Yusynth (Part 21)

Today I finished another Yusynth module. This time it is a Voltage Controlled Oscillator or also called VCO. This VCO is quite versatile it has a Saw, Triangle, Sine and Pulse output. The Pulse output has Pulse Width Modulation and there is also a Sync input. Further more it has two V/Oct inputs to play melodies on it and it also has two Frequency Modulation inputs. One is Linear and the other is Exponential. Yves offers three versions of this VCO on his website. I build mine using SSM2210 Dual Matched NPN transistors.

In the picture on the right you see the finished module from the back. There are quite some wires on it, but as usual Yves has a very clear wiring schematic on his website. The only tricky thing on this PCB is that you have to put a tempco resistor on top of the SSM2210 (or whatever you chose). You can see it in the right top corner of the picture (if you click on it you get a larger version). I use special heat conducting pasta to make sure that the temperature is transferred as good as possible from the SSM2210 to the tempco.

After that I tested the module. As always first the magic smoke test. And after that I looked at the different output signals coming from the module. They all seemed to work. After that I tested all the inputs by putting a signal on them from the PC Function Generator. Everything seemed to work as expected. Next thing left to do is the calibration procedure for the wave shapers and after that the most important thing the tuning procedure to make sure it tracks 1V/Oct over a couple of octaves. I haven't done this before so that is new for me as well. I'll update you on the result.

Synth.nl Nominated for German Schallwelle Award

Hi like last year I'm nominated again by the Jury for a German Music Award called 'Schallewelle Preis'. I'm honered by this of course. Last year I was nominated as newcomer, but didn't win. This year my album OceanoGraphy is nominated for Best Album of the Year. Besides the Jury price there is also an audience award. You can vote for both my album 'OceanoGraphy' and me as artist 'Synth.nl' if you like. Voting is possible until the 20th of January. You can find the website here: http://www.schallwelle-preis.de/. After that click the link 'Das Voting 2009 ist eröffnet.' There is both a text in German as in English. The winners will be announced on the 20th of February.

Mr. Braska's Apollo Studio Experience (Part 2)

And here is part two of the studio tour I'm giving for mr. Braska. Here you can see him studying the Bridechamber multiple panel I build last week.

And here is mr. Braska presenting the Yusynth Steiner VCF module I build. He seemed to like especially this one a lot.

In fact he liked it so much that he wanted to sit on top of it :) Ah well who am I to say no to that.

And here is mr. Braska in front of the four Yusynth filter modules I build. I'll let mr. Braska unveil a little bit more of my modular setup next time.

Yusynth (Part 20)

I told you I had been busy today ;) I made two more modules actually. I also made a 1U version of the Yusynth AD/DC mixer. You can see it in the picture from the back. I will show the front later. I also build another Yusynth VCA. Since I already reported about that one in a previous post, I don't think it adds much value to show it again. I kind of made a copy of it so you can also look in the previous post ;) I used a Yusynt LFO module to test it. I reported about the spike in the signal that I saw. Unfortunately when used on this VCA module it is audible. Apparently the VCA is very very quick.

And here is the mixer module from the front. As you can see this 1U version has only 3 inputs and no Gain and DC Bias pots. The PCB is actually the same only with some components left of. So when you make this PCB you can choose whether to make the 1U or 2U version that I showed in the previous post. Again there is no calibrating to be done. I only tested it with two AC signals this time from the PC function generator and another from a synthesizer. It all worked fine. I also designed this front panel As you can see I put the led in another place to balance the design out a bit.

I mounted the two VCA's in the cabinet. Starts to look great in the mean time :) On the right on the two VCA's you can see the multiple panel that I build. On the left are two ADSR front panels for modules that I didn't build yet. I actually ordered the wrong potmeters for them. They should have been 1M logarithmic but I ordered linear by mistake. In the next round I'll order the right ones and the linear ones will be necessary somewere soon for sure. I also still have to build some Yusynth VCO's. I already build a couple of PCB's and I have 1 front panel. I'm very curious how it sounds, so I guess I should start with it soon. But I also have a lot of other stuff laying around. A while you have to make choices in your life right? :)

AVRSynth 32 (Part 7)

And here is my daughter with the finished AVRSynth 32. She is proud that she has helped to work on it. Now I'm going to explain to her how it works. Maybe she can tell the kids in school about it then. Well I talked in the last post about running it on 9 Volts, but I found out that this doesn't actually work. It gives a ticking noise on the clock of the midi input. This goes away when you apply 12 Volts. So there was a clear reason for this apparently. Well I'll see what next project I can do with my daughter again. I think some nice PCB, since that is what she likes not the wiring and stuff as I found out.

Yusynth (Part 19)

Today I was quite productive again. It is very cold outside here and snowing, so nice weather for DIY stuff :) I finished a Yusynth mixer module today. Yves made two versions actually. A 2U version and a 1U version. This is the 2U version. It can mix DC and/or AC signals. It has 4 inputs with level control, a general gain for the two outputs. One of the outputs is inverted by the way. And you also have a pot for DC bias. I think it is a very versatile module. It is quite straight forward again. Here you see the PCB with the wires attached and the front panel from the back.

And here is a picture with all the wires connected. I'm think it looks neat doesn't it? Well I used a 2 pot bracket from Bridechamber again for mounting the PCB. These things are so handy. After this I applied power and did the usual routine checks. All looked good and then I attached some input signals to it. One from the PC Function generator and another from a synthesizers. And it mixed alright. Nothing to calibrate at all on this module actually. It just works :) Then I played a bit with some DC signals and they added up as well. Nice for mixing CV signals I think.

And here is a picture of the finished module. The led in the middle lights up with the output signal. It is a nice kind of volume indicator. I designed the front panel on this module myself and it was made by Schaeffer like all the other front panels I made myself. Again if you would like to have the .fpd file just send my an E-mail. I like this module. I think I might actually make another one. I still have another PCB left, so it is not too much work. Only my modular setup is filling up quickly. So I have to look if I will have space left for it. I like the stuff that Yves makes a lot. It is all very clear and you can't really go wrong. I can highly recommend his stuff when you want to start with DIY youself. Just look at his website: http://www.yusynth.net/ and click on the left on 'Modular Project'

Mr. Braska's Apollo Studio Experience (Part 1)

As you could have read before mr. Braska is a very famous Synthfrog that visits DIY synth studio's all over the world. The coming days I'll be showing him around in my studio. And do a little report about it once in a while on this blog.

Here is mr. Braska approving the drum module I build from the Thomas Henry Electronics Drums Cookbook on Breadboard.

Then I showed him the inside of the AVRSynth 32 from Elby Designs that I build together with my daughter. He was holding some wires for me here while I run some more tests on it.

Then we played some music on the AVRSynth 32. As you can see mr. Braska was clearly enjoying it and relaxing by it.

The last thing we did was play around with the Velleman PC oscilloscope and Function Generator that I recently build. Mr. Braska liked this very much.

Well that covers it for today. After this first little tour I resumed work on my project while mr. Braska watched me and did some little naps when it was becoming boring. I'll put up some more pictures soon :)

Yusynth (Part 18)

Today I finished another Yusynth module. This time a Steiner VCF module. It is quite a versatile filter module that you can switch between High Pass, Low Pass, Band Pass and All Pass using a rotary switch. So actually you get three filters, because the all pass is kind of the same as your input signal :) Besides that it has two CV inputs with a potmeter to regulate the amount and also a potmeter for the input signal. I was wondering if this was the first module Yves designed by the way since it looks just that little bit different than the other modules that I build so far.

So here is the module all wired up. It is all quite straight forward. Yves provides a really neat wiring scheme on his website that makes wiring so easy. He even included the correct marking for the rotary switch so you don't even have to think :) Well after wiring it was time for testing. I applied power to the unit from my lab power supply and for the first time my current restriction kicked it. Lucky that I have it otherwise that would have meant magic smoke I guess ;) I did a quick visual check and found out quite quickly that I mounted the IC socket for the TL072 the wrong way around :( Luckily it was on a socket so I could turn it quite easily. But what a stupid mistake this time :(

Well nothing was damaged luckily. After applying power again everything looked OK and I started testing. I put a noise signal on the input from the PC Function Generator. I tested all three filter modes and that all worked like expected. There is only on 1 turn potmeter on the PCB for 1V/Oct tuning, but when I wanted to fiddle around with that I noticed something strange. When I up the resonance to get auto oscillation it didn't work at first. But only when I also fiddle with the cuttoff pot as well. I tried it several times and the same result. Maybe Yves can shed some light on this? His other modules start auto oscillating by only putting the resonance to 95% or so. And usually there is a trimpot to calibrate this. Ah well no big deal at all. Then I put a square wave at the input and actually got some very neat results. It is not a very clean filter, but that makes it exciting I think :) So I hope I didn't make any mistakes except for the wrongly mounted IC socket. It pretty much works like I expected besides the auto oscillation thing.

