The DIY Synth/FX/Stuff thread ... =)

[Ongelegen]

How hard is it to build the Shruthi-1 for someone with very little knowledge and experience?
Is it hard to mess up? My only experience with soldering is 3 pairs of DIY binaural mics, which is only 12 wires I had to solder.

those look so cool

I am hoping to get on that level one day

Wait huh? I've never showed pics or am I being stupid?

[FSTZ]

I was talking about the Shruthi-1, not the binaural mics

[Ongelegen]

Yeah obviously, i'm such a dumbass sometimes

[paradigm_x]

ok to answer a few queries;

Soldering itself is a bit of a skill but like everything just a bit of practise. I bought a basic noise machine kit which is very noob friendly so i didnt break anything too important. You can even just buy a bag of resistors and some perfboard for a tenner and solder em all together.

Once youve done that, and got some soldering chops, the shruthi is pretty easy. The instructions are very clear and you just have to go relly slowly, double check everyhting, twice ! and it should just come together.

The basic kit is about £130... you could get the bits cheaper but youd have to spend hours finding and ordering all the bits, making sure you get the right bits, and it does take hours... the shruthi, x0x and other kits are generally a lot better for noobs than just schematics or random pcbs. THeres also the nicer filter boards (Roland clone, CEM, SSM2044) etc which are a bit more advanced as you need to source and 'stuff' (solder in all the bits) without a step by step guide. Im going to get the Roland IR3109 board for the shruthi, theres a sick programmer on the way, which also allows you to add two filter boards to the shruthi, 3 analogue filters in parallel the sick.

But the IR3109 chip is around £30 itself, and obsolete, and theres fakes floating around...

But you also need, as a bare minimum, a soldering iron (as much as you can afford, £20-50), some wire utters, a digital multimeter (£10+) some solder (DONT buy crappy maplins lead free, its a nightmare to work with (£10+) and a solder remover/sucker (£4ish). And more tools are obv very helpful.

So price depends on hat yovue already got, and your long term interest. Its prob cheaper to buy a mopho or whatever, and it wont 'waste' four days building it. But if youre interested in the general idea, make the investment and you can literally build or mod what ever you want.

Ive got a bit involved with it all recently i must admit, after the x0x and a mixer PSU, ive got a 808 clone to build ... heh, that will be a real challenge. Also thinking of a midi controllable one playable in pitch. Its doable, but prob be a bit of a head scratcher.

Tons on nice helpful folks around tho, see muffwigglers and electro-music DOY forums.

Hope this is helpful.

[Ongelegen]

Thanks for the big reply, very helpful. It seems doable for me i guess, think its worth a try. Not really looking for a already build synth.
If i have the money i'll be on this, just for the fun of building it myself on days i've nothing to do. Hopefully i'll learn some stuff along the way too. Once again cheers for the reply.

[FSTZ]

yeah, I think I am going to start with this

http://www.makershed.com/ProductDetails ... Code=MKJR2

it's a simple $25 noise generator kit (eventhough they're out of stock)

and then maybe work into something like this

http://www.makershed.com/ProductDetails ... Code=MKBL1

that maker shed site has a lot of cool beginner DIY projects

[hifi]

Yay!

Well it works, which is amazing enough in itself, but it also sounds great. Gritty 8bitness with analogue filter, and lots of modulation options. Filter isnt quite as good as other analogue ones ive heard but pretty decent, and i think it still needs a bit of tuning. Screens a little bit wonky too, but given my problems yesterday im chuffed it even works. Very inspiring.

Did record a demo tweak of some of the presets and me jamming but it ended up a 45 min long recording so i doubt you want to hear that. Some great little noises in the presets (a few great vowel wavetables - YOIYOIYOIY) in there and loads of room to make patches and pretty easy to use. Great little project.

Best thing about it is i kept thinking, hmm, wouldnt it be nice if it had a mute button, or a dedicated filter knob etc, and i can just go back and add them! Completely customisable. Hardest part will be drilling the plastic case!

Well worth it. Looks loads better when its boxed up rather than a pair of pcbs. The real deal. And it was about £150 all in which compares well to bought synths. And ive learnt a ton of electronics along the way.

Next up ive got a pcb for a 808 kick clone. So im thinking of making it but with a midi pitch trigger, for genuine 808 jungle bass line bizness. Also got the monotron mods and MIDI interface to do and ive got a really clear idea of a distortion/filter unit i want to build. Proper analogue dubstep machine, parallel filters, ditsortion, MIDI synced LFOs...

Theres so many schematics about, moog, ms20, JP8 filters...

WRT The shruthi, also thinking of getting and making the other two filter boards, and having a 3 way parallel filtered monster, with the audio input being usable too as an effects box. Pretty simple. Could even add a little distortion pcb too.

All good!

Cheers

congrats man!

[BeastModeForDummies]

wow thats pretty sick

[paradigm_x]

So then fellow geeks, Ive now finished my first evar x0xb0x !! Well chuffed.

sounds to follow.

[Shum]

Interesting little thread this. Bookmarked.

[Fused Productions]

Daaaaamn, that's just great man!

[Karoshi]

x0x looks mint! can we have a listen?

Edit: P.S can we have some details on the kit you used for it?

[collective]

Creating plate reverbs are easy as pie.


If anyone is interested in a write up lemme know. I have made four or five of various sizes and quality. It is something anyone can do and nothing like a nice plate for a send

[paradigm_x]

Creating plate reverbs are easy as pie.


If anyone is interested in a write up lemme know. I have made four or five of various sizes and quality. It is something anyone can do and nothing like a nice plate for a send

yeah, obviously !

You cant just say and not provide details

Theres this PDF which details a number of different types of DIY ones...

http://www.nicolascollins.com/texts/TapeOpReverb.pdf

[tavravlavish]

This definitely falls under the /stuff part of title...

Hockey stick + cigar box + other stuff = Diddley bow. Made it yesterday, it was totally fun to make. It didn't take a terribly long time and it was my first one so I took my time to make sure I doing a decent job. Sounds pretty good, used a pickup made for acoustic instruments on it today and it sounded great amplified! You can still open the box so you can put the pickup in there.

[tavravlavish]

Sorry for the crap photo, don't have a decent camera.

[accordionfan]

This definitely falls under the /stuff part of title...

Hockey stick + cigar box + other stuff = Diddley bow. Made it yesterday, it was totally fun to make. It didn't take a terribly long time and it was my first one so I took my time to make sure I doing a decent job. Sounds pretty good, used a pickup made for acoustic instruments on it today and it sounded great amplified! You can still open the box so you can put the pickup in there.

aw man this looks sick. any recordings yet?

[tavravlavish]

Thanks, I think so! It's pretty limiting with only one string though. No recordings yet, maybe I'll make a little demo of it and post it up here. It basically just sounds like a guitar. I'm thinking about cutting out a hole and putting a resonator type thing on it, I might just leave it as it is hah I already feel sentimental about it. I should probably mess around with it a bit more though.

[tavravlavish]

I'm going to make another one hopefully in the next few days, it will be a lot different. I'll post it up! Everyone go out and make one! http://cigarboxguitars.com/resources/ho ... box-guitar

I made a diddley bow because all I had around was a cardboard cigar box, but soon I plan on making a full 6 string guitar and attaching a guitar pickup

[accordionfan]

nice. i might have to have a go at one...