[sdiy] good modular kit for a noob?

[Sam Ecoff]

Hi Jason,

I've built the Paia 9700 and many of the Blacet kits. I'd say that the  
Paia is an excellent first modular project if you don't have a lot of  
experience soldering or identifying parts. The major downside is that  
it doesn't work very well when you get it all together. It's not a  
high quality machine. The VCOs are highly unstable and barely track,  
the filter self oscillates with the most piercing feedback you've ever  
heard (not in a good way) and doesn't do much in the way of filtering,  
and there are so damn many functions crammed into the VCA that it's  
all but unusable. On the upside, the EGs are quite good and very  
useful (about all I use mine for these days!) They EGs can also loop  
so that you can use them as pseudo LFOs. The Paia manuals are *super*  
well written. They assume you've never soldered before in your life.

On the flipside, the blacet modules are more expensive, but they are a  
steal for the quality you get. The manuals are clear, but they assume  
that you have some soldering experience and that you can identify  
parts on your own. The Blacet VCO is one of the best deals in the  
entire Frac marketplace today, IMHO. I seriously can't figure out how  
John can offer such a high quality module for such a low price.  
(Probably employs elves... that's my theory anyhow.) The other really  
cool thing about Blacet is that you have what I like to call the $25  
safety net... if you screw it up, you can send it back to John and  
he'll fix it for $25. Plus, he's very helpful and responsive via e-mail.

The Paia is a great kit to learn on, but it yields less than  
satisfactory results in my opinion. If I were you, I'd check out the  
awesome range of Blacet kits. You won't be sorry. You'll have modules  
that you can be proud to use in your music for the rest of your life.

HTH

Sam E.
_______________________________
Sam Ecoff
Synthasonic
Milwaukee, WI 53202
www.synthasonic.com





On Nov 11, 2008, at 12:45 AM, jpitt at fhcrc.org wrote:

> Hey All-
>
> I've always wanted a modular and have recently built a couple  
> x0xb0xs and some ucapps.de midibox stuff and I'd like to try  
> building a modular now.  Does anyone have any good suggestions for  
> something to start on?  I'd ideally like to buy a kit so I didn't  
> have to source parts and make panels...is the PAIA 9700 thing any  
> good?
>
> -thanks
> jason
>
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