building a monome!

I'm going to put the Gristleizer in its enclosure this weekend (will post pics) - this is a project with a long history, started as a hobby magazine project and was adopted by the band Throbbing Gristle, where one of the band members made one of these for each band member. The diystompboxes.com forum got the project revived including the original project/circuit author got involved in a new pcb layout and run of boards. This is a fun vca/vcf modulated by an LFO. Its more than that though, kind of a sound mangler on steroids with a wide range LFO with nice sounding audio-range modulation.

I'm building the box out of repurposed computer peripherals mainly, should be fun and have an appropriately Industrial look to it

- Strategy

I recently got into the microcontroller thing (via an Arduino) so I'm trying to figure out how to make a piezo to solenoid auto-accompanist to build inside my bass drum that would take input from my bass drum/floor tom, manipulate it somehow, then spit back rhythms via solenoids mounted in the same drums.

@strategy: Yeah, I ordered a board today for the gristlizer. Cool forum for sure..

Okay, I am probably going for stepsequenced (4017) atari punk console build. Veroboard for the first time... :)

The gristleizer is fun- there's other stuff that does this too but- its fun to build and the LFOs going into fast audio range are great. That is rare among pedal designs.

What is haunting mids? I guess I must not be on it (?)

- Strategy

Taken a bite out of the code required for an Arduino-based granular tremolo. And by bite I mean, pre-baby step.

@ blue_lu:
that is cool there's another someone like me with ferrets in portland. I don't know any ferret people in the music community here. But there is a big ferret community. I have one white one, an orange one, and a ferret colored one (sable). I also volunteer a little bit for the ferret shelter. They are my posse. I would not last for a minute on a guitar forum. I do play guitar, but it is fake guitar, i am actually a composer/keyboard player/programmer/DJ/noise person and so I can play every instrument "fake" to sample myself, instead of playing one instrument correctly and being able to really be genuine at it. Its bad enough being a synth nerd on diystompboxes.com, I think I would be devoured in a guitar forum piranha tank ;-) ;-)

@ gorgiv:
For my stompbox supplies and stomp switches in particular I use the tried and true www.smallbearelec.com. If you work on synth projects they have some handy stuff there too like CA3080s and vactrols. But there is a guitar shop in Portland who will sell me 3PDTs for $9 in a pinch too.

Next project: troubleshooting the Juergen Haible Tau Pipe Phaser with a friend and, a re-version of the PAIA Gator- enclosed in the original, late-70s/early-80s Gator enclosure from some old projects from my Dad - that he had in storage for the last almost 30 years. Parts of the circuits don't work so its like a new PCB layout of the original circuit built using some ancient parts from an original kit. I don't know if what I just wrote makes sense, I hope it does

- Strategy

rodrigo - very cool! I just finsihed the lil sidrassi. cool sounds to be had, but a little too simple to really keep my attention for a longer time. on to the next! what would you recommend?!

still eyeing with the rollz 5, maybe the old mir grassi first?!

ok, cool.

I will go for the grassi then. I have to say these paper circuits are a lot of work! Even the little grassi was a really long build. punching the holes, weaving the wires... takes some good time.

Rodrigo,

I really apprecite you sticking with me here (or in the nabra group). I currently have only internet access at the uni (internet provider needs until next thursday to enable inet access at my new flat) so my replies will be a bit slughish, unfortunately.

I will use your part list, thanks so much for setting these up.. Also, I think it is better to continue discusion about peters stuff in the nabra group, just to be fair to Todd.

So, talk to you "over there" ;)

I recently built Brian Castro's awesome x0xi0 full mod of the x0xbox - turns the x0x into a really flexible 2 oscillator monster, with plenty of i/o:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nabra-users/

It's a group for ciat-lonbarde instruments.

dAN: agh, still no sign of my full on x0xio kit. Might be held up because I went for the new compact pcb idea. By the way did yours have these new mini-midi jacks? Not so crazy about that idea but I understand the space issue so much is going in there.
Built a Dr. Bleep nebulophone and like its crazy modes. Might get another since they sync but can be varied within that.

laup: +1 for the second VCO. I wish I could just get the PCBs from the german since I have so many x0x parts left over from my two builds plus the 2 3030s

Fuck painting it, that looks awesome.

