[sdiy] DIY Optical organs.

[CCartCat at aol.com]

Had better luck keeping it in tune/tempo (or I'm just less discerning <g>).  
My unit's tempo/tuning control seemed to work a screw gear that may've 
allowed for finer tuning (tho' with that aforementioned _hidden_ feature of a 
slow random LFO , that not make a difference).

Didn't attempt any overhauls, tweaks (unworthy lurker alert); mostly used it 
as is.

My prob. was how noisy it was (poss. tweakable) and dull sounding (kinda the 
way of the beast).  And many of the chord/loop buttons were in need of 
attention (i.e. not working or working now and then).

But newly building from scratch your own take on the concept, you can likely 
do better.  (Heck, someone mentioned film optical tracks--why not sprocket 
loops of film, an opti-Mellotron?  Or not . . .)

For those seeking a not-so-DIY solution, www.optigan.com offers an Akai 
format sample CD.  Haven't tried it myself.

Back to lurking,
Kevin Seward

<< 
    One thing you might want to consider....

    I owned an optigan for a short while (~1 year) and it was fun to
play with, but absolutely un-useful in terms of recording. I cleaned it
up, replaced all the audio connections with shielded wires, cleaned all
the key contacts, and got the mechanical parts working well... it STILL
went out of tune constantly (within a matter of seconds) and would go in
and out of tune as if there were a slow random LFO controlling the motor
speed.

    It was impossible to get the tempo to remain consistent for a
couple of minutes, even...

    I finally gave up and sold it to some studio owners in NYC. (hi
guys, if you are on sdiy! but you're probably not!) Thank god I only paid
$25 for it at a thrift store...

    andy
 >>