[sdiy] "Lub Dub Pod Bay"

[anthony]

I have a cool idea for a percussin/rhythm oriented synth. The focus here 
would be rhythm and timbre with definite pitch taking a back seat (but not 
completely ignored...)

I call it the "Lub Dub Pod Bay" - named after my love of dub music and the 
heartbeat connotation. The "pod bay" part fosters the image of a space 
station. But it's really descriptive of the synth units themselves which 
consist of those cool little percussion synth boxes like the Coron DS7 and 
DS8 and the SynChime, SynTom & SynWave and that French Disco Drum using an 
XR2206 (Piou! Piou!). I love little boxes like this. They remind me of 
guitar stompers (and guitar stomper remind me of these). I think it all ties 
into my psychotic fascination with small things like little toy cars and 
such. But things that make noise are a whole universe better. I got a 
harmonica from my ex-girlfriend's sister one year and she could not for the 
life of her figure out why I flipped over such a gift. My God, but do I 
digress!

OK so these little synths I call "pods". They're not "modular" - they're 
"podular".
OK so wouldn't it be cool to hook them all up to something like say a CGS 
Gate Sequencer? Sure it would. You could have them all mounted on a 
tree-like rack - suitably shaped to resemble some sort of docking bay. Some 
rack space for effects would be essential.

Juergen Haible's Transient Gate would be a perfect addition (this thing 
looks so cool).

I thought I'd have a place to put my Realisitc Electronic "Reverb" and the 
cheesy digital delay I hacked out of a karaoke boom box too for an ultra-dub 
freakout.

I think a Gated Comparator would be great here too. I want to resist the 
temptation to put the gate-to-CV converter on this thing though. The Gated 
Comparator would be the only thing that decides pitch besides twisty knobs 
(or slidey-sliders...)

I think Ray Wilson's WP-20 would really shine here too. The Soundlab too 
obviously.

The nice thing is that each pod is not mounted in any way resembling 
permanent or even necessarilly long-term. Trade pods with friends! Woo!

My Digitech DS2000 that I just got used would be cool here too.

I mention alll this because I don't think I've really ever seen it done. 
I've seen some really impressive perc synths though. Hey the Clangora would 
be right at home here. BUT having a lot of knobs that all look alike in a 
grid... My mind would rebel... Rebelde!

aa;