[diy] LIL' MONO SYNTH plays along with the MICROFREAK

video upload by planeteatrr

0:00 Ambient Pad
1:55 Arpeggiator

"I used the TAL Chorus LX and the Valhalla Super Massive to achieve a nicer stereo sound. Both plugins are free."

Additional info previously posted here. Thread on mod wiggler here.

[diy] LIL' MONO SYNTH - A proper introduction

video upload by planeteatrr

"You can find more information on this little oddball over here: https://modwiggler.com/forum/viewtopi...

All the files for having the circuitboard and the frontpanel produced will be made available soon. If you can solder you can easily build this on one sunday. Complete production costs for one unit are around 70€/$ or less. I will add a link to the production files in some weeks.

Cheers
Sebastian"

Additional details:

"Since a year or so I fantasize about developing a series of small analog synthesizers, that will fit in guitar pedal or other types of enclosures, with frontpanels made of FR-4 pcb material. The synthesizer I am about to describe is basically the archetype and prototype for the more advanced synths. The next one will be based around Electric Druids VCDCO and TAPLFO chips and another one will include the famous CEM3340 vco ic paired up with a vcf that is a weird mixture between a Wasp vcf and an Oberheim Sem vcf.

But let's have a look on the first one of these synths. The main goal for me was that it can fit into a small aluminium die cast enclosure, without the need to use smt componentes or small 1/8 watt resistors. This meant I needed to have a low parts count. The result is that I used the most basic circuits for each individual function and merge them together into one circuit. I really did not expect much from it, but I am actually very suprised that the output of this progress is much more versatile and interesting (but with a nice and big "oddness-factor") than I thought.

Though I took my HEF4046 (The IC needs to be a Philips/NXP or Motorola, TI ICs will track very poorly, those HEF/MC ICs are obsolete as through hole parts but they are available in hugh quantities at e.g. ebay) vco design and built all the other stuff around it. I decided to take the most simple vca design I know which is the infamous single diode "vca", that is often used in lunetta-type synths. I was suprised that it is actually working with sawtooth waves aswell. It gets a bit weird and distorted when the envelopes fade in or fade out, but I really like the sound of it. Since my vco design has a sawtooth output that is one octave higher than the squarewave output, the squarewave output can be used as suboscillator. Both waveforms are mixed together and send in to the vca, which comes before the vcf. The vcf should actually have been a twin-t notch filter, but I left out the highpass part and it became a (sort of bridged T) low pass filter, which has quite some similarity to tim escobedos q&d vcf. This thing sounds dirty but when you use the right values for the components it can be tamed and can sound quite creamy at high resonant settings. For the envelope generator I actually planned to use a 555 timer ic, but that would have had to many components. Though I decided to build the most simple envelope generator that just contains a comparator at the input and a buffer at the output. It's not perfect, but it works just fine. There is no modulation for the vcf beside the envelope modulation, but this alone sounds quite nice (there will be a jack for cv).

There are some downsides to this simple circuit:
* The "vca" is not a real vca and distorts the signal (which I actually like)
* The "vca" has a little bit of signal bleedthrough, which is completly gone when using the env mod
* The vco is not very precise, but works solid over 2 to 3 octaves or even 4 octaves (you need to live with some tuning error, somehow it depends alot on the used cv-interface, actually the cv inputs needs to be buffered :roll:)
* The envelope generator is not that good but if you are aware of its sweetspots it can do a good enough job
* There is an overall oddness to some controls, but it works much better than I expected
* It has no midi connection (only cv inputs)

The pros are:
* The gerber files will be available for free
* It will be very small for a fully functioning, east coast style analog synth. It is literally half the size of a korg volca device
* It has a suboscillator
* The output is actually quite powerful and it "sounds big"
* It sounds unique and quite versatile
* It can be hooked to other (semi)-modular devices.
* You can play it polyphonic when using several of those synths and a multichannel midi2cv interface
* Built cost will be under 50€($)
* I developed the synth in 5 evening sessions or so ;)

There are some issues in the initial schematics, but I will update them soon...

Gerber files will be uploaded in spring/summer and I will most likely sell some pcbs and frontpanels."

