[sdiy] recommended publications for novice diyer

[synth at oldmail.charlielamm.com]

Benjamin:

I'm assuming you're like me--you want to learn more about electronics and
build some nifty circuits that sound cool; you've surfed the web but want 
something you can take on a plane to continue your pursuits of the 
ultimate bandpass filter or whatever. 

To this end, a few suggestions:

For beginner type electronics knowledge, go to Radio Shack and pick up
some of Forrest Mimms books.  "Getting Started in Electronics" and the
"Engineers Mini Notebooks" are good ones.

Once you've made it through those, and smoked a few transistors or
whatever in the Mimms "Electronic Learning Lab" (also from Radio Shack),
for more advanced knowledge, get Horowitz and Hill's Immortal "The Art of
Electronics".  Not for beginners, but at some point you are going to want
to buy this books.

http://www.artofelectronics.com/

Next you're going to need to learn how to fab stuff--from PCB's, kits,
wirewrapping, breadboarding, veroboarding, etc.  I am not sure of a book
that can teach that--in my case, I learned from other techs who already
knew how, could show me the ropes and correct my technique when I made
mistakes.  Not sure of any publications here, but maybe someone else in
the group can recommend something.

Once you're ready for the synth thing, which will probably be a bit after
the learning lab but maybe before Horowitz and Hill, the web has the best
resources I feel, but there are some good books out there that are
currently in print as well.

Thomas Henry has a good book on the 3080 and audio noise sources at his
site.  Thomas Henry is a good writer and his books are entertaining as
well as educational.  He also has a book with reprints of many of the
articles he's written over the past few decades; the latter has some
articles centered on parts very hard to find (SN76477 for instance) but
still makes a good read.

http://www.midwest-analog.com/

PAIA sells Craig Anderton's "Electronic Projects for Musicians". PAIA and
the famous (infamous?) Craig Anderton are great resources for anyone
getting started in DIY audio, and I have a feeling most of the readers out
there have at least looked at this book if not built a fuzztone or
two--come on, admit it, guys.

http://www.paia.com/epfm.htm

There are other books that get mentioned in this list frequently: Barry
Klein's books; Bernie Hutchin's books, etc., but I can't comment on those
never having read them.  Since it's slow today at work maybe I will order
then now.

In general, though, the web remains the best place to get info about any
of this DIY thing, IMO.  If it wasn't for the web I would have never
gotten started in DIY....any of the big hitters here have links to all the
other hitter's sites, and you can't go wrong with any of those.  So keep 
surfing.

Good luck!  And remember to gate your wife!

--CL

On Wed, 16 Jun 2004, Benjamin Grimes wrote:

> im really interested in getting into synth diy. i don't really know much 
> about it, at all. i was wondering if there are any books or publications i 
> could find, in order to educate myself on the subject. i've been reading 
> allot online, but something a little more concrete would be great.
> 
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