Questions

[tomg]

> Can anyone suggest a good starting-point for all this?  A book, or a
> kit, or a tutorial, or something?  I've built the Paia "drum tone board"
> (with a complaint, actually, see below), but all I really got out of it
> was a brushing-up of my soldering skills, unused since highschool.

http://www.xavax.com/efm/content.html

> it wasn't until I reached step 40 or so, "Now,
> take out your Paia ThumbDrum board and connect it to J1", that I
> realized that this kit is entirely useless on it's own.

I snagged the following from PAiA's page.....Uncle John won't mind...;-)

http://www.paia.com/syndrum.htm

(((Like most drum tone oscillators, the circuit is a very high Q resonant
filter
that is only slightly overdamped and on the verge of oscillating. Triggering
pulses (coupled through C5 and R5 in the circuit above) provide an
excitation
signal that "rings" the oscillator )))

This leads me to thing all you need are a few switches connected to the
trigger inputs and +V.

Tom