[sdiy] Few newbie question

[Scott Gravenhorst]

Hi James,

I'm curious, are the FatMan mods you did the one's I have published
on my website or are they your designs?  If they are yours, can you
share them?

As to your question, I think much depends on what you wish to do with
your synths.  Certainly a FatMan will not do everything, but you'll
get a better answer to your question if the folks here know what
kinds of sounds you're interested in making.  I personally have and
use 2 FatMan synths, but I do western melodic music, not noise-scape,
bleepy bloopy click-pop stuff.  I use one FatMan as a bass synth, the
other is sometimes used as a lead instrument or for pads and string
like sounds.  For these uses, I find the FatMan does very well.

James Petts <jpetts at gmail.com> wrote:
>Hi Folks
>
>I've built myself a FatMan and modded the crap out of it, plus
>built a Theremin and a ribbon controller, but I still feel myself
>restricted by what I can do with them, so I'm looking to go
>modular.
>
>I've been taking a little look around, and rejected the Paia
>9700 series, as that also seems too limiting, and I want to
>move onto something a little more open-ended
>
>So, I looked around and came up with the following candidates
>for building a modular system:
>
>1. Blacet
>2. MOTM
>3. Oakley
>4. Synthesizers.com
>5. Modcan
>
>I like the look of CMS, but I don't have that sort of money, plus
>I want to build it myself.
>
>So, on to the questions:
>
>a) Is this a reasonably comprehensive list, or is there another
>manufacturer I might want to consider?
>b) Are all of these candidates up to the same level of quality,
>or are any outstanding?
>c) How much does the difference in cost make a difference to
>the sound/stability/robustness of these systems?
>d) I'm pretty competent with a soldering iron, but don't do SMT
>stuff (which I assume none of these utilise). Would anybody
>care to comment on the relative merits of bare PCB versus
>prepopulated boards as supplied by, say, Oakley. If there is
>a significant saving to build it yourself, does that still hold when
>buying 1% or .1% resistors, for example, or does it rapidly
>disappear with higher spec components?
>e) Are there any good resources on the theoretical side of
>audio synthesis (I'm not afraid of maths)?
>f) Are there any important questions I am missing?
>
>Some backgorund: I'm in the US, so European stuff is pretty
>expensive for me, which makes me think that MOTM might
>be a good choice.
>
>My budget is about $300-$500 a month, but I'm more interested
>in getting a quality system that will last me a lifetime rather than
>getting immediate gratification.
>
>Sorry for all the questions, but I'm looking not to make mistakes,
>and I'm sure you are all pretty enthusiastic about analgue synths,
>so I'm hoping you'll be able to assist me.
>
>Thanks
>
>James
>

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-- Scott Gravenhorst | LegoManiac / Lego Trains / RIS 1.5
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