of it can be approached like building LEGO or following a recipe).
The hardest part about DIY electronics is the fit and finish. (Not even aesthetics or an intuitive UI, though that’s all hard too!)
Just getting it all in a box such that it’s enjoyable to use and not in danger of falling apart.
@jepyang I've yet to design something from scratch so I have no experience making a nice usable package for one's thingy.
I think troubleshooting is the hardest part. After reflowing all the joints, taking measurements that looks reasonable, looking for polarity errors and or sketchy components and then still having some weird fucking problem still persisting - I'm completely at a loss. Luckily, it doesn't happen all that often but god damn it's frustrating when it does happen.
@symmetrizer@jepyang so like with coding (I’ve spent so much time in utter despair trying to find out why my thing doesn’t work, only to realize I’ve made a slight typo somewhere). I feel like if debugging code is already this frustrating, troubleshooting diy electronics must be on a whole other level.
@polykit@synthdiy Émilie Gillet released all her Mutable Instruments designs and earlier work like Shruthi as open source. Things are scattered around, but this is probably a good starting URL.
Spun up another little #synthDIY board over the weekend, this one is a low-drift, low-tempco voltage reference (for pitch DACs) using an LT1236 ceramic chip.