You should put some fake meat/blood/bones on the inside of the grill, amongst the wires, so people can peek in and be all like "what the fuck?!".

Full x0xi0 kit arrived yesterday, picked up today. Time to stop musini dancing to Rye Rye. Bang!

I'm interested in this xoxbox, although I have no idea what it is. I'm assuming it is some sort of drone or oscillating machine... which is along the lines of what I am trawling the internet for. I am looking at all the DIY synth sites, all the circuit bending sites, all the YouTube videos, etc... trying to find that perfect machine that will give me a lot of random yet organic ambience (none of that analog, retro sounding stuff). I've already found a few potentials, but I'm now looking at other devices, such as WSG and Soundlab to give me an idea of what is out there.

I'm currently modding and retro-fitting a Casio VA-10 Voice Arranger keyboard to turn it into a feedback-drone/dub-monster. The VA-10 is possibly THE single best lo-fi instrument to perform an internal feedback-loop on and with it's 60 built-in effects it has serious potential. I have dubbed my VA-10 project 'The Voyager' due to the incredibly spaced-out self-oscillating feedback ambience this thing generates. But to spice things up a bit, I am installing a Boss RE-20 (Roland Space Echo) pedal circuit (complete) into the feedback path and adding an LTC1799 Precision Oscillator from GetLoFi for full pitch control over the entire circuit. I'm then installing a Realistic Electronic Reverb (circuit bent) into the feedback path, (replacing all sliders with knobs) and then mounting all the knobs and switches along the front panel (below the keys) as well as along the rear deck (behind the Tone Bank legend). Finally, I am running all that through an optional Voice Changer Megaphone (circuit bent, of course) which will be installed internally to add a final stage vocoder effect... then I am fitting an XLR panel mount so that I can plug in a gooseneck microphone MicroKorg-style, so I can make vocoder/voice effector and pitch changing work easier... as well as the occasional external feedback tricks.

The Boss RE-20 Internals (with wires & LED's clipped):


Adding all these features will help to maintain an overall 'effect/feedback/vocoder' theme throughout the entire keyboard, thus making it a very specialized piece of equipment. I'm making every attempt at giving it a professional 'factory fitted' look and am replacing all knobs and dials with very sleek, modern style controls. I am now looking for some kind of ambience generator or DIY synth that would generate sounds that are complimentary and perfect as a sound source for feedback-looping and self-oscillating effects. I'm trying to avoid all the bleeps and bloops and have been looking at some circuit bent talking toys as well as miniature sound effect toys.

Then, my second project is the merging of a Yamaha PSS-380 Digital Synth with a Yamaha VSS-200 Sampling Keyboard. The two keyboards will be kept original, but the PSS-380 will be mounted on top of, and behind, the VSS-200. A proper casing will be built underneath them and wooden cheek ends will bring the two together into a single unit. Then I am installing a panel mount XLR gooseneck microphone (Korg style) on the PSS-380 to enable easier sampling on the VSS-200... then I am installing a TC-Helicon VoiceTone Create-XT effects pedal into the output path to add a more natural sound to the cheesy 80's instruments (all 200 of them). I am then installing the upcoming WTPA kit into the VSS-200 and attempting to link up the sampling inputs and outputs of the VSS-200 to the WTPA circuit. There will be a series of knobs and buttons installed into the instrument casing of both keyboards, but I am attempting to keep the extra control surfaces to a minimum here. Finally, I am going to install a DIY synth, such as a Soundlab or a WSG... perhaps even a circuit bent talking toy, much like ASMO has created, to generate very organic, granular like sounds which can be resampled into WTPA or the VSS-200. As an added feature, I am installing two LTC1799 Precision Oscillators for individual control over all pitch as well as hooking up both keyboards to a single crystal, so that I can choose between fixed/synced pitch or dual/adjustable pitch. As well as all that, I am going to install 2 Highly Liquid MIDI modules to allow external MIDI control. Am I forgetting anything? Oh yes, I am going to circuit bend the PSS-380 with a data-line cut mod to allow for another 8 switches to mix FM tones together and I am going to wire up another two FM chips plus the FM chip out of the VSS-200 internally so that I can choose which bank of 100 tones I can use the digital synth sliders to adjust. So the FM chip becomes 'hot-swappable' with three other FM chips to give me a bank of 400 FM tones that I can adjust using the 7-band, 8-level digital synth as well as the extra 8 data-line switches and built-in 5050 dual-voice feature to give me millions of sound possibilities. Combine this power with the WTPA and the VSS-200, with it's ADSR envelope generator and 9 DSP effects and I'll have one powerful 8-bit retro machine!

