[sdiy] Where is the DIY spirit? was: Filters

[Larry]

Rene and all

I partly agree and partly disagree.  I am just getting back into this and I 
find that purchasing kits and soldering them together is helpfull from the 
skill point of view.  Also, many of the kits come with circuit 
descriptions.  Next, I expect to build some breadboard circuits based on 
various web site schematics and descriptions (including yours).  Then, I 
may take a stab at modifying some circuits or designing some on my 
own.  Another advantage of the kits is that they get you to a point where 
you can use your synth.  Not all of us are in this just for the fun of 
hacking away, some of us do it in order to have a more personalized system 
and to save money.  I have been following the various technical discussions 
for a couple of months now, and several of them have been quite 
enlightening.  The best advice you can give a novice, IMHO, is to answer 
their questions and point them in the directions they seem interested in.

BTW, in listing sources of modules, you left out: 
http://www.synthesizers.com/index.html
While the do not sell kits, they still offer a wide range of modules and 
some of them could potentially be of interest to the Synth-DIY 
newbie.  (Maybe if enough of use asked, they might consider kits?)

Larry Troth
(no web site yet, but one of these days...)


At 01:31 AM 10/29/01 +0100, René Schmitz wrote:
>Hello everybody,
>
>I'm asking myself if we can't offer better advice to novices as where to
>buy the kits. I mean building a kit is mainly only improving your soldering
>skills.
>IMO the challenge in DIY lies somewhere else. Its in understanding how these
>circuits operate, and why they sound like they sound. That means to learn
>some
>electronics on your way. The fun when you have reached such a state, is in
>being
>able to tailor your synth to your taste, rather then just being able to
>pick from
>whats available off the shelf as a kit.
>
>I'm fearing that on the long run this community is starving, because the
>oldhanders merely sell kits and the newbees simply put them together,
>without learning how they work. (To say it more drastically: If all the
>gurus here only had built kits, this community wouldn't be existant. Ok,
>this is a bit exaggerated, but I hope you see my point.)
>
>So much ranting, and now for the questions:
>
>The IMO best sounding four pole filter is the SSM2040, followed by the moog
>ladder, both give a classic sound. If I had to choose between one of them
>I'd clearly prefer the 2040.
>I'd also prefer having a four pole instead of a two pole filter if I needed
>to choose,
>although a two-pole state variable has more sonic possibilities, but then I
>find myself often only using the lowpass mode anyway.
>
>For VCOs I'm not having much preferences, except that the circuit should be
>stable, either thru tempco or heater compensation. And it should have good
>tuning precision. There is nothing worse than a VCO that gets flat above a
>certain frequency, if you do FM or ringmodulation between two oscillators,
>or just run them in unison, it sounds unpleasant to crap. A basic setup
>could do with just saw and pulse, but tri and sine are handy too. Much
>better if your oscillators can span from LFO-range to the audio range, you
>don't need specific LFOs then. For LFO use the circuit really should have
>sine and tri.
>
>For VCAs I'm a fan of the diff-pair VCAs because they have better control
>rejection then the VCAs with OTAs, also better noise performance. The
>minimoog VCA is such a circuit.
>
>Just a quick rundown, I hope that we can get the discussion into depth on
>these issues.
>
>Cheers,
>  René
>
>
>--
>uzs159 at uni-bonn.de
>http://www.uni-bonn.de/~uzs159
>
>