PAIA 9700 Addition (Part 5)

Last week I received the final three PAIA modules I ordered for my 9700S addition. They are the 9743 Preamplifier that you can use to hook up a microphone or guitar to a modular system, the 9748 balanced modulator and the 9744 Dual CV Source, both nice utility modules. In the picture you can see all three modules still neatly bagged. I decided to start working on them tonight after dinner. I had worked all day on my Apollo album in the studio and was planning to continue later on, but this job was nice to do in between and give my ears some rest.

Again it was not very difficult, but I did seem to be missing one 100 Ohm resistor on the first module I build. I looked everywhere but couldn't find it so I decided to get one from my own stack. Well and guess what I saw lying on the ground just when I was finished with all three of them. Of course the missing resistor. Ah well never mind. In the picture on the right you can see all three modules laying side to side. All in all it took me about an hour to build all three of them.

Then I screwed them in the cabinet. As you can see in the picture on the left it is fully populated now. The next thing I need to do is get the power supply out and solder all the power cables from the modules to the PCB of the power supply. I intentionally waited with that, because I didn't want to take it out multiple times. So actually I have no idea yet if any of the modules work yet. I'm sure some will ;) We'll see about that I'll start finishing this up another time. After this I went back to working on my album. There is still a lot of work left on it, so better not waste too much time.

PAIA 9700 Addition (Part 4)

Recently I bough a new PAIA cabinet and bought one of their new modules to see what they were like. And I liked the stuff so I decided to go build more of their modules. Here is a stack that I got in the mail last week. I ordered the following modules: 9746 Patch Bay, 0753 Envelope Follower, 9752 Sample and Hold, 9751 Noise Source, 9741 Dual VCA and the 9745 Active mixer. They are all support modules that I can use well in my modular setup.

Here is the content of a single kit. I wrote before that building these modules is really simple. A beginner can do this for sure. You will be done very quickly. Actually I build all of the modules I ordered this morning. I didn't test them yet though ;) I still need to hook up the power to the power supply as well, but I want to do that when I completed all modules since for soldering the wires I have to remove the power supply and I only want to do that once.

And here is a picture on the modules in the cabinet. As you can see the stuff looks really nice. I like the routing schema's they put on the modules. Somehow it does make it look more expensive I guess ;) But it does help you quickly to see the difference between an input and an output and that can be a pain in the ass sometimes in a big modular setup with stuff from different vendors with different logic. As you can see I can add three more modules and that is about what they have on the site, so I'll probably order those 3 any time soon as well.

PAIA 9700 Addition (Part 3)

And I also started on the first PAIA modules I bought from the new series. It is a Linear to Exponential converter with a signal inverter. Here you can see the parts that came in the kit. And actually I was a bit disappointed about it, because there is not much to build. Most components on the PCB are SMD and they are already mounted. So the only thing to do is to solder the potmeters, jacks and one potmeter and then you assemble the front panel to the PCB and put the knobs on. And then you are done.

Here is a picture on the finished module where you can clearly see the SMD components on the PCB. I can imagine why PAIA solders them on themselves, since this is not something you can easily do at home, but I don't understand why they chose this option. This clearly takes out the fun in DIY for me :) Well I don't know if all their new modules are like this. I guess I'll look into that first before I order them. On the other hand they have some nice new stuff that would complement the 9700S I already have.

And here is a picture of the other side of the PCB. As you can see not much on there. The wire on there was already in place as was one of the potmeters. I came with a note that there was an error on the PCB making this potmeter work the wrong way around. And they already installed that mod as well. Pffff actually they could have build the whole module just as easy and ship it ;) Ah well I had about and hour of fun with this project and luckily I have some more complicated stuff lying around still ;)

 And here is the cabinet with the new power supply and the module installed in the rack below the PAIA 9700S. As you can see there is plenty more room for more modules. I still need to hook up the power and test it though. So I don't even know yet if it works. But I really like the new way they incorporated the power supply in the normally unused space of the rack mount on the left side of the cabinet. I'm still planning on building a TR-808 clone and I might consider this Frac format for that one too and buy another case from PAIA. They are cheap and look nice in my opinion. I will just have to design some front panels myself then. A nice project for the near future :)

