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

[David Griffith]

On Tue, 13 Jul 2010, Tim Parkhurst wrote:

> On Tue, Jul 13, 2010 at 8:20 AM, cheater cheater <cheater00 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Which makes me wonder, why aren't there Minimoog clone PCB layouts
>> like that around?
>> The thing's simple as a hammer! And currently it's possibly one of the
>> current holy grails of cloning. Just look at the parallel topic :)
>>
>> Maybe if someone pays off Kevin Lightner good he'd flatbed-scan some
>> kickass version of the mini. You know there are umpteen revisions, but
>> he's sure the one to know which one has The Sound.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> D.
>>
>
> I've spoken to Kevin about this in the past. He told me that he hears
> (with some amusement) of someone starting a Mini clone project at
> least once a month. Notice that none of these have ever made it to see
> the light of day (or at least as far as I know). I think you
> underestimate the time required to properly recreate the PCBs in a
> Mini. Also, once you have that PCB, now you've got to come up with a
> panel, panel controls, wiring and some sort of case. There's a TON of
> point to point wiring in a Mini, so that doesn't help things either.
> The Mini is one of the most well-documented synths out there, but I
> really think it's one of those things that SEEM simple on the
> surface... and then as you dig into it, you start to realize the 1,001
> little details involved in building a complete synth. The pot shafts
> are too long, the panel overlay is too thick, the washers have the
> wrong ID and don't fit over the jacks, you can't find the right wood
> screws, the mod pot is offset 1/16" from the original and now the mod
> wheel hits the bracket, etc, etc, etc, ETC, AARRGH ARRGH DAMMIT DAMMIT
> DAMMIT!! (the Red Mist descends and you have to go have a beer and
> cool down...)
>
> ;)
>
> I'm not saying that it couldn't be done. I just think it would be
> fairly time consuming and to tell you the truth, with the time and
> money required to do a proper Minimoog clone, you could just buy a
> real Mini for the same (or less). All statements above are IMHO of
> course.

Let me just say it here, I'm not out to make a minimoog from scratch, nor 
am I trying to make an exact replica.  As someone suggested earlier, it's 
more of a hot-rod.

-- 
David Griffith
dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu