DIY Drum Module Video

A new video I made from a test run with a drum module I build and my sequencers.

Last year I build a drum module based on schematics from the 'Electronic Drum Cookbook' by Thomas Henry. I build it on breadboard but never got around to test it yet. Yesterday someone was filming my studio here so I couldn't work on my main desk for a while and decided to give the module a go. I hooked it up to my sequencers in the modular setup and got to test them in the process as well. We took some shots of this as well and last night I decided to make a little video from it. The noise coming from it is not spectacular but it was just a proof of concept. I made this video in Sony Vegas and that was also a test run for me. I plan to make more video's in the future for you to enjoy. The music on this video is from a track called 'Mercury' that a made for a sampler CD last year. You can listen to the whole track on my website. Look for the SchallPlatte 12 sampler CD.

Klee Sequencer (Part 9)

Today I finished the wiring on the Klee Sequencer. In the picture you can see a final shot of the wiring on the back. After doing a final round of visual inspection of the wiring I found out quickly that I forgot one wire that was supposed to go to the Random Treshold pot meter. So I had to cut loose a lot of tie-wraps and re-wrap them again to hold this extra wire in an existing bundle. Then I added a MOTM style power connector and twisted some wire on it. I think it looks neat like this. Then I decided it was time to go on and give it a test. Always the most exciting part.

So I attached it to my lab power supply and looked closely if it didn't take too much current first. There are too much components on the PCB with wires running on it to wait for smoke this time ;) Well some leds came on immediately to it looked OK. I attached a clock signal to it after that to see what happened. But quite soon some unexpected stuff happened. I found out that I short circuited the top 5 and 6 switches. A little piece of solder was right between the two wires on the PCB. When I fixed that I also found that they were swapped :( Ah well luckily I left the wires long enough to swap them. I also miswired the B-inv switch and the random switch. Well that was all fixed within the hour. And then it the whole sequencer looked to work OK.

Then I hooked a VCO up to it and an ADSR with a VCA to create some notes on the output. It is really a fun machine to play with. It took me some time though before I figured out how some of the functions work. Especially the priority of the bus switches and CV outputs when you have multiple steps is particular I think. But I guess that is what makes a Klee a Klee :) Well I think I really need togo and read the manual before I make conclusions ;) I guess some calibration is left now, but I'm happy that it works anyway. I didn't make any big mistakes in the wiring and that is a relief.

Klee Sequencer (Part 8)

I worked some more on the Klee Sequencer again. This time I wired the 16 switches on the other side of the front panel. You can see a close-up picture of them on the left. There was not much room any more between the pot meters and the switches, but I managed to get the wires through while leaving the pot meters still reachable in case I still need to solder on them. It is really getting crowded now both on the PCB as on the front panel, but it still looks nice I think. But I'm still not done.

And here is an overview picture again. I still need to put in 8 wires. So the end is in sight. I still have to do the 'left over' components that I talked about in my previous post. And then I really hope it works because it will be a real pain to redo wiring when I made a mistake. I'm quite confident though since I was very careful and checked everything from both ends for every wire. But sometimes I worked late on it and the brain doesn't always work that well at times that I should be sleeping ;) Ah well we'll see. 8 more wires soon and then I'm going to hook it up to a power supply :)

Klee Sequencer (Part 7)

Last weekend I worked again on the Klee Sequencer. I now wired the center components. All the center leds are now connected. As you can see I used some heat shrink on them. Not only to insulate them better, but I think it also helps to prevent the wire from ever coming loose and of course it also looks better. I must look for some tool to heat up the heat shrink though. I usually use my soldering iron for that, but I noticed now that when I do a lot the point gets very black. And it takes me a lot of effort to clean it again. I'm not even sure if something like this exists.

And here you can see how far I got this weekend. I made another circular wire bundle. This time on the inside. And I also made a small bundle running through that to the switches in the middle. I only have 24 wires left to do and then I'm done. I still need to wire the upper row of switches and some components way across the front panel. The 'left overs' so to speak. I'm thinking now about how to properly wire those. I presume I should bundle these with some existing wires. You will see what I came up with in the next post I guess :) I'll keep you updates as always.

Klee Sequencer (Part 6)

Last night I couldn't work on the Klee Sequencer since it was leaking again in the studio. But this morning while waiting for my constructor I could work some more on it. I started wiring the components the furthest away on the front panel. Here you see a close-up shot of the Glide potmeters, the CV A, B and A+B jacks and the optional A, B and A+B jacks. I still don't really understand the difference between the normal CV jacks and the optional ones, but I'm sure I'll figure that out somewhere along the way ;)

After that it was time for the digital side. In the picture you see the trigger and gate jacks for Bus 1,2,3 and the Main gate and trigger. There are also 4 leds for Bus 1,2,3 and main. The three switches you see there where not on the same connection, so I will see how I wire them later. I try to take this step by step and not overdue. If I find out later that I can run a few wires by a route that I used before, I just cut out the tie-wraps. Put the extra wires in the bundle and put new tie-wraps around it. You can better spend a few dimes on some extra tie-wraps I guess than to come up with a bad looking module :) For these outer components I decided to take a new route. I made two bundles of wires on the outer side of the switches.