[diy] A drone jam with three syncDRONE synths

video upload by planeteatrr

"More infos and the links to the gerber production files: https://modwiggler.com/forum/viewtopi..."

"The syncDrone is a very simple drone synth based on a CD4093 cmos nand gate ic. It contains three square wave oscillators that are mixed together. Those oscillators are also fed into one of the NAND gates of the CD4093, which creates a more rhythmic and crude sound. The oscillators can be synced to an external signal. This feature is maybe the most interesting part. When the output of a vco is fed into sync input of the syncDrone it will produce quite interesting waveforms. It fits perfectly in a 1590B diecast enclosure."

[diy] The syncDRONE synthesizer passed through a digital tape echo

video upload by planeteatrr

New from Sebastian Jazura aka planeteatrr. This is the first SyncDRONE post on the site.

"SyncDRONE is a simple drone synthesizer based on a CD4093 chip. It contains three square wave oscillators that are mixed together. Those oscillators are also fed into one of the NAND gates of the CD4093, which creates a more rhythmic and crude sound. More infos and the link to the gerber production files are coming soon..."

[diy] LIL' MONO SYNTH meets a (weird) sequencer...

video by planeteatrr

"Just some sounds from my new analog diy synthesizer. It is a odd but lovely little device. Maybe the most interesting thing about it is the fact that I will make the gerber files and all other necessary documents available so people can build one of those little weirdos themselves...

Sorry for the annoying sequence of notes. I will make a better video soon :)

I made that midi sequencer patch in Pure Data and used the Arturia Microfreak as a midi2cv interface...

More information here: https://www.muffwiggler.com/forum/vie...​"

"Since a year or so I fantasize about developing a series of small analog synthesizers, that will fit in guitar pedal or other types of enclosures, with frontpanels made of FR-4 pcb material. The synthesizer I am about to describe is basically the archetype and prototype for the more advanced synths. The next one will be based around Electric Druids VCDCO and TAPLFO chips and another one will include the famous CEM3340 vco ic paired up with a vcf that is a weird mixture between a Wasp vcf and an Oberheim Sem vcf.

But let's have a look on the first one of these synths. The main goal for me was that it can fit into a small aluminium die cast enclosure, without the need to use smt componentes or small 1/8 watt resistors. This meant I needed to have a low parts count. The result is that I used the most basic circuits for each individual function and merge them together into one circuit. I really did not expect much from it, but I am actually very suprised that the output of this progress is much more versatile and interesting (but with a nice and big "oddness-factor") than I thought.

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[diy] Lil CMOS Toolbox - First quick drone synth patch

Published on Jul 13, 2019 planeteatrr

"This is one of the first tests of this neat little circuit, in combination with the Zoom MS70. CMOS ics are very handy, when it comes to expand the possibilities of a (semi-)modular synthesizer. The idea started as an expander for the Behringer Neutron. I always felt that the Neutron is lacking some kind of modulation for the oscillator section. So the Toolbox provides a ring-modulator (quite similar to the one in the Korg MS-20) and a sub-oscillator, to fulfill my needs.

Here is a list of the features:

- Ring-modulator
- Sub-oscillator (-1/-2 Octave)
- Clock divider
- 2 oscillators (square)
- Comparator
- Buffer"

Workshop Drone-Minisynth Perfboard Prototype

Published on Jun 27, 2014 Kanal von planeteatrr·12 videos

"4x OSCs, 2x pseudo-ringmods, 2 HP/LP Filter... next step pcb production"

[diy] XNOR STUTTER SYNTH - standalone

Published on Jan 16, 2013 planeteatrr·13 videos

[diy] NAND FILTER SYNTH - standalone

Note: Auction links are affiliate links for which the site may be compensated. Published on Nov 18, 2012 by planeteatrr

On eBay DE (Germany)

"two squarewave oscillators, with potentiometers for pitch, feed into a digital ring mod.
One LFO that turns the oscillators on and off. A switch to change the pulsewidth from short to long. A rotary switch, with 6 options, to vary the release time.
6,35mm jack.
An analog lowcut-filter with one potentiometer for cut-off frequency and one for resonance.
solid aluminium enclosure.

Awesome to use with modular synths.

Non EU-bidders please ask for shipping-conditions before bidding!"