PAIA 9700 Addition (Part 2)

The next task was to construct the power supply. In the picture you can see all the parts that PAIA supplies in the kit. On the top right you can see the alternative front panel that is provided with holes for the leds and power switch. On the left is the PCB. This PCB is used for all the power supply variations that PAIA supplies. So you have to see in the manual which components to install and which you don't. There is also a jumper on the PCB that you need to mount. I almost forgot it. So pay attention :)

Here you see the front panel installed in the 19 inch cabinet. There is a power led that shows if the external power is there and also two leds for the +15V and -15V outputs from the power supply. I think PAIA came up with a very neat solution for it in this way. It doesn't take up any extra space in the cabinet and you can still mount 10 Frac units in the case. It is a bit fiddling around though to get the leds on the right length on the PCB so that they just stick out of the holes of the front panel.

 And here you can see the finished PCB on the inside of  the cabinet. Also a bit of fiddling to get it in. The holes are already in the side of the cabinet to mount it by the way. Just make sure you have the side panels with the holes to the front. I still need to hook up the power from the external adapter, but wanted to make sure it fits. The only thing that is a bit odd is that when you need to hook up an module, you need to take the PSU out again to solder the wires for the power of the module on the PCB. On the other side (on the module itself) PAIA uses a connector. I think they should have done the same on the power supply itself. That would have made it a bit more flexible. Ah well. It will work in the end I guess.

PAIA 9700 Addition (Part 1)

It has been a while since I did anything on the DIY side, but since I'm almost done with the Refuge en Verre album I'm starting things up a bit again. The first DIY stuff I ever build was a PAIA Fatman and after that a PAIA 9700S. Recently I read somewhere that they had some new modules out so I visited their website and saw that they actually have quite nice new stuff out. I decided to order a new cabinet and one module to start with. The stuff arrived last week. Here it is in the picture on the left.

 I started with constructing the cabinet. These PAIA cabinets come quite cheap actually and are quite OK in quality in my opinion. I think it is not Eurorack but Frac format. The whole thing is made of aluminum and you have to bolt it together. Quite easy to do actually. The only thing you have to do first is remove the plastic foil that covers every part for protection. And of course I forgot ;) So I had it all bolted together and then could take it apart again to remove this foil.

 The sides are connected with bars to each other and then you can screw on the bottom, back and top cover. When I wanted to do this I found out that I made another mistake. So I could redo the whole thing again. Next time maybe I should read the manual after all even if it looks simple ;) A well you get it done quicker every time ;) OK so here is a picture on the cabinet all finished. Looks quite nice I think.

And here is one more picture of the finished cabinet in the rack right of my modular desk. Here you can also see it together with the first PAIA 9700S I build a long time ago. Next thing up is constructing the dual power supply. It has +15V and -15V you have to order that separately by the way and pay good attention since PAIA has several power supply options. More to follow soon on this project that has room now for 10 single modules :)

Mooger Frooger Fun

After soldering today I though it was time to have some fun. So I hooked up the Mooger Froogers that are on my modular desk for a long time already, but I just didn't have time to even test them. From left to right you see the MF-104Z Analog Delay, MF-105 Murf and MF-103 Phaser. I hooked them up to the PAIA 9700S to get some sound. The analog delay is nice but quite straight forward, as well as the 12 stage phaser. They are nice, but not spectacular, but with the Murf I had a lot of fun. It is a filter effect with different band pass filters that gets switched on and of in different patterns. It is something like a multiband gated filter. You can really make nice effects with it. But all in all the Mooger Froogers are lots of fun and I think they complement the modular setup very well :)

PAIA 9700S (Overview)

I know that some of you are following my blog for my DIY electronics projects. Not much is happening at this moment since I'm very busy with the new studio, so I though it would be nice to do an overview post of the PAIA 9700S project I did a while ago.

In the picture on top you see the finished result. It is quite a nice but simple modular synthesizer. It is pretty straight forward. It was a lot of fun building and it was actually my first experience with a modular at all. And after building this I just wanted to build more. The kit supplied by PAIA is very complete and the instructions in the manual are very clear. I do think though that you need a bit of electronics experience to build this one. Below the 9700S in the picture you see the Fatman. Maybe it is better to start with that when you are new to DIY.

OK. Here are all the posts I did on this project in the right order:

PAIA 9700S (Part 1)
PAIA 9700S (Part 2)
PAIA 9700S (Part 3)
PAIA 9700S (Part 4)
PAIA 9700S (Part 5)
PAIA 9700S (Part 6)
PAIA 9700S (Part 7)
PAIA 9700S (Part 8)
PAIA 9700S (Part 9)

I can tell you it feels great when you build something like this yourself and there is actually coming usable sound from it :) As you probably know I'm building a lot of stuff at this moment and I can't wait to hear that in action later. When you want to try some DIY project I can recommend a PAIA to start with. You can find more information on their projects here:

http://www.paia.com/

Some studio changes

It has been a few days that I wrote something here. I know :) I have been extremely busy, especially at work. Well that happens sometimes. Music is still just a hobby for me so sometimes it is difficult to find time for it. It did change some stuff in the studio though. I'm still trying to be as efficient as possible. On of the things I did is to move the two PAIA synthesizers together with the Cwejman S1 MK2 in one rack. These fit very well together I think. The fatman was in a rack below my desk at first, but since it is a synthesizer with knobs I would like to fiddle around with it is better to have it on top.

I also added the remote for my central station monitoring controller. When I bought that one last year there I had to fill out a form to get this remote for free. So I did off course, but it took a long time before it was sent to me. Well now it is there. It is very convenient. There is a long cable on it, and now I can put the remote in the corner of my studio that I'm working at that moment. The only downside is that when the remote is attached the volume controller knob on the central station itself doesn't work anymore. All the other mute and select buttons are simply doubled. It would have been nice as well if the switch to enable or disable the remote would have been on the remote or the front. Now it is on the back of there central station, where you cannot reach it easily. Well you can't have it all right? :)

An addition to the studio is a Behringer FBQ2496. It is a feedback destroyer, that basically is a very precise small band equalizer. My good friend Hanz is very into acoustics and he heard some nasty peeks in my studio. He will bring his measuring software soon so we can measure the acoustic response of the room and this software can automatically load a profile into the FBQ to filter out the biggest problems. If you ask yourself if that never bothered me before. Well no it didn't since I work most of the time at night on my headphones. And my monitors are not so good anyway. I'm talking to Hanz as well to change all this for the better in the future. But it has never been a priority for me since I'm used to working on my headphones after all this time. But off course it will be great to have a decent sound in the end :) I will tell you more about this project when we are done with it. You can see in this rack also that I moved the VariOS to the same rack below. I use it mainly as an FX processor and not as a synthesizer, so that is why it is going into the FX rack.

PAIA 9700S (Part 9)

I got some questions in my E-mail about the equipment I used to build the PAIA 9700S. So I though lets make a post about that. In the picture on the left you see on the left my multimeter. I used it to calibrate the the Midi2CV8 module and also to measure resistor values. Sometimes color codes are not very clear especially on the 1% tolerance resistors. In the middle you see my soldering iron. It is a Weller soldering station I have for a long time and still works perfectly. I think this is the best you can buy. On top of the blue station you see a rol of soldering tin. On the top you see a green bench-vice I use to hold some components for soldering.

On the right you see some pliers I used. The one with the yellow is a pair of cutting pliers I used to cut and strip the various wires. The black ones under that are used to bend things and also to hold the nuts for fastening the front panels to the PCB's and for fastening the 3,5 mm jacks and switches to the front panels. Also you see a black marker I used to mark stuff in the checklists from the manuals that you see lying in the background. I want to compliment PAIA again for these manuals. They are very clear and just by folowing them to the point you will get a working synthesizer.

In the picture on the right you see a picture of the two screwdrivers I used by a finished PCB. The black one is a philips screwdriver that is used for the screws that go into the frac rack and also for fastening the PCB's to the front panels. The black one is a regular, but small one that I used for adjusting the trim potmeters. I have to say by the way that after the initial tuning and calibrating I described I found that the synthesizer still wasn't completely tuned and I spend another hour or so getting it perfect.

The last equipment I used for calibrating is not necessary per see. You could do it without is, but you will do it on hearing then and this is more precise. On the left you see an oscilloscope. You can use this to visualize and measure audio signals. It has two channels so you can put two waveforms next to each other. Right to that is a combined function generator and frequency counter. You can generate waveforms with this to test stuff and also is measures frequencies very precise. Ideal for tuning synthesizers. On the floor you see the PAIA 9700S in a completed state. After this I put it in my rack. I already played around with it. It sounds very analog. Very nice. The last post I will do on this project will include some demo sounds. To give you an idea what it can do.

PAIA 9700S (Part 8)

I started the calibration and tuning process. This surely takes some patience and I can't imagine how to do it without proper equipment. I started with the Midi2CV8 module. I used a multimeter to measure the voltage on the CV output. I attached a keyboard to the Midi input of the module and pressed the 'C' keys on several octaves. At these notes the output voltage should be exactly 1,2,4,5,6,7,8 etc Volts. There is just one trim potmeter on the module so with a screwdriver you can adjust it until this is right over the whole keyboard range. I tried it also an octave lower, because I suspected it to be too high, but then the behavior wasn't linear anymore so I guess it was OK as it was.

The next module to test was the dual VCO. First thing to to is to see if all outputs give a proper signal. I used my oscilloscope for this. You also need to align the Saw wave on oscillator A and B by adjusting two trim potmeters on the module. Also the easiest way to do this was with the oscilloscope. More difficult though is tuning the oscillator and adjusting the scales on both the oscillators. Best way to do this I found is on hearing. Adjust the tuning of the oscillator to a note on another synthesizer and then adjust the scale to see if the notes in the octaves above and under are also in tune. If not adjust the trim potmeter and do it over and over again until it is all good. On oscillator A this took me 10 minutes, but on oscillator B almost an hour. So maybe I was a bit lucky on the first one. But after that I already could play a tune on the PAIA 9700S :)

Tuning the VCF and VCA module is not so complicated. Basically the settings don't matter too much. I put all the modules in the frac rack and I did all the test procedures after that. Luckily the Midi2CV8 and the VCO module are situated so that you can still tune them by only taking the top cover off. So if necessary I can
do some fine tuning afterwards. Well now that the modules are in I guess it is officially a synthesizer in stead of a collection of electronics parts. I'm actually quite happy at this stage. After testing it looks like every module is working like a charm. So no mistakes made I guess.

The last thing left to do is solder the patch leads. PAIA supplies some wire and the connectors. So you need to make them yourself. But before I started with that I used some other patch cords I have from my Korg Legacy Collection midi controller. They are mini jack as well. It was nice to hear some sound from the PAIA 9700S en play even some tunes. It sounds really analog, but I'm still figuring out what all the connections are and how it works. I put it back on it place in the rack in my analog corner and I guess tonight I will play a bit more with it and try to figure out all the modulation stuff.

PAIA 9700S (Part 7)

After finishing all the modules I soldered the power leads to them. The connectors and wire come separate and putting the wire on the connectors is a delicate job. The four pins that go into the connector itself are very small and you will need something to hold them while soldering. The Midi2CV8 module acts as the master power supply. The VCO is connected to that and the VCF in its turn is connected to the VCO and on the end of this Daisy chain is the VCA module. The next thing to do was to switch on the power and test everything. This is always a bit of an anxious moment :) PAIA even calls it the 'smoke' test. 'No smoke' off course is what you would like to see.

The first module I tested was the Midi2CV8 module. There are some dip switches on it to configure its behavior. One of the test modes just gives a signal on all the outputs. You can measure them with a Volt meter or even better an oscilloscope. And yesterday my oscilloscope arrived to I used it right away. The test worked fine. The next thing to do is attach a midi keyboard and run a midi diagnostics test. This went perfectly as well. After that I just put the Midi2CV8 module in the mode I want to use it in and tested all the individual signals on the CV outputs. I worked like a charm :) So at least this module is working perfectly.

The next module to test is the VCO, but I didn't run all the official tests yet. I just hooked up my new oscilloscope to see how that worked actually. You can see in in the picture on the left. It is de device on the left. It was nice to see the different wave forms coming from the dual VCO module. And also the Envelope Generator. At first site this module seems to work as well. After that I powered up the remaining modules and again no smoke and the Envelope/Modulator leds blinked so the first impression is no major mistakes on all the boards. I still need to test a lot and also calibrate/tune everything. For that I also bought a frequency counter that is on the right in the picture. You can measure infrequencies very precisely with this device.