And here is an overview pictures. You can see the outer bundles clearly here. In case you wonder how they stay in place. Well just near the first and last switch I stick the wires on the the switch. Then find some wire close to that and tie-wrap it on there. The leads to the first soldered components then are kept short, so that it can't fall from behind the switches. It looks like it is a floating bundle but it really isn't. Still left to do now are the upper row of switches the center switches and the leds around that. So now I'm going to figure out how to wire them :)

Klee Sequencer (Part 5)

In the mean time I also worked a bit more on the Klee Sequencer. I started with the wiring of the PCB's. I chose again to hard wire everything like before. In the picture on the left you can see the first wires I put it. It are the wires that interconnect the Analog and the Digital PCB. I used tie-wraps to tidy up the bundles and since I liked the all white wiring I did on the Oakley modules I decided to go for all white for the rest of the wiring on the Klee Sequencer as well. Looks neat doesn't it?

After that I started with the wiring of the switches. I bundled the wires below the ground loop that I made before. This way they keep nicely in place. I had a long look at the wiring before I started because there is a lot of wiring and I don't want it to be a mess later on. Since these switches are off the type on-off-on it doesn't matter which side is which. The wiring is put on the center connection while the other connections are wires together with blank wire on both sides

Next up was the wiring of the rotary switch. I made a new bundle of wires for this one, but followed the same patch as the wiring for the switches to save space. On the rotary switch wire 1 went on the common connection and the other wires on 2,3,4,5,6,7,8 leaving 1 blank. This gives 8 options in total. I found out that one of the disadvantages of white wire is that if you put your solder iron on it too long it turns brown quickly near the solder point. So you have to be quick. I finally. I though this was a nice close-up shot. I should do more of those :)

And then I started on the wiring of the potmeters. I wired the first 8 from the lower side and the other 8 from the upper side. Again to save space on both sides and off course because it looks nicer to keep the circular pattern. As you can see there are quite some wires in place already, but I guess I'm about half way now. So lots more to come. But there is still a lot of space left so I guess I will be able to manage to get everything in. I still have to wire all the leds, jacks and the rest of the switches. The loose black wire you see on the bottom is the analog ground. That wire will go on the PCB later on as well. I hope I will have time soon to work on it some more. I still can't wait to fire it up. I'll keep you posted on the progress.

Klee Sequencer (Part 4)

The last week I also worked again on the Klee Sequencer that I'm building. I've got all components for the PCB's now and completely finished those and I also got all the components for the front panel now. So I can finish this one off. In the picture you can see the back of the front panel and you can also see that I already mounted the PCB's. That was not so easy as I thought. When I ordered the front panel from Bridechamber I also got two pot brackets. They were modified to fit on the jacks on the side. But neither panel is big enough two hold the PCB's. Scott told me they should overlap but then I could only fit one PCB on it. So I came up with another solution.

I mounted the bigger PCB on the two overlapping pot brackets that I got from Bridechamber and mounted this PCB as far on the edge as I could. Then I used a normal 2 Pot Bracket on top of that. I had to drill an extra hole in the front (short part) to get the second potmeter through, since they normal holes are on MOTM distance and these obviously are not. The I mounted the smaller PCB with one end on the space that was left on the two overlapping pot brackets and the other side on the 2 pot bracket. It is actually quite a good fit and the PCB is very secure not touching anything on the bottom by far. As you can see in the first picture the two PCB's are side to side. That will make the inter PCB wiring very easy later on I guess. So it took me a while to figure this one out, but I'm happy now.

After that I started with the wiring. And there will be quite some wires in the end. But the trick is to do them just one by one ;) The first thing to do is make two ground loops. There is a separate ground loop for all the digital connections and another ground loop for the analog signal. In this way the chance of interference is kept to a minimum. I used a combination of blank and insulated wire. The advantage of blank wire is that you can stick it through several component and make a nice string that you can solder later on. And you can also solder other wires on the black wire wherever you like. Especially for a ground loop that you need almost everywhere on the front panel that is convinient.

And here is a picture from the finished ground loop wiring. You can clearly see the blank wire that I put on the leds in the middle. It is a nice circle and then the other components are attached to this. This is the digital ground loop. The analog ground loop is on the potmeters around that. Also in a circular setup. From both these loops eventually 1 ground wire will be on the PCB's. The next thing to do is wire the PCB's together and run the rest of the wires from the front panel components to the PCB's. I'll keep you posted as usual!

Klee Sequencer (Part 3)

Last week I wrote on my blog that I was looking for the 0.1% 100K resistors and I got a very nice reaction on that post. Andre mailed me with the Farnell part number and I could order them right away. I asked him back if he also knew the part numbers for some other components as it turned out that he was also building a Klee Sequencer. So he gave me his list for the stuff I didn't have yet. This saved me an enormous amount of time. Thanks Andre! I also got some more led holders last week since I overlooked 5 leds on the front panel.

