Knobs on the end

Revised and updated 30 Mar 2019. It took me only about 45 minutes to put together the GMSN! Pure VCA. The part count’s pretty low. Most of the functionality is in the THAT 2180 amplifier IC. Everything seems to work well. As it says on the box, it’s a pure VCA, no obscure weird features, […]

Building the horstronic. Buffmult (video)

Here I build, calibrate, and, ah, MIScalibrate (deliberately!) the horstonic. Buffmult, a Eurorack buffered multiple. Do I manage to find a solution to the Mother-32 keyboard control voltage problem? NARRATOR: Yes. ME: Quiet, you.

Eventually now

I decided a while ago to get a VCA, because the Mother-32 VCA can’t be decoupled from the Mother-32 envelope generator to use the AI Synthesis ADSR instead. I also decided I could hold off a while on it. Ha, I say. See, I did go looking at VCAs to try to decide which one […]

Buffered multiple, part 2: Abusing the system

Here’s another fun fact about the horstronic. Buffmult, or specifically about the build guide for the Buffmult: There isn’t one. None that I could turn up, anyway. I’d look on the horstronic. website but, well. There isn’t one. They have a Facebook page and an Instagram feed, but that’s not quite the same. And they […]

Buffered multiple, part 1: A Horst of a different color

I opened up the third of the kits I ordered recently, the horstronic. Buffered Multiple, and found a surprise: Surface mount resistors. I wasn’t expecting them. I’ve never worked with SMT parts, and maybe I will someday but today is not that day. Here’s the story. Back in 2013 there was a forum discussion on […]

Mixed

I built the next utility module of the three I bought last month, the AI Synthesis AI002 Mixer. This was nowhere near as simple as the MiniAtt but much simpler than the Looping ADSR (let alone the Even VCO) and didn’t take much time at all. When I plugged in to test I noticed a […]

Where it’s att

The idea originally was to go slow, adding a module at a time to my synth setup with months in between. Ha. Here’s the thing. Suppose you have a perfect synthesizer. What do I mean by perfect? Perfect for you, for one thing. Not perfect for anyone else. But for you it has the features […]

Building a VCO

For my second DIY Eurorack module I picked the Befaco Even VCO. There are a number of DIY VCOs on the market but this one kept rising to the top of my list. Available in full kit, price is decent, good reviews. It was considerably more complex and dense, of course, than the ADSR I […]

Building a looping ADSR

I built a Eurorack module yesterday: the AI Synthesis Looping ADSR. It’s good to have two envelope generators; you can do things like use one to control the amplitude of your sound with the VCA while the other independently modulates the filter cutoff, for example. But also, this envelope generator can do more than the […]

Building a $45 Eurorack case

I’ve now taken the first Eurorack step by building a case. Cost, about $45. I don’t have a long term plan, because I don’t know how my interests and enthusiasms are going to evolve, and I won’t know until I do some hands on exploration. So I’m planning for the short term instead. For instance, […]