Bridechamber Multiples (Part 2)

This morning I finished the work on the first multiple panel. It is really kind of boring work. So I decided that I would keep it at one for today and start another project after that. I got a package from Mouser yesterday with a lot of missing pots for some unfinished projects. After finishing the multiple panel I did some simple tests to see if it worked like I anticipated. I used a couple of jack patch cables and a multimeter. First I inserted a patch cable in the first jack and the last. And they connected. Then I inserted another jack in one of the jacks that should break the circuit and that worked as well. So project finished. Later on I was just wondering if I wired it like Scott from Bridechamber did, but at least now it works like I would.

After testing I put it in place in my modular desk. Since yesterday I'm slowly putting some modules in place to think about the layout of the whole system. Here you can see the little black wood screws that I use to fasten the panels. I'm glad by the way that I didn't use larger screws. Some modules just barely overlap the wooden bar behind it and I already had some of the wood split with these small screws. But it is nice to finally see some modules in the desk. I will make a picture for you later on. Actually I already made one, but I wasn't satisfied with it. Not good enough for the blog. Well not much more exciting to tell about this panel. So I'm going to continue another project and then maybe later this week work on the other multiple panels.

Bridechamber Multiples (Part 1)

In a modular setup you often need to patch the output of a module to more inputs of other modules. So you need to split up the signal. To do that you can use 'multiples'. They are actually just a bunch of jack connectors wired together. So they are completely passive. The only problem is that sometimes you need a pair of 4 sometimes more. Bridechamber sells some multiple panels that are actually very flexible. In total you have 32 jacks in rows of 4. Each row is connected to each other, but is also normalized to the next row. If you insert a jack though in the first jack of the row, this connection is broken. So you can determine how the multiple works by inserting jacks in a certain place.

As you can see in the picture above mr. Braska was supervising my work on the mutiples. I started with the wiring of the ground signals. Those are all just interconnected. You can't see them so well in this picture, because I used black wire for it. I'm using yellow wire for the signal path. I think mr. Braska was a bit bored by this work. It looks like he fell asleep :) Well was tired as well and stopped for today. Tomorrow I will continue work on this little project and after that I need to make 2 more. So I don't have to be bored. Ah well I never am actually :)

Modular Desk Adjustment 2

Today my furniture builder Gerrit came back with the adjusted piece of my modular desk. We mounted the bar back in the cabinet, and tried to fit the synthesizers.com Q960 sequencers in, but they still didn't fit. Now just it is stuck in another place. It is just 1 mm, but Gerrit didn't bring any tools since he thought he was done. Well he was in the neighborhood again next week so he will do that final adjustment then. In the mean time also my black screws arrived so I can start fitting some modules now and try to think about a layout for the whole modular synthesizer. I'll make pictures of course ;)

Wilba MB-6582 (Part 1)

I bought a bunch of old 6581 sound chips a long time ago coming from the famous Commodore 64 home computer. And I was planning to build a synthesizer with them some day. And then I found the Wilba MB-6582 project on the Internet which is basically a Midibox design with 4 Pics and 8 SID chips on one big PCB. On the website is also a very nice design for a case and you can download the front panel files from there. I ordered the PCB's along with a components kit for the base PCB a long time ago and last week they finally arrived. And I couldn't wait to start on this project. Here you see some of the resistors already in place on the PCB.

The documentation for this project is neatly done online in a Wiki that is updated when necessary. It gives great information on the different build possibilities. It was originally designed for the 6582 SID chips as the name suggests. These run on 9 Volt, but it can also handle the other types of SID chips. I use the original 6581 and they need 12 Volts. The builder actually offers 4 options to build the PSU section. I chose option B because of the need for 12 Volts and I want to use an original Commodore 64 power supply to power the synthesizer later on. In the picture on the right you can see a picture where I just mounted all the IC sockets on the PCB. There are quite a lot as you can see.

Here is a picture where also the backpanel components are installed. On the left is the power switch that is actually the same switch as used in the original Commodore 64 and next to it the power connector. Then two midi connectors and next to that 4 stereo audio output jacks. Yes this baby has 4 stereo output channels :) You can also see that I installed the electronic parts behind that. This is all for the SID chips itself. It is quite dense in these parts and you actually have to install some resistors standing up because otherwise they wouldn't fit. You can also see the capacitors next to the SID IC sockets are on little parts of IC headers. This way you can swap them since for the 6581 you need different values than for the other SID types. And I don't know yet if mine actually work.

And here is a picture of the finished base PCB. Here also the PSU section is in place. I didn't put the IC's in yet. I need to run some power tests to see if I didn't make any mistakes in the PSU section. I don't want to blow up my precious SID chips :) But since they are all on IC sockets it is just a matter of putting them in. Next step is another PCB that is used for fitting the front panel components like all the leds, switches and rotary encoders. I just ordered these components from Mouser and I'm waiting for them. I also got a display from CrystalFontz in the US. If you are curious what this project is going to look like or want information to build one yourself do visit the MB-6582 Wiki at this URL: http://www.midibox.org/dokuwiki/wilba_mb_6582

AVRSynth 32 (Part 6)

Today I started testing the AVRSynth 32. And unfortunately it did nothing :) So I started debugging. I started with checking if I had a signal on the midi input. And I did actually had a signal on the input of the opto coupler but nothing came out there. So I started to look at the schematics. I couldn't find anything wrong actually. After that I measured at the DIN connector on the back and saw that I also had signals on the other pins. Now I was confused. To be honest I actually never looked at what pins do what on a Midi connector :) So I started looking for a schematic.

And that is why I love the Internet so much. It took me about 5 seconds to come up with this. And guess what. I had the wrong pins. I never knew that a DIN connector is numbered in this way. Well you are not to old to learn ever I guess. After rewiring the connector I had a signal on the output of the opto coupler right away. So I hooked up audio to the unit and it gave a signal right away while playing on the midi keyboard. So it actually works :) After that I started to check all the functionality.

The first thing I noticed is that some switches worked the wrong way around. Here you see Oscillator A set to Square, well this looked like a Saw to me :) So I checked switch for switch. Strangly enough not all of them were wrong, but I'm pretty sure all the switches are mounted in the same orientation. Ah well. Who cares as long as it all works like it is supposed to. The only thing left to do now is hook up the power switch and attach the power to the power connector on the back panel. And I need to find a 12V adapter for it. I guess it will run on 9V as well btw.

And here is the end result. Looks neat doesn't it? I only need to clean the surface of the front panel. Some little speckles are on there. Well it sounds nice as well. It is a monophonic Virtual Analog synthesizer. As you can see with two Oscillators that can be switched between Square wave or Saw wave and only Oscillator B can be detuned. So oscillator A is always in tune. Makes it a neat tool to tune my modular I guess :) Tomorrow I'm going to show and demonstrate it to my daughter. And try to explain to her how it works. I hopes she likes it. I'm sure I'll do a last post about that.

The Frog Has Landed at the Apollo Studio

The coming period I'm having a visitor in my studio. The famous DIY Synthfrog mr. Braska travels around the whole world visiting studios that are run by musicians that also build their own synthesizers. The next days I will show mr. Braska around in my Apollo Studio and show him how it is done the Dutch way :) So you can expect some pictures on this blog reporting about this visit. Unfortunately mr. Braska had to spend Christmas at the local Post Office here. The mailman forgot to put a note in my postbox that he arrived. So I had to dig into the postal service (what a horror) to track him down and get a hold of him. Today I finally picked him up. You can find more information about mr. Braska and his travels ons this website: http://www.synthfrog.com

AVRSynth 32 (Part 5)

Today I worked a bit on the AVRSynth 32 again. Unfortunately my daughter really lost interest in this project now. I explained to her what had to be done to wire the front panel components on the PCB and she couldn't really understand. Now is the documentation not very easy on this. So I can imagine she didn't get it. So I started this job on my own. Here you see a picture with all the wiring in place to interconnect the front panel components. Basically a 5 Volt and ground line on all the pots and 4 groups of switches that share a common bus line later on. So far so good.

Here you see a picture of the flat cable that runs to the PCB. This was a lot more complicated. 40 wires that you need to connect to the right place and only wire 1 is red and the red is gray :) I counted and recounted a lot of times to make sure that I had the right wire. Even even then I made a mistake. I cut a wire short that I had to extend later on. I also did some cross checks with the schematic so that I could check the right connection to the PCB. After these checks I was quite convinced it should be OK. Time to apply the power to do the famous Magic Smoke test.

