[sdiy] Plug for MOTM

[David Cornutt]

Paul's sounding a little stressed over on AH lately.  :-)
So here's an unsolicited plug.  A couple of months ago
I ordered two kits, the 890 micro mixer and the 101 S/H.
It took me a while to find the time to assemble both kits,
but I've finally gotten them finished and mounted up.
And they are working perfectly.  The details:

* I did the 890 first because Synth Tech rates it a 1 out of 5
for difficulty, and it has been a good while since I've built
anything more complicated than patch cords.  It took me
about 14 hours because my chops were rusty and I had to
get used to that organic solder.  (That stuff sure cruds up
the tip of the iron awfully fast...)  The module worked
perfectly at first power up.

* Getting a bit more into the groove, I completed the 101
in 11 hours (and the workmanship is a bit neater).  I made
one change: because I've got a thing about indicator lamp
colors, I subbed a yellow LED for the red one included in
the kit.  (After having used it for a bit, I'll probably go back
and swap that out for a green one.  I probably would have
done that originally but I didn't have a green one in the
junk box when I finished the module the other night.)
This module also worked perfectly at first power up.

I was surprised by not having to do any troubleshooting
on either of these.  I can testify that this constitutes a
tribute to Synth Tech's meticulous care in rational circuit
board layout, parts kitting, and instruction writing.  It had
absolutely nothing to do with my own skills; the best I
can say is that I managed to finish the 101 without
burning myself.  (And it helped that I bought a Panavise
after doing the 890... with the help of that, I didn't have
to unsolder any ICs on the 101 due to not getting them
in straight the first time.)

The 101 is great fun and a a big advance over typical S/H
circuits.  I've had great fun using the TRACK mode to
"chase" saw/tri inputs up and down the slopes.  (Feed the
external clock input with a varying-width pulse wave...)
And one use I've already found for the SLEW control is
to, with judicious choice of external clock input, turn the
101 into an oddball envelope generator.  The 890 of
course doesn't do any spectacular effects, but it's a great
little utilitarian module.