Oberheim FVS 1 - Song Demo and Random Repair Pictures

video upload by mysterycircuits

"Oberheim FVS-1. Repaired over the span of one year! Here's a demo I made after the repair. Drums are from an Ace-Tone FR-70, and all the rest of the tracks are the Oberheim. Stereo panning from the Oberheim's Mixer module. Pictures are various shots I took to document the repairs.

Song and pictures 2024, Mike Walters, Mystery Circuits, Chapel Hill, NC
www.mysterycircuits.com"

Wilgamat III Modifications - version 3

video upload by mysterycircuits

"Modified Elka Wilgamat 3. DIY keyboard controller using Yamaha PSR-12 keys. Tubbutec uniPulse for MIDI clocking and drum triggering. Individual accompaniment sounds switched on and off from keyboard controller, accessible via DB25 to 1/4" breakout. Four octaves of square waves called "Synth" follow the bass lines. "Roll" button on keyboard activates a built in drum roll. Fill, Minor, and 7th are controlled from keyboard. More info at: www.mysterycircuits.com/wilgamatIIIv3.html"

Additional Wilgamat III posts

Custom Moog Source w/ Tilted Front Panel w/ Buttons SN 3845

Note: Auction links are affiliate links for which the site may be compensated.

via this auction

"This is a moog the source synthesizer, in good working condition, the membrane switches have been modified and replaced with functioning buttons!"

See Mystery Circuits for the Moog 'The Source' Membrane Switch Cure mod.

CLICK FOR MORE »

Mystic Circuits: PFRsillator Mini - Fundraiser for Protester Bail Fund

Mystic Circuits

"I'm using some DIY kits that I had from a previous fundraiser to raise money for the Minneapolis and Los Angeles Freedom Funds as well as for Afrorack. If you would like to donate to these organizations directly the links are:

https://www.gofundme.com/f/peoples-ci...

https://minnesotafreedomfund.org/

https://www.afrorack.org/

If you would like to buy the kit, go to our website: www.MysticCircuits.com"

"A simple DIY kit designed with DIY beginners in mind. The full kit comes with everything you need to build a PFRsillator Mini along with a power supply (wall supply in the states, 9V battery for international purchases). There is a complementary build video to show how to build this kit in real time, showing each step in detail without fast forwarding through anything. The synth itself is a touch-based noise maker which is very responsive to small differences in pressure. You want modem sounds? This thing makes a wide variety of them.

‍This kit is intended to fundraise money for the ongoing BLM protests happening now, of every order $20 will go to the Minneapolis Freedom Fund, $20 to the Los Angeles Freedom Fund and $5 to Afrorack. If you would like to donate directly to any of these organizations please check their respective links [above]"

Moog Minitmoog Touch Control

Published on Mar 31, 2020 mysterycircuits

"Demonstrating the capacitive touch control I rebuilt on this Minitmoog. The materials I used:
Conductive Nylon tape: BCP Conductive Cloth Fabric Adhesive Tape 20mmx25M ($9, not $4 like I said in video)
Weather strip: M-D Building Products 6593 M-D 0 Premium Weather-Strip, 3/4 in W X 10 Ft L X 1/4 in T
Mylar Tape: ProTapes Pro 950 Polyimide Film Tape

www.mysterycircuits.com"

Two Modified Elka Wilgamat IIIs

Published on Dec 23, 2019 mysterycircuits

"The first Wilgamat 3 I modified in 2005. The second one is from 2019. Both were originally built in Italy around 1982. More information is at www.mysterycircuits.com"

YAMAHA PSS 30 REVISITED

Published on Sep 17, 2019 Published on Sep 17, 2019

via noystoise where you'll find the full post with additional build pics.

"Got a friendly message from none other than Mike Walters of Mystery Circuits. He had been tasked with repairing an odd-looking synth that resembled something I would make. Sure enough, it was the heavily modified Yamaha PSS-30 I had built on commission some 8 years ago."

Mystery Circuits' Grateful Dead Emulator II Restoration

Published on May 6, 2019 mysterycircuits

Above are a couple of demos of an Emu Emulator II restored by Mystery Circuits. Is it the same one you see pictured left with Brent Mydland of The Grateful Dead? You can find a post covering some of the history and restoration of this Emulator II on Mystery Circuit's website here.

Update: I asked Mystery Circuits what the serial number was and he said it's hand written and faded, but appears to be SN 983.

CLICK FOR MORE »

Testing a Rhythm Ace with Gated AM/FM Radio by Mystery Circuits

Rhythm Ace testing 2015 Published on Jan 19, 2017 mysterycircuits

"Rhythm Ace testing out before putting it all together. Snare is AM/FM radio, melody is Yamaha CS01 gated through Rhythm Ace. Video from 2015."