Here you see the font panel with the extra leds and most of the switched installed. The switches are all APEM series 5000. They have a very nice flat look. I still need to mount three switched in the middle and the jacks, potmeters and a rotary switch. I'm trying to order them from Bridechamber, but I think Scott is a bit busy since he doesn't react very quickly on mail and it looks like he didn't even ship my previous order yet. So I'm considering to order some stuff from Mouser. I also got part numbers for the potmeters and rotary switch from Andre.

After I mounted the front panel components I worked some more on the PCB's with the next supply of parts that I got. I'm still missing 100K resistors and 100nF capacitors, but the rest is soldered. When checking the IC values I saw that my local electronics shop gave me alternatives. In stead of the CMOS CD types I got HCF ones. I don't think I should do this even though I can't make up from the data sheets if it would be a problem. But I rather not take chances and will bring them back and order them from Farnell I guess. Too bad that getting all the components takes so much time. I'd love to start wiring it, but I better wait until everything is in place.

Klee Sequencer (Part 2)

I visited my local electronics shop again today to pick up some more parts for the Klee Sequencer. I also look for some nice led holders and found these ones. The only problem though is that they were wider than the holes that Bridechamber put in the front panel. I don't know what kind of led holders Scott uses, but they need to be very tiny since these ones were the smallest I could find. Well I think these look neat since they are shiney like the rest of the front panel components I selected.

The only scary thing was that I needed to drill holes in this very nice front panel. I think the standard holes were 6 millimeter and for the led holders I selected I needed to drill 8 millimeter holes. Well luckily there is room enough for that. I did a trial first on the Yusynth Noise and Random module I build before. There was still a led holder missing on that as well. I also found out that There are 5 more leds going on the front panel than I anticipated. I only looked at the step position leds, but there is also a clock led and bus leds. Well the electronics shop had enough in stock :)

In the picture on the left you see the result. Looks nice doesn't it? Well I like it anyway. I did have some trouble by the way to get the plastic piece in that holds the led in place in the metal casing. If you look closely in the picture on top you see a little black thing sticking out of the led holder. That has to go all the way in actually to secure the led. And I needed to apply quite some force on to that. Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but at least the won't go anywhere anymore now. I'll pick of 5 more leds and led holders somewhere soon and finish it. Now back to the PCB's :)

Klee Sequencer (Part 1)

Today I got the first parts for the Klee Sequencer. I only got some resistors actually and not even all of them. My local electronics supplier was out of 100K 1% resistors. So they had to order them for me. They didn't have time to get the rest yet. There was a choice to make in the design for 5 Volt or 10 Volt trigger voltages. I chose the 5 Volt. I think my stuff will trigger on that. If not I will have to change some resistors later on. This is something to look at when you want to build a Klee sequencer for yourself. In the picture on the left you see the digital PCB by the way.

In the picture on the right you see the analog PCB. I'm also missing the 100K resistors for this one, but then lots of them were stated as 0.1%. My local electronics store actually never heard of that :) I need to see if I can get them somewhere on the Internet. If you have tips please let me know. There is also a possibility to hand match the resistors from 1% types. The mounting holes in these PCB's are quite small actually what makes it difficult to get the solder flowing. But I guess I have to get used to this for this project. Maybe I should look for a smaller tip for my soldering iron.

Here is another picture of the Klee Sequencer front panel together with the PCB's. I'm now studying the building document and I'm looking for the front panel components. There is a lot of switches on there and the building document states that it is important to get quality ones for this. Bridechamber is not selling a component kit for this unfortunately, so I will have to find them somewhere else. Ah well I'm sure I'll find the brands mentioned in the document somewhere. So far this looks like a fun project. I can't wait to get it doing something useful :)

Modular Progress Overview

Since I'm working a lot now on my modular project and I only showed you some PCB's and loose panels I thought it would be nice to post a little overview of the modules I have finished now. In the bottom of the picture on the left you can see the Yusynth filter modules I build and the Wogglebug. On top are three modules I bought on E-bay. On the left is a MOTM-120 Sub Octave Multiplier that adds subharmonics, next to that a MFOS Quantizer and next to that the Oakley Noise and Dual filter module that I used to test my other filter modules.

In this picture you see the two MOTM 900 and 950 Power supplies that I build. And also the VC-LFO that I repaired earlier. It has an Oakley front panel, but is actually a MFOS. I do plan to build an Oakley one and swap panels somewhere in the future. On the right you see the Yusynth Random module I build with noise generator and sample and hold. I still haven't fastened any module in the cabinet yet, since I'm still not sure where everything should go. I need to make some kind of plan for that I guess.

And maybe you spotted this front panel in a previous post as well. Here you see it together with the PCB's that go with it. This will become a Klee sequencer from Electro-music.com. It looks really great in this circular setup. I got this front panel from Bridechamber and it was designed by Thomas White. I studied the documentation for this project last week and I ordered all the PCB components. Hopefully they will arrive on Monday and then I can start building this beast :) I can't wait to see it working. This project is the most complex module I build so far. But we all do need a challenge don't we :) I'll keep you posted on the progress as always of course.