[sdiy] Synth Electronics

[Ben Bradley]

And I dare say Barry's book is much better than the Delton Horn book
"Electronic Music Synthesizers" from the same time period. I recall
seeing both for sale way back when, and I bought the Horn book because
it had a drawing of a Minimoog on the cover, and that's what I wanted
to have the schematics for and make. But then Horn wrote a lot of
books on other topics, and so surely didn't have the depth of
knowledge to do a good job on synths.

Another good book from back then is "Musical Applications of
Microprocessors" 2nd. edition. It has a remarkable amount of analog
synth circuitry for a book on microprocessors, even though some of it
is "discrete" ADCs and DACs as things were done back then.

Remarkably, used printed copies of both are available at collectible
prices. I look up (and sometimes buy) a lot of books at
https://www.bookfinder.com/

You mentioned Sound Semiconductor - here's a not-quite-up-to-date list
of relevant chips available, though I think it at least lists all the
current manufacturers. Go to each manufacturer's site to see what's
currently available:
https://electricdruid.net/analog-renaissance/

I remember way back when the Prophet 5 and other
microprocessor/microcontroller-driven analog polysynths showed up, I
learned they used new chips that were each basically a whole synth
module in one chip, then a decade later both manufacturers quit making
the chips before I could get some and make my own polysynth. The
analog synth chips were probably yet another thing the DX7 killed. You
mentioned Sound Semiconductor - one thing you might want to do (if
this is to be a commercial product) is make sure at least one other
maker of chips can be used, if not drop-in replaceable then at least
by switching a few jumpers, so you don't end up with a lack of source
of parts.

But then you say "I want to build an analog synth from scratch." To me
that means going back to the 1960s through mid 1970s, when oscillators
and filters were made out of op-amps and discrete transistors and
such, before the CEM and SSM chips. There's certainly value in doing
that, and learning how (for example) exponential response and
temperature compensation are done. I've wanted to at least make a
monosynth that way, but it might not be appropriate for a polysynth -
Yamaha's GX-1 and CS-80 are two "big" examples I'm thinking of.

On Mon, 8 Apr 2024 at 20:34, Barry Klein via Synth-diy