Mystic Circuits Spectra Mirror Eurorack Module Demo Patch 01

Published on Aug 29, 2016 VoltageCtrlRtv

"This is the first of many demo patches with the Mystic Circuits Spectra Mirror eurorack module. The only sound source used is the Piston Honda being filtered by the Spectra Mirror. The second voice is the Spectra Mirrors built in Oscillator.

Spectra Mirror Patch 01

SM Osc out to delay
SM S&H out to delay
SM Note In from quantizer
Piston Honda out to SM Input
Envelope 1 to SM FM 1
Envelope 2 to SM FM 2
LFO 1 to SM Morph in
SEQ to SM PW 1
LFO 2 to SM PW 2
Master Clock from Machinedrum to SM Clock in
SM Res at 9 o’ clock"

See this post for an explanation of the Spectra Mirror.

Blinkenlite Multiplier

Published on Mar 14, 2016 Mystic Circuits

"Grow your synthesizer with the power of light!

http://www.mysticcircuits.com/p/blink..."

Radio Ace - Mystery Circuits AMFM Drum Machine

Published on Aug 24, 2015 mysterycircuits

"Radio Ace is a programmable drum machine built by Mike Walters that uses an AM/FM radio for the source of the snare drum noise. There's an analog bass drum, and it gates an input in time with the beat. Snare (radio), and Input have individual adjustable sustain. Tempo control can go up to audio frequencies. Press the SNOOZE bar to turn off/on the rhythms! Built for Mark Lewis, 2015 www.mysterycircuits.com"

Circuit Shaman Eurorack Expanders for the Music Thing Turing Machine

Bytes Expander

Update: looks like the above link is dead. The original link went to www.circuitshaman.com, which now goes to www.mysticcircuits.com.

"The Bytes loop length expander allows your Music Thing Turing Machine to create random loops and melodies in any musical time signature. Breaking free from the constraints of 8 and 16 steps, with the addition of the Bytes Expander your Turing Machine will be able to create loops of any length from 1 to 16 and alter that length with a control voltage. Say goodbye to Kraftwerk and hello to Coltrane.

With the use of two separate length controls it makes it easy to change the Turing Machine's time signature in a musically useful way. For example, set the lower control to '6' and the upper control to '12' and you can easily double-time your loop. The CV-selector switch and attenuverter allow for some control to tame incoming CV, setting the selector switch to either side makes it so that CV only affects one of the length controls, allowing for one length to be your "solo" mode and the other to be your "repetitive" mode.

The Bytes expander attaches to your Turing Machine through the "gates" expander port and via 2 jumper wires that connect to the original Turing Machine PCB. As such, the Turing Machine PCB requires a small amount of modification to be able to work with the Bytes Expander. What is for sale is both the expander itself and the service of upgrading your Turing Machine. Send me your unit and I will do all the hard work for you."


Bytes Turing Machine Loop Length expander explained
Published on Nov 25, 2014 Circuit Shaman

"Here I go through the basics of the Bytes expander and give a couple of examples of how I use it."


Below is the Music Thing Rainbow Turing Machine build from Circuit Shaman with Bytes next to it.

"The Rainbow Turing Machine (Originally by Tom Whitwell of Music thing) is a random voltage loop generator for Eurorack modular synthesizers. It is useful for creating melodies and modulation with a variable amount of randomness. This particular module comes with all of the available Turing Machine expanders and uses different colored LEDs in every way possible. The colored LEDs serve a practical purpose as well as an aesthetic one since the color of each bit is coordinated to the main display across all of the expanders."


Published on Apr 24, 2014 wind spirit

"Did you say that there isn't enough color in your modular? Well this modules uses just about every color of LED available (that would be safe for your eye.)"

Switches Expander

"SWITCHES is an expander that turns your Turing Machine into a sequential switch. Its set of 8 switches are summed together to 4 different outputs. Two switching methods are used: the top four "clean" switches use a high-precision switching chip and the bottom four "dirty" switches use vactrols for some extra character. Bi-directional switching is possible through use of an upcoming multi-purpose expander."

via Music Thing Modular

And finally the Vert expander.

"VERT is an 8-bit digital to analog converter with an internal clock, allowing a CV signal to be converted to 8 gates. Unipolar or bipolar input signals can be selected by a switch to cover the entire range of conversion. The internal oscillator has a range switch to select between audio and LFO range as well as an attenuator for the FM input. An expansion port on the back allows the Vert to connect to any Turing Machine expander, allowing new functionality to be added in the future. The onboard LEDs come in 8-color rainbow or a single color of your choosing. A trim pot accessible from the front panel allows the LEDs to be dimmed to the preferred level of brightness."

