[sdiy] questions from a beginner

[Magnus Danielson]

From: bmc at email.arizona.edu
Subject: [sdiy] questions from a beginner
Date: Sun, 8 Dec 2002 15:32:09 -0700

Hi!

> hi, i'm new to all this so pardon me if i sound like a moron...

Acknowledge thy lack of knowledge, and thy shall begin the path to enlightment!

>  i'm just wondering if anyone can point me in the direction of some good
> (accurate) circuit designs. i have a library copy of barry klein's 'electronic
> music circuits' but i've read that there are flaws in some of the circuit
> designs. any other recomendations?

One place to start is to look at the Synth-DIY gray pages:

http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Museum/4459/grey_pages/grypag_index.html

(However, sites like Yahoo's annoys the hell out of me with popups etc.)

But in particular you can look up the ASM-1 pages:

http://home.swipnet.se/cfmd/synths/friends/stopp/

(There is an old site for it too, but some people just can't fix their links!)

While the ASM-1 doesn't do fancy things, it does give you a good basic design
to deviate away from. We've seen multiple cases where this route has been
taken.

Please look around on my other pages and dig up both links and other
schematics. If you need a chock-treatment I have a lump of Buchla schematics
awaiting you. Those are worth pondering over and it is a good goal to attempt
to master them all, in all their gorry details.

> also, white price range should i be looking at for a reliable soddering iron?

I don't know, I haven't bought one for ages, but I got myself a Weller WECP-20,
a classic, with a (simple) temperature control. Works well and I've used it for
over 10 years now. A sufficiently good soldering iron, some good habits and not
overheating it forms a good basis for most of the stuff we tend to build.

I'm sure people gonna toss you with alternatives.

> all of the books i have are a little out of date on the subject
> (mid-eighties).

Might not be the biggest flaw. Not many good books have emerged on analogue
synth building since. "The Art of Electronics" by Horowitz and Hill is a good
generic reference (I look in it too selldom thought). I have myself not picked
up any good book on analogue synthesizer constructions, but you may want to
look at this list of Synth-related books (all kinds really!):

http://home.swipnet.se/cfmd/synths/books.html

(Naturally, if anyone has any contributions, please email me... I'm happy to
add them in!)

You also get to glimps into what fills my bookshelf (those I commented myself)
but a huge lump of them I have not seen at all, but I relate to other reports
on them. Some of these books I also use in my profession, but I think they can
be valuble never the less.

> and, finally, where do you guys get
> your control panels, how do you mark them, and are they made out of aluminum?

That's my weak point... ;O)

There is no *really* good guide on how to get started in Synth-DIY. Over the
years I've followed the development the web-situation has greatly improved.
Back then there was Synthfool and a few more pages. I tossed up the ASM-1 page
quite early and others added material. Some of those early effort where killed
by their creators or just froze as people started doing other stuff or just got
boored. There are also new sites which seems to be mostly unknown, like that of
SynthDIY.com:

http://www.synthdiy.com/

(Which seems to be broken for the moment, I'll talk to Kristian about it.)

The downside is that some people tend to load excessively large file onto it.
30 MB for a single page (color, sure) out of a catalogue is to me excessive.
30 MB for the full manualset of a large synth is tolerant, but you rarely see
them as a single JPG, now do you?

While the intent there is good, I think some taming of the wild beast needs to
be done first.

Cheers,
Magnus