Sunday, September 14, 2014

LSW 15 - Knobcon Edition

Just spent the weekend at knobcon. This was the first time I attended and the first time I've taken LSW outside of my basement! Initially I was a bit overwhelmed, but once I got my table set up and started to meet people, the nerves settled. It was truly an amazing experience. I got a lot of positive feedback for the caseless module prototypes (more on these later) as well as the modded Werkstatt and TTSH. The highlight for me was meeting Herbert Deutsch and then having him asking me to take a photo with him! Seriously, what!?!

Another great experience was all of the spontaneity. It was a lot of fun to walk up to a modular cranking away on a patch and then tweaking with it into another direction. Macro Machines table was right next to mine and at one point on Saturday we clocked our modulars together. I coulda done that for the rest of the night. As my day job, LSW and fatherly duties keep me occupied pretty much 24/7, I don't get to take my synths out. Finally having the opportunity to do this was spot on.

So, now it's over and all I can do now is count down the days to the next one...




Tuesday, September 9, 2014

Werkstatt Mods continuum

It wasn't an easy decision to come to, but after much thought, I realized there was really no avoiding adding some knobs to the Werkstatt.  It was really bugging me that I couldn't use the Werkstatt glide when using the EXP VCO IN, as the Glide is part of the keyboard which tracks 3V/Oct.  It doesn't work will with 1V/Oct gear.  The other thing was being unable to control the level of the VCO and the External IN.  So, I added a glide and mixer circuit.  It'll be a small PCB with SMD parts that'll fit right onto the kludge area.  There's even enough room to solder in the MINICV PCB for some MIDI action!

I'll be putting an order in for some of the PCB's and this will be a standard mod to be added to any Werkstatt's from here on out.  I'll post the schematics and PCB files in the next couple of days as well.

Laurentide SynthWorks 14 - Werkstatt Mod Walkthrough from Laurentide SynthWorks on Vimeo.