I did forget to mention one thing by the way. I replaced one switch that PAIA supplied in the kit by a switch of my own. You were supposed to solder three wires to one little lead of the original switch and that one melted right away like I had before. I decided that repairing this one and trying again would have the same result. The new switch is a double one and doesn't melt. So this actually is my new power switch.
So far the 9700S project is going quite smoothly. I only found out that I'm missing 4 screws for one module to fasten it in the frac rack. I think I'm going to E-mail PAIA about this, because I would not know where to get identical screws. Next thing to do will be more testing and calibrating and tuning. I will keep you posted off course.

PAIA 9700S (Part 6)

I completely finished building the 9710 VCA/Mixer module as well now. This module is normally the final stage of the audio output. I described the functions of this module in the previous post. While wiring I found out that my soldering iron is basically a bit to hot for some components. Maybe this is also why I had problems with the wires turning black quickly.

I changed the tip of my soldering station a while ago, because I had to switch from Lead holding soldering tin to Silver holding soldering tin. The lead holding type simply is not sold anymore in Europe. The European commission banned this type completely here. The problem though is that Silver has a higher melting temperature than Lead. The new tip makes soldering this Silver holding tin much easier, but also rises some problems.

The problem I encountered during wiring, even though PAIA warned in the manual for it, is that I melted the plastic on the leads of one of the switches. I tried to melt it back in position, but after this the switch didn't work anymore. I decided to take the switch apart and look what was wrong with it. The construction was actually quite simple and I repaired it and put it back together. I was quite amazed at myself that after that it actually worked :) After this I took great care in heating the leads on the switch only very short and tested the function again afterwards and it still worked. I was very proud of myself :)

In the picture on the left you see the switch back in place after this repair. The rest of the wiring was quite straight forward and since there are less controls on the VCA it was finished quite quickly. In the picture on the lower right you see the finished PCB with all the wiring to the front panel.

I also finally picked up the remaining 12 Volt AC power adapter and the missing resistor from my local electronics store. The resistor was still needed on the VCF module. So now all modules are completely finished.

So what is still left to do? I need to finish the power connections to all the modules, put all the modules in the frac rack and start testing and calibrating the modules. For the last thing I decided to buy some new tools to make it easier. I ordered an 2 channel 20 Mhz Oscilloscope and a combined function generator / frequency counter. I will needed this equipment for later projects anyway and it will make calibrating much easier. That is if everything works. When it doesn't especially the Oscilloscope (or mostly called scope in short) will make finding errors a lot easier as well. I hope it is not necessary for that. We will see in a later post when I finally put the power on.

PAIA 9700S (Part 5)

I finished soldering the 9710 VCA PCB as well. This time no parts missing :) The VCA (Voltage Controlled Amplifier) module actually holds 2 VCA's a Balanced Modulator a White Noise source and an Envelope Generator. So it is a very versatile module. After finishing the PCB I started with wiring the front panel components on the back. And thought it would be a good idea to tell you a little bit about his.

The first thing that has to be done each time is solder a bare wire (no insulation) on all the signal ground points on the mini jacks. In the picture on the left and right you can see this. On the VCA module there are also some resistors and a diode directly attached to some components. So if you are soldering a module and you have some components left, don't throw them away :) You might need them later. PAIA also includes some insulation hose to put over the leads of some components to prevent them from touching other stuff. After installing the initial wires to the front panel it is time to join the front panel and PCB together.

This process if fairly easy. On the left you see the screws and nuts that are used. You first mount the 'L' brackets to the PCB with the blank bolts and nuts and after that the you simply screw the front panel to the PCB. One thing that is always tricky is to get the power led to go into the whole in the front panel first. I did this afterwards every time, though the manual suggest differently, but this is the way I was used to do this in the past. The construction looks and feels quite solid actually. I must compliment PAIA again though that everything you need is supplied in the kit. You can build it with just some simple tools. I will do a posting on the end of this project which tools I actually used, so when you plan to build it yourself you will know what you need.

