[sdiy] Calculator Synth

[Tim Escobedo]

Anyone have a schem of the Yamaha CS-01???

If you're looking to build a self contained "Pocket Synth",  you don't
necessarily have to adhere to the 1v/Oct standard. And if  interfacing
with your modular isn't important, one can even forego voltage control
altogether for an extremely simple instrument but effective instrument.
 

I've been experimenting with a very simple home-made SynBow-inspired
instrument. It's a 18" long piece of wood with a routed out cavity for
the electronics. The wang bar pitch control, at this point, is a Rube
Goldbergish thing that controls two pots in two different axis,
side-by-side, and up-and-down. Side-by-side controls pitch, up-and-down
controls pulse width (and consequently acts as a EG/VCA/timbre
control). The VCO is straight from the LM358 app notes with the
triangle wave output feeding a comparator. Unlike the original SynBow,
there is no trigger pad, so as-is, it's not as suited to playing
staccato, percussive stuff. 

Could use some polish, but as is, functions decently and is self
contained. Infinite room for improvement on this idea. I guess it could
easily be adapted to put out a CV, but I'm inclined to leave well
enough alone. 

>If you made the sound source onboard and made the keyboard output a 
>1v/Oct 
>control source then would you be able to have a small power source
that 
>would fit inside the little device that would still be stable enough
to 
>keep 
>your osc(s) tracking?, maybe they'd only have to track an octave or
so.
>
>I've been powering oscs and filters on proto-boards from battery power

>supplies.  They do oscillate and filter like they should but they
don't 
>seem 
>super stable (filter cutoff affects Osc tuning sometimes, if I haven't

>changed the batteries, etc).
>
>It's really a tough call but, over all, my ideal of a "Pocket 
>Calculator" 
>Synth should be as close to completely self contained as possible.

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