Modular Synth

Modular Synthesizer

By the end of 2013 I Found out about Synth DIY sites. Names like Yusynth and Mfos came up, and I was blown away about how accessible it is to build your own modular synthesizer. It doesn't have to be that expensive when you do it yourself and you don't need to know al ins and outs of electronics to do it yourself.

I decided that I wanted to start building some modules. I called my friend Erwin Tuijl to join and he said a friend, Tom raaff (who happened to be my classmate) also wanted to join. So we came together a few times to set this project up. We are individually building a synth, but we etch and drill all PCB's (from Yusynth.com) together. So we hope to end up with 3 awesome modulars.

We are working on a blog for the 3 of us but here is my progress on Synth Building:

So here we are my first modular synth. The first thing I wanted to build was the case/cabinet.

I bought some wood at a local building shop, and builded (with my furniture building

experience) this cabinet.

My dad as a experienced painter, did an awesome job painting it white.

I have found the mounting rails for the frontpanels in the local building shop as well. They

where just aluminium 90 degrees angled strips and I had to drill the holes in the rails and front

panels myself.

After all that I noticed I had kept a piece of wood from an old amp which I could use as finishing

vintage touch.

We ordered a lot op blank PCB's and started transfering the layouts on to them. Later on we began etching and drilling. We are still not done etching al PCB's because it takes a lot of time and takes a lot of concentration. But the first "solder ready" PCB's came out really nice!

Find more PCB making info here!

PCB's

$17 Gate/Trigger Sequencer

I noticed velleman company was selling diy kits for a led light sequencer. I started thinking what if I wire the voltages going to the led's to minijack sockets.

I ordered the mk107 kit and started measuring the voltage going to the leds (I measured the points before the voltage go's trough the resistors). In theorie it would allow me to send gate/triggers trough the minijack sockets because the output is 5v or higher. With that information I have build the Kit, and customized it so I can build it into my synthesizer. I want to add some changes for the panel design because I'm not happy with it but the "prototype" is finished!

Mutable Instruments CVpal

I was thinking a lot about how I want to control my synth. MIDI to CV converters are to expensive for me at this point and I am trying to build everything myself so it is as educational as this project can be.

After doing a lot of research on the internet I found out about this company called Mutable Instruments selling usb to CV kits!

I ordered the kit as soon as they where in stock. I finished the kit in about an hour. In the building files on the Mutable Instruments site, there is a lot of information about what every component does so it was very helpfull and educational + its a great module.

this inexpensive module allows me to control modules with max MSP, ableton and any other software that can output midi data!

Power Supply

My good friend and classmate designed this bipolar power supply based on some other schematics. We ordered his designed self pcb's from a company in china. I'm going to use this as a bipolar +/- 12/15 Volts power supply for my synthesizer.