Simple mockup of PSS-380/VSS-200/TC-Helicon/WTPA configuration:


Thirdly, I am looking at installing the new WTPA into a Yamaha VSS-30 keyboard and adding a LTC1799 Precision Oscillator and possibly an internally fitted Mattel UCreate Music sampler. Yes, I know I have some extremely ambitious projects... but the first two are already underway and I am now building a fourth, DIY synth project. So I will have plenty of show-and-tell and updates to provide everyone with! Next update I will hopefully have something a little more substantial to show.

The beginnings of my DIY Synth (Re-purposed AceCAD pen-tablet and pen-plotter base, both emptied, cut and merged):


I can't wait for the new WTPA sampler! Looks like I will be grabbing a few of them while they're still hot! (I predict they will sell out pretty quickly).

Alex Andersson: The x0xb0x is basically a kick ass TB-303 clone. Including sequencer. It's about the best clone there is, mostly because the synth side of it uses the very same components as the real deal, so if you build it right, it will definitely sound the part.
Also, being a reasonably inexpensive kit.. It lends itself well to modding. You wouldn't really want to mod a real 303 as they are worth silly amounts of money now, so are best kept original.
x0xb0x's also have Midi, CV and USB, which the original never had. They only had Din sync which the x0xb0x still has.
On top of that, the whole deal is open source. So all the info you could possibly want is out there, which again, helps with the modding thing right down to alternative OS's you can use for the MCU.

@ rosch ... I certainly will. I know the Narrat1ve forum is meant for WTPA discussion more so than DIY synths and circuit bending projects. I'm already a member of the electro-music forum and I am going to repost my reply as a new thread there and continually update my work in progress. Just to let you know, I live down under in the beautiful city of Melbourne, Australia, so my posts may seem to appear at really odd times of the day (or night!)... but I am working on my projects on a daily basis... trawling the internet and eBay for all kinds of toys, devices, schematics, informations, books, projects, etc... sourcing out keyboards, gadgets... I have a large collection of mint condition Casio and Yamaha mid-size keyboards (currently nearly 40 in total), yet I am eventually getting rid of half of them to buy some modern equipment for recording as well as components for circuit bending and DIY synth building. I am soon to begin composing and recording electronic and experimental music, (a fusion of progressive and ambient styles) as a one man band under the name of 'radionactive' (with www.radionactive.com to become my main site) ... so expect to see some demo tracks soon as well. I currently have a dozen songs in the writing stage. I also have a collection of around 2000 VST instruments and software synths with gigabytes of presets and samples that I have set up on my DAW and my MIDI rig. So that will enable me to add a considerable amount of polish and depth to my music :)

In an hour from writing this message, I am going out the back to start jigsawing some more of my DIY synth project and do a little more preparation work on the pen-plotter base and wooden side-cheeks to put together a mock-up of it. Then, I am going to go on eBay and buy myself a few talking toys and perhaps a DIY kit or two.

As you can tell, I'm pretty keen on this whole thing, yet I hope that my enthusiasm and n00bness doesn't begin to grate on anyone's nerves! :D

You could probably swap the crystal to get the pitch range moved that much.

Or something like this might do it?

http://www.getlofi.com/?page_id=1302

no zelda bedsheets?! :)

I finished my Shruti-1 a day or so after I got it.

http://drop.io/hidden/akoy12nqiaqyda/asset/MTAwLTEwNTgtanBn

The sound is so sweet. I haven't had much time to play with it, but you can get 101-type basses or Oberheim-style PWM stuff. It's all thanks to that filter, methinks.
The case is coming along nicely; there are just a couple pieces I have to model, then I'm going to use Ponoko for the first time.

cool! i've got five en route for me and nerd buddies.


btw, i had superman bedsheets that only got thrown out when i got a girlfriend... :)

haha, alex. how many projects do you have going on now, somewhere between 15 and 20 I assume ;)