Odds & Ends

Lately I've been working on a few projects, but I have been spending a large amount of time drawing and playing/editing music.
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Here are some electronic happenings:
I replaced the jack, switch, and pots in my friend's Telecaster. It was informative and eliminated a ton of scratchy interference. I bought a parts kit here for the job. It's a little pricey, but the parts are all matched exactly.

I also got a daisy chain and searched through my stash of wall-warts so that now all my music gear (10 items) is powered by 3 power blocks! consequentially, it's all insanely lighter.

I managed to mod this design to make a 16-step sequencer. With help from Michael Una and Bill Bowden.
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Works in progress:
- 4-channel, 16-step Circuit-Bent Drum Toy
- JWJ's Monster
- Thingamahands
- "The Perfect Clock Unit"
- A few StudioFactory projects

SynthZilla Is Complete!

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It started as the OrcaSynth (a mod of a HackADay project), turned into the DigiSynth, and now has finished off as SynthZilla!

The final build includes control over pitch, duty, portamento, 2 LFOs, tone, body, gain, vol, 8-step voltage sequencer, and more!


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Below is the schematic I used. Not all the components are labelled and I didn't draw in the bypass jacks for all the knobs, but you get the idea. Let me know if you'd like a cleaner, complete schematic and I will happily oblige.

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A couple notes: I used a quad-amp simply because I was out of single amp ICs. Also, the tone/body filter only works well through headphones or an external amp, not the onboard speaker.

Video-Making Time

I finished Synthzilla! I will post that asap; but for now, enjoy these videos I made just for you.

Monsters in Jars & WIP Panels

Well every time I promise something is "upcoming" I get side-tracked. So today I have something completely different to appease you.

These are two monsters I sculpted as gifts for a couple friends. More info in the set.

Here are some incomplete projects:

Top two are my Digisynth panel being built. Bottom left is a WIP Circuit-Bent Casio CZ-101. Bottom right is a MysteryMonster; any ideas as to what it does?

Stay Tuned for 3 New Projects!

Hello! I am about halfway done with 3 new from-scratch noisemakers. Just as a sample, here is the confusing front panel for the HANd SOLO:
[click for larger]The small red dots are banana jacks, and the small yellow dots are touch points.
The second upcoming monster is version two of this little groanmachine I made for the chap who first got me into noise and electronics:
[click for larger]It makes awful clicks and squeals and is very sensitive to organic interference, but oddly not electronic interference.
The third is a square box with 23 controls that makes hellish noise!
Stay tuned for schematics for all three monsters. (For starters, the brains used in these monsters are 7805, irf510, 40106, 555, 4017 and lm324).