[sdiy] Wasp clone, was: SDIY UK 2010 pics and vid

[Tom Wiltshire]

The method you describe doesn't sound everso complicated, it's true. Maybe you could even pull the board out of one and sit it in a flatbed scanner. If it is single-sided, that'd about do it. Straight to P-N-P blue, then drilling, and soldering.

Still, I'd find the urge to make "improvements" almost impossible to overcome.

T.

On 13 Jul 2010, at 15:44, cheater cheater wrote:

> eh Tom, "all the work" is nothing compared to Jürgen's new vocoder.
> Besides it's really only just a few elements, let's be honest with
> eachother, a beginner project at worst. The PCB is nice, big, and
> spacious, and there are no heat-sensitive chips either. You could
> finish it with a soldering gun.
> 
> Given that those things don't seem to sound that bad, it would/could
> be an interesting project. Not everything needs to be pitch-perfect
> and the limited range is as much a turn-off as it is a turn-on. Even
> the wasp interface could stay intact - so that you can use the wasp
> midi mod that already exists, or use it with your other wasp if you
> have one, etc. Maybe the Spider sequencer could be copied too and then
> it could be used directly with the midi interface (it's a small box
> with limited capabilities so probably not too complicated at all).
> Then there are the Gnat and Wasp Deluxe.
> 
> I'm sure enough people are curious about the wasp's sound that they
> would build clones. I can easily see enough PCBs selling for the
> effort to pay off to anyone who invests their time to copy the pcb
> from some photos - and this shouldn't be that difficult, either, just
> some scaling with mesh tools to remove perspective / lens distortion
> and off you go with a brush and eraser. Given the simplicity of the
> circuit at hand it shouldn't be difficult to figure out what goes
> where under the chips. I guess it would be "more authentic" than any
> schematics-based copies too (schematics lie, and hey, layout is the
> king of sound, especially when digital chips are being used for audio)
> 
> Cheers,
> D.
> 
> On Tue, Jul 13, 2010 at 11:06, Tom Wiltshire <tom at electricdruid.net> wrote:
>> 
>> On 13 Jul 2010, at 05:27, cheater cheater wrote:
>> 
>>> Hi Chris,
>>> really nice pics, thanks.
>>> 
>>> Looking at the gutted Wasp, it's just one, possibly two-sided, PCB.
>>> Given how insanely expensive those things get for what they do, I
>>> wonder, why are there no true to life 1:1 clones yet?
>> 
>> Because if you're going to do all that work, you might as well build something better than a Wasp?
>> 
>> T.
>> 
>> PS: I'm curious to hear about the Cygnus too.