[sdiy] PAiA

[patchell]

    I have a general favorable opinion of Paia.  I have been building their kits for over 20 years (if you count building their modules from magazine plans, then since 1974).  I am also building a Paia 9700S (not done either...too many other interesting things to do).

    You must keep one thing in mind about Paia.  Their designs don't waste 1 penny more than they need to.  There is nothing wrong with this, you may find that there are other designs that have higher performance, but what they heck.  I wish I had never given away my Paia 4700 synth (well, it was taking up space I
didn't have at the time).  I also gave away my Paia Proteus for the same reason.

    As far as the module you mention, (I have no experience with them in particular), look at it this way.  They may not work as good as commercial equipment, however, depending on how much you like to fiddle with stuff, you might be able to get them to do something you would never dare do with a good peice of
equipment.  Also, this reminds me of something completely different.  They gave some profesional photographers a bunch of those cheap cardboard box cameras you can buy in the store to take picture on one particular day, or something like that.  The pictures they got with these things looked fantasic.  When I use one,
the pictures look like crap.  The moral here is that if you know what you are doing, the piece of equipment doesn't really matter.  For me, I try to choose DIY, because its more fun (but when I use my stuff to make music, it still sounds like crap ;^)   ).


Steve Begin wrote:

> I'm not quite sure if this counts as DIY related, but...
> I just wanted to know what the general opinion here of PAiA designs and equipment is.  I have a compressor and a 9700 modular (not finished yet), but I haven't had much opportunity to use either yet.
> I'm looking at their downwards expander, parametric equalizer, and vocoder and I'd appreciate some opinions as to whether I should go with PAiA or save my money for a commercial unit or what.  At this point I don't think I'm quite ready to do it on my own, but I'd like to get some more gear while I have the money.

--
 -Jim
------------------------------------------------
* Visit:http://www.silcom.com/~patchell/
*-----------------------------------------------
*I'm sure glad Merry Christmas comes just once a year
* -Yogi Yorgensen
------------------------------------------------