On the right you see the PCB attached to the front panel. The only thing left to do now is solder the wiring from the PCB to the front panel component. This is a job you really should take your time for. A mistake is easily made. In this kit I found the wiring to be of the same type as in the VCF module by the way. The 'turning black quick' type. So I'll have to be very careful again at this job as well. But this project is going quite smoothly so far. I will try to pick up the missing 1% resistor from the VCF module today so I can finish that as well. Not more than 5 minutes work after that. In the next posting I guess I will have finished the VCA module as well. We will see :)

PAIA 9700S (Part 4)

The next module I did was the 9730 dual VCF module. This module holds two identical filters with low pass, high pass and band pass outputs. They are both 12 db/oct, but off course you can combine them to act as a 24 db/oct filter. The module also holds a modulator that acts as an Envelope Generator. I'm very curious how this filter will sound later on.

Before I continued with soldering the PCB though I first mounted all the remaining front panel components to the remaining front panels. You can see them in the picture on the left. For the VCF module I noticed before I started also that I missed a component. Again a trim potmeter was missing. I e-mailed PAIA about this earlier and luckily by the time I started soldering this module it had already arrived in the mail. Soldering this module again was no problem at all.

With the wiring though I encountered another weird problem with the wire itself. The isolation of the wire seemed a bit hard while stripping and during soldering it tended to burn very quickly. It turned black where heated, though I'm sure that I didn't overheat it. Maybe an old kit with old wire? I have never encountered this in my Electronics career before to be honest. The wiring of this module was about the same as for the Dual VCO module. Quite a lot of wires. But again the documentation is quite clear. Some wires needed some extra insulation, because when the front panel is mounted to the PCB the leads from the mini jacks could touch the components on the PCB. And off course that would lead to unwanted short circuits. During the mounting of the front panel components again I found I missed a 1% resistor. I didn't E-mail PAIA about it this time. I will pick this up from my local electronics store to finish it.

On the left you see a picture where I inserted the finished modules in the rack. It already starts to look like a modular synthesizer :) But still I need to finish the VCA module and put the power wiring in after that. I'm starting to wonder more and more if everything will work at once at this time. I started reading a bit in the manuals as well what has to be done afterwards and that is basically testing, tuning and calibrating. PAIA says it is possible with easy equipment, but I'm seriously considering buying an oscilloscope and a frequency counter, since that will make work a lot easier and I plan to build more projects in the future and without proper equipment you sometimes have no idea what you are doing. I used to have this stuff at my work when I worked in the electronics business, but not anymore now. So I'll find out what this stuff costs soon, since I have no idea.

PAIA 9700S (Part 3)

I finished the PAIA MIDI2CV8 module now. On the left you see the finished front panel. Installing the IC's was very easy again. I encountered only a small problem. For the Eprom and the Microprocessor chip sockets are supplied. And while inserting the Microprocessor in the socket I bend one pin on it. But I noticed it just in time and was able to correct this. On the right you see the Eprom that holds the software for the module in its socket. With a Microprocessor and software this MIDI2CV8 module is actually a little computer. Can't wait to fire it up, but I still need to pick up an external power adapter for it.

The wiring on this module was also a lot less complicated than on the dual VCO module. And to my surprise here another wire type was supplied, that was a lot easier to strip. Something I previously complained about for the dual VCO module. Another thing I found out is that the MIDI2CV8 module also serves as the primary DC power supply for the other modules. This module received 12 Volt AC from the power adapter and regulates this to +15 and -15 Volts DC. The power regulators on the other modules take there power from here and stabilize it again. Basically every module has a power input and output again, so you can daisy chain them together.

Here on the left you see the finished module. Actually two wires where missing when I took this picture, but it was getting dark. And I wanted to update this part today on the blog. The missing wires are now installed while I write this. On the module there are some dip switches that determine how it operates. You can also put it in some test modes to see if everything is working OK. So I guess that will be the first thing to do when I have the adapter. I will try to pick it up tomorrow. This module looked quite straight forward so I can't imagine I made a mistake, but well you never know for sure until it proves to work ;) I guess after this I will start finishing the VCF module. That will be a nice subject for Part 4 then.