Note this is the first Circuit Shaman post.

Zenotron - Mystery Circuits modified Bleep Labs Nebulophone

Published on Mar 25, 2014 mysterycircuits·27 videos

"Zenotron - Built for my friend Zeno in 2014. Case was built from an old modem, the "monitor" is a filmstrip viewer cut in half. Keys come from some toy piano with each key activating a tactile switch. Micro joystick (Parallax brand) controls arpeggio rate and waveform. Sound from Nebulophone clocks a 4017 based sequencer to blink the 88 LEDs mounted in a pipette box. 1/4" output, 9VDC external power supply. www.mysterycircuits.com"

Mark Mothersbaugh Discusses Mystery Circuits Penatron

Published on Feb 13, 2014 mysterycircuits·24 videos

"Some footage from an interview by Derek Sajbel in 2004, Mark Mothersbaugh demonstrates The Penatron (aka Peanut) built by Mike Walters.

I cut this from raw footage from Derek Sajbel's long running Circuit Bending documentary project (http://absurdity.biz)

Copyrighted footage courtesy of Absurdity.Biz used with permission"

And a live set at BENT04 with Mystery Circuits:

BENT04 Live circuit bent set - Mike Walters Bart Moyers Zeke Graves Chuck Johnson

Published on Feb 13, 2014 mysterycircuits·24 videos

"Most of our set from the first international circuit bending festival BENT04 at The Tank in NYC, 2004. Mystery Circuits set featuring NC musicians Mike Walters, Bart Moyers, Zeke Graves, and Chuck Johnson.

I cut this from raw footage from Derek Sajbel's Bent Festival 2004 documentary
http://absurdity.biz/?page_id=12
Absurdity.Biz » Bent Festival DVDs
absurdity.biz

Copyrighted footage courtesy of Absurdity.Biz used with permission"

The New Melloman from Mike Walders' Mystery Circuits

Published on Sep 8, 2013 mysterycircuits·17 videos

"DIY Mellotron using 14 Walkmans. Custom built for Justin Vernon in 2012-13. This is an updated version of the Melloman I built in 2005."


Melloman Drum from Trommemaskine Tape
Published on Sep 8, 2013

"Demonstration of drum tape on the new Melloman. Sounds are from another thing I built called the Trommemaskine."

Trommemaskine - Mystery Circuits Drum Machine

YouTube Uploaded by mysterycircuits on Feb 12, 2012

"Trommemaskine built by Mike Walters, 2012. 8 x 4 matrix drum machine uses modified Paia Drum-Tone circuit for sounds. More info at mysterycircuits.com"

via Mystery Circuits where you'll find additional pics and details.

"This is the Trommemaskine, commissioned for Olivia Hjermitslev. "Trommemaskine" means "Drum Machine" in Danish. Rhythms are mapped out on the 8x4 matrix panel, which includes a Hi-hat, Kick, Snare, and a Disco drum.

Those four sounds, as well as four additional percussion sounds, can also be triggered by the blue momentary switches. A toggle switch sets whether the drum triggers once, or at the rate of the sequencer.

The large orange button starts and stops the rhythm."

Melloman for iPhone and iPad in the Works

via Omenie, makes of the Mellotronics M3000 for iPad and various Ellatron apps.

See the Melloman label below for videos of the hardware Melloman by Mystery Circuits. You might recognize the pic from this previous post. The Melloman is essentially a Sony Walkman based Mellotron. See the videos for more.


iPads on eBay
iPads on Amazon
iPod Touch on eBay
iPod Touch on Amazon

New Tapes for Drumssette

YouTube via mysterycircuits | July 18, 2010
follow-up to this post.
"Thanks for all the positive response for The Drumssette! I've had some requests to show more tape examples, other than just the 808 sounds I had before. Here you go! The first segment shows sounds I recorded with my Minimoog. The second shows CR78 sounds, the third are acoustic sounds. I'm hoping to get sounds of my drummer, Kuki, real soon."

The Drumssette by Mystery Circuits

"The Drumssette is a programmable drum machine built using a Tascam four track cassette recorder. The sounds of the drums come right off the prerecorded cassette tape, and those sounds also clock the sixteen step sequencer inside. As the cassette plays, rhythms can be mapped out on the switch interface."

You'll find the full details including additional video on Mystery Circuits.



YouTube via mysterycircuits | July 06, 2010
"Intro to The Drumssette by Mike Walters. The Drumssette was built by Mike Walters in 2010."