[sdiy] EFM WildCat r2

[synth at oldmail.charlielamm.com]

Speaking for the group, many of us have built EFM stuff.  Speaking for
myself, I've now built a few kits.  I can't speak for this particular
wildcat thing, but maybe someone else here can.

In general, EFM kits are buggy (there are mistakes; the docs or schematics 
have errors; what is on the site and what you get in the kit are 
different; you can't read the PDF on his site because it's blurry.)  

The web site itself is a bit hard to navigate; there used to be a forum on
Yahoo to cope with the many threads from end users saying this or that
needs to get modded xyz way to work, but the EFM guy ("Tomg") moved this
in house, since then, it's been a bit of a free for all, but with enough
searching around you can usually find what you need.

As far as how hard they are to build, I don't consider myself a
mondo-electronics wiz, and I can make them work. But when I was first 
starting out I probably wouldn't have been able to. 

Don't expect to slap it together they way you would with a PAIA kit. EFM
kits are inexpensive, and sound pretty good to very good once you are
done.  Furthermore, they make a good framework for modding and hotrodding, 
and can be an excellent learning experience if that's what you are after.

TomG just took a big bunch of products off his site; he is supposedly 
re-reving them now.  No idea if the new stuff will be better documented, 
or less buggy, but for some reason I doubt it.  

Overall I think the world is better with EFM around than without EFM 
around.  IMO (I should change my email on this group to 
"imo at charlielamm.com)

--IMO


On Fri, 27 Feb 2004, Benjamin Walker wrote:

> Has anyone here built one of these or had experience with EFM kits in
> general? I realize that there is both a forum and a mailing list run by EFM,
> but I wanted to query what may be a larger audience. Also, if anyone has
> built one, are there pictures and/or sound examples available? The JPEGs on
> the website are of very poor quality.
> 
> http://www.ele4music.com/Wildcat-r2/wildcat.html
> 
> 
> Regards,
> Benjamin
>