From the original SynthMaker forum (2004–2014), with its members’ names and dates.
tor ·
Thought I should make a DIY analog summer. Did some googling and found some interesting DIY-kit suppliers:
http://store.analogmetric.com/index.php http://www.seventhcircleaudio.com/ http://www.electrokit.se (swedish language) http://diyaudioprojects.com/
Please add more liks if you know of any good suppliers out there.
tor ·
Found more:
http://www.soundskulptor.com/index.html http://www.fivefishstudios.com/diy-kits
Is there anyone in here that have made any analog devices from DIY-kits or own designs from scratch?
trogluddite ·
Done plenty of kits in my teens - and I still design and build PCBs at work regularly.
Looks like most of those kits have PCBs already, and they mostly look like they use through-hole devices - so they should all be pretty easy to build (I have to hand solder surface-mount PCBs sometimes - that's enough to test anybody's patience!)
The kits are definitely the way to go if you have limited circuit building experience (or even if you've done lots) - not just because of the manual skill involved.... Designing a PCB for a custom circuit can be very labour intensive (I do that at work too) - and with hi-fi analogue there's a real "black magic" to laying out the components to avoid noise, crosstalk, stray capacitance etc. PCBs can also be very expensive to have made in small quantities. IMO using veroboard etc. is not such a good idea if you want good analogue audio performance (lots of stray capacitance and awkward component placing) - best used just for testing prototypes. Also, with a kit, all of the component sourcing has already been done (that's my most frustrating job at work!!) - it's not always easy pr cheap to shop for precisely the parts you need in small quantities - especially if you want the very highest quality.
Apologies if you know all that stuff already - but maybe useful for other folks to know.
tor ·
thanks 🙂
i have no prior experience in this. my plan now is first just make a balanced passive summing device. then maybe i make a try at a tube gain makeup stage/ preamp. would be nice with a multi purpose studio unit for characteristic summing, routing and mic amping.
Acrobat ·
Just bought a re-constructed TB-303: "x0xb0x". it is an exact replica, not a clone, with all parts and PCB just the same as the famous Roland magic machine. Nice. Not exactly industry standard quality but it works great and I'm having fun with .It went straight into my musical project as it actually substitutes a CS DB-9 and does even more, having a groovy resonance that the Deep Bass hadn't. I had no idea how to build it, a guy from Hong Kong built for me. I heard there's also some people producing some TR-808 exact clones and that's fine too. It's called MG-808 but they built just a few of 'em and I don't know at which point they are now with building new units for "mass" production. There's a lot of trouble for builders finding parts as they become obsolete and sometimes has to be substituted with modern equivalents which not alwasys behave exactly the same. 😈
DigitalWhiteByte ·
tor wrote: thanks 🙂
i have no prior experience in this. my plan now is first just make a balanced passive summing device. then maybe i make a try at a tube gain makeup stage/ preamp. would be nice with a multi purpose studio unit for characteristic summing, routing and mic amping.
Project Summing based on NEUMANN V475-2. DUO- Master Amp card the same of DANCA have into.
I've already made 😀
http://www.prodigy-pro.com/diy/index.php?topic=13857.0
trogluddite ·
tor wrote: i have no prior experience in this.
I'd suggest then, that the first thing to do is to buy a couple of very cheap 'electronic toy' kits (check out Velleman for some silly little gadgets). That way, you can practice the skills that you need without risking damage to your expensive audio kit. Especially with hi-fi sound, the quality of your soldering can make a big impact on the quality of the audio - so a bit of experience really makes a difference. I'll be happy to give you some advice if you need help choosing the right tools etc. - just post up your questions here. Acrobat wrote: There's a lot of trouble for builders finding parts as they become obsolete
Not just the obsolete ones, too. There are serious shortages of some chips, and some capacitors are almost impossible to get hold of at the moment - the big Chinese manufacturers are at full capacity just supplying their domestic market - so none left for the rest of the world. I heard that some European mobile phones had to be completely redesigned just to reduce the number of tantalum capacitors required.
tor ·
DigitalWhiteByte wrote: Project Summing based on NEUMANN V475-2. DUO- Master Amp card the same of DANCA have into.
I've already made 😀
http://www.prodigy-pro.com/diy/index.php?topic=13857.0
Ah... looks real nice 😀 good to know I have some experts to talk to in here. Im constantly short on money so things will probabl take som time.
Trogluddite: I am aware of soldering vs quality. My soldering experience is very limited so some training is probably a good idea. I guess this is the biggest challege. 😉
So for a start I will need a solderingstation, multimeter and some sheap kits for training.
Dell ·
More advanced designers frequent this forum. www.diyaudio.com
I believe I've been a member there since 1999 or 2000.
Cheers!
attic ·
You could buy an old Yamaha toy keyboard at the Flea-market for a few dollars and just go about testing what happens when you randomly touch wires across circuits when you find something nice radioshack in a knob or other parts. I have had a lot fun Frankensteining stuff like this and its cheap + keeps toxic stuff from our dumps.
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