Juno Bling cont.

Got the PCB laid out and parts soldered in. I added a diode between the Juno and the 3904 Base. It's highly unlikely, but I wanted to protect the Juno from any stray voltage. Mods to old synths always make me nervous. Now to get the LED's and drill the holes.

Juno Bling

Occasionally I will work on a synth purely for aesthetic reasons.  The Juno-106 works perfectly and doesn't need any servicing as of yet, but, if I can customize it, I will (as long as it's out of warranty).

I try not to buy pre-packaged "diy" kits from eBay, but I looked for just the display elsewhere and was finding it to be more expensive than buying the diy kit on eBay that comes with the display and all of the LED's.  Swapped 'em out today (rather quickly I might ad.  Solder wick is awesome).  Looks pretty rad.  Along with the African Blackwood End Cheeks, it's lookin pretty slick.  Also was able to get the voice LED indicators working (ala DSI PolyEvolver).  There's never too many LED's.  I don't have enough 3904's laying around, so getting that complete will have to wait until next mouser order.  Word.

Also, if you want to do the Active Voice LED mod, here's a "how-to" vid:

Shruthi-1 4PM

Just finished another "Tursted Builders" build.  This one is housed in a custom "Antarctic Base" Case, in not-as-opaque white.  I have seen both this white and the offical "Wolf" case, and I like this white better.  Looks more like a block of ice.  An alien device locked in the Antarctic glaciers.  Verycool!  Even cooler is this one is going to Israel!

More pics here

Sometimes they work!

Over the course of the past 10 years, I have fried out many-a-integrated circuits.  Today, was not one of those days.  After recently entering the world of the Modular Synth, I started looking at what I had around me and how I could get it to talk CV, if it didn't already.  The first was a Monotron.  That one's pretty much a no brainer.  Just a couple wires and some jacks.  The next was my Moog Prodigy.  It worked-ish.  Something was a bit squirly, so I decided to removed what I had added and put it back.  I'd rather have a CV IN/OUT-less Prodigy than no Prodigy.

The most recent was adding CV IN's to a Shruthi-1.  The thing with those is the CV IN traces go right to the Atmel Processor, which can only handle up to +5V.  +5.01V and it's toast.  Any negative voltages end with the same outcome.  But, with the right protection, it should work.  So, after discussing this with the Official MI Case Maker, a simple circuit was devised.  Thankfully I have a spare Digital Control Board, so worse case scenario, I have an extra Atmel.   I wired the jacks up, took a deep breath and sent it some voltages from the dotcom.  The Shruthi stayed the course!  Not a flicker or a twinge!  I was quicky setting up different destinations in the Mod Matrix and using the dotcom oscillator as an LFO and getting some great results.  Couldn't have been happier.  Especially since I had ordered a custom case with 4 CV IN holes.

At any rate, now that it has been fully tested, I can now add this to the list of additional mods available for the Shruthi.

More pics here

New Link Section

Just put a section in the Links page where I will put projects/bands for people that I have done builds for. If I have done a build for you and you don't see you project on there, send me a link and I'll add it. That is all.

Laurentide - Nebulatron

     Occasionally I will actually mess around and "create" music.  Granted we (Adirondac) are working on a bunch of new tracks currently, but it's been a bit since I've had time to just tweak away.  Anyway, here's a 10 minute video I recorded during a 2 hour tweak-a-thon!

Ambika SVF

Just completed a Mutable Instruments Ambika with 6 SVF Voicecards for someone that contacted me through the Mutable Instruments "Trusted Builders" list on the forum.  This is my second Ambika that I've built.  It's not hard, mainly because it's all "drop in" parts, but it is extremely time consuming.  It's roughly 8-10 total hours.  This includes the time to source the parts, organize them, assemble the unit, test it and troubleshoot any issues.  The other one I build has 6 4P Voicecards.  I must admit that I like the SVF's better.  It seems to fit the raw sound of the synth better than the 4P.  It feels like the 4P is trying to mask the fact that the oscillators are digital with "warm" 4 Pole filters.  The SVF feels like it accentuates and celebrates it's digitalness with its 2 Pole filtering, along with Bandpass & Highpass modes!  If I build me another one for myself, it will definitely be filled with SVF Boards.

More Photo's here