And luckily no smoke :) Nothing got warm so I started to measure the power on the components. All looked well on there as well. I used a lab power supply with a very restricted current setting to be sure I couldn't short circuit anything. After this I removed the PCB again from the case. I remembered that I still had to solder an extra resistor on the bottom of the PCB. And I also still had the extra capacitor. I decided not to mount that one. I think it is only necessary with the other crystal option. But I'm not sure. I can always solder it in there. It won't break anything I'm sure. Well at least I have a working power led now :) Further more I only looked at some digital signals and it seems that the clock is running. I see activity on the data lines. Next thing is to attach some Midi and audio and do some testing.

OceanoGraphy Reviews Added

First of all the best wishes for all of you for 2010! I hope all your dreams may come true. But now back to business :) Slowly the first reviews are coming of my OceanoGraphy album. If you would like to know more about my albums and what other people (and professional reviewers) think about it I think it is nice to read through them. You can find the reviews here on my website: http://www.synth.nl/reviews

Digital PC Scope (Part 3)

The Digital PC Oscilloscope returned from Velleman. And it turned out I was right. They have replaced the AD converter chip. So I didn't make a mistake it turns out and I even detected the right defective component. Well I hooked it up right away and did some tests and everything looks great now. In the picture you can see that I have put it next to the PC Function Generator under the keyboard. Fits quite nicely actually. Now I'm going to play a bit more with this combination and try out the Bode Plot functionality. I'll try to put some results up on my blog when I have them.

Synth.nl in Syndae Christmas Special

Like last year I made a track especially for the Christmas Special from the German electronic music podcast Syndae. My track is called 'SynthCarol' and is my interpretation of the Christmas track 'Carol of the Bells' only with synthesizers in stead of bells. Stefan made a very nice show again of a little over an hour and left me the honor to finish of the show. All music in this Christmas Special is especially made by the artists involved for this show. I think that is quite unique. You can download the show from http://www.syndae.de and as said before my track is the last one at about 1:02:00. Have fun and Merry Christmas!

Yusynth (Part 17)

And this morning I finished another YuSynth module. It is a YuSynth Saw Animator module. As you can see this is a factory produced PCB. I this as a complete kit from Bridechamber including the components. While inspecting the components I found there were 2 resistors missing and there were 1 uF elcos supplied in stead of the polyester capacitors that should be there, but I could easily get them from Farnell. I didn't really bother to contact Bridechamber about it. One nice thing about this PCB is that the component values are on the silkscreen of the PCB. So documentation is close at hand :)

Wiring PCB is becoming standard production work here in my studio the last days :) So I got this one wired very quickly again. Actually this module is a dual module. There are two Saw Animators on the PCB. So you have wiring for module 1 and module 2 being an exact copy. There are also two LFO's standard on the PCB. The LFO's output is normalized to the Mod Input and is disrupted when you insert an external jack. Saw Input 1 is also normalized to Saw Input 2. So if you input a saw on input 1 it is replicated to input 2 automatically.

And here is the completed module. Calibrating is easy. You apply a 10V Peak Peak saw signal and then adjust one trim potmeter to get the output saw aligned and using another trim potmeter you balance the DC offset to get it nicely around the zero. Then you do the same for the output of the other part of the module. If you input other signals than a saw you get some neat output results as well by the way. Also when you don't input a full 10V peak peak signal the output is different. Quite funny what you can do with this fairly simple module.

And here is the finished module from the front. The leds you can see indicate the speed of the internal LFO. As said before you can override those with an external signal. But what does it do then? Well you can 'animate' or 'modulate' a boring saw into an alive one. It thickens up the sound. I heard my PC oscilloscope is back by the way. Maybe I'll grab some signal pictures with it later on so you can see what it does. I hope Gerrit comes back soon with the modified piece for my cabinet so I can finally screw some modules into place and start working with them. For now I'm going to look what is next on my backlog pile :) I'm sure I don't have to be bored the coming days. As always I'll keep you updated on the progress.

Modular Desk Adjustment

Gerrit my Furniture builder was here today to look at the adjustment that needed to be done to my modular desk to fit in the Synthesizers.com modules. So in the morning I cleared everyhing out of the desk to make room for him to work. But he thought it would be better to do it in his workshop, because he has better tools there. So he actually sawed out the upper bar and took it with him. Hopefully I will get it back next week. So still no Q960 sequencers in there unfortunately. Ah well patience will pay out I'm sure Gerrit will make it even nicer than I though. We also discussed a little extension on the desk today. I'm thinking to put some stuff left and right of the desk since there is still space there, but for now it are just ideas. I'll let you know when he has been back here.