"For learning basic electronics and finding some fun circuits to play with, I'd recommend any of the Forrest Mims "Engineer's Notebook" series.
http://www.forrestmims.com/
http://www.forrestmims.com/engineers_mini_notebook.html
http://www.radioshack.com/pwr/product-reviews/Toys-Games/Hobby-projects-kits/RadioShack/p/2102913-Electronics-Learning-Lab.html
For more thorough electronic theory, "Art of Electronics" by Horowitz and Hill.
http://www.amazon.com/Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521370957
Also try the "Op Amp Cookbook," "IC Timer Cookbook" and others by Walter Jung.
http://www.amazon.com/Op-Amp-Cookbook-3rd-Walter-Jung/dp/0138896011
For a great collection of synth circuits and some theory behind them, "Electronic Music Circuits" by Barry Klein. Highly recommended, and Barry is even a list member.
http://members.cox.net/barryklein/em.htm
Electronotes. You will love this. Guaranteed. If you don't want to pop for the entire collection, at least get the "Preferred Circuits Collection."
http://electronotes.netfirms.com/
I also sell reprints of several books by Thomas Henry that concentrate on one specific chip (e.g. 3080 OTA, or 566 VCO) or one type of synth circuit (e.g. Drum Circuits or Noise Circuits) through Magic Smoke Electronics at www.lulu.com/magsmoke
You will definitely want to get yourself a decent meter. I have one that was less than $100 and does capacitance and frequency readings. Not super accurate, but VERY handy. Also, do yourself a favor and get an oscilloscope. You can easily get by with an older model with lower bandwidth (5 or 10MHz is good enough for analog synth stuff), although a dual trace model is recommended. Again, you can often find a used
model for less than two or three hundred, and a scope will make diagnosing and troubleshooting SO much easier.
And welcome back to synth building!
Tim (good enough for analog) Servo"
Note the Atari Punk Console comes from Forrest Mims' designs.
Update: be sure to see the comments below for more recommendations.
Brice Ward's Electronic Music Circuit Guidebook is another good one. Ward presents super-minimal versions of basic synth modules (VCO,VCF,VCA) that could still be built today with some transistor substitution.
ReplyDeleteBarry Klein's book is great, and the circuits are more advanced than those in Ward's book, but several chapters are pretty much "off limits" to modern DIY-ers b/c they are all about those wonderful yet obsolete SSM chips.
Forrest Mims does present a number of "synthesizer" circuits, but almost all of them only produce unfiltered square waves. (yuck) Mims didnt seem to be interested in 1V/oct pitch CV either. And I havent seen any VCF or VCA circuits in his books. But, his projects are the easiest to build. Although... some of his books lack explaination of how the circuits work, which is unfortunate.
Delton T Horn published a couple of books on synthesizers, Electronic Music Synthesizers and Digital Electronic Music Synthesizers with a few super-basic VCO,VCA, and VCF circuits sprinkled in the last chapters. However, the rest of the books are almost pure fluff regarding specs and patching of commerical synths.
Eric Archer
Here's a Beryliam book that AudioCave posted in the Cubase forum the other day...
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I forgot to add LOL ;)
ReplyDeleteAlso check out Homemade Electronic Music by Nicolas Collins. Very good for beginners, it give instructions on how to build some great stuff with the bare minimum of components.
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