[sdiy] Starting my ASM-1

[Rob Mantel]

I built the formant keyboard years ago, and to be honest, I would never do
it again. A lot of those keyboards, like the formant one, use double
contacts for each key (one for the cv, one for the gate), its a pain to keep
those contacts work reliable and trigger both at exactly the same time over
the years.  So if you want to build your own, try to find something that
only uses 1 contact per key, but unless you can find the right schematics,
it won't be easy to have a keyboard that you can play both with and without
triggering a new gate pulse when you play the keys legato. There might be an
easy solution for this, but I don't know it.

I also doubt if you include all costs to build your own keyboard, casing,
the keyboard itself, hardware, electronic parts, connectors, cables, front
plate etc etc, if you would end up spending less money than when you would
buy a cheap midi keyboard and a midi-cv converter.

Rob

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jimmy Gogas" <toothpick_77 at hotmail.com>
To: <synth-diy at dropmix.xs4all.nl>
Sent: Thursday, January 10, 2002 9:22 PM
Subject: [sdiy] Starting my ASM-1


> I've finally decided, after looking at all the websites and reading the
> Formant document, that I will build my first synth : the ASM-1. As a first
> step, I think I'll build my keyboard and keyboard-interface.
> I already have an old keyboard (with some digital effects) lying around
the
> house. I was thinking of turning it into a CV-keyboard like the Formant
one.
> I was initially thinking of buying a MIDI keyboard and using a MIDI/CV
> interface, but I'm currently a little low on cash. Has anyone actually
built
> a CV-keyboard, or does everybody use a MIDI/CV keyboard? If someone has
> actually built one, can he please tell me what steps he followed?
>
> Finally, does anyone have the schematics of a simple keyboard interface to
> follow? I looked at the one in the Formant, but it looks a little messy.
>
> Thank you all in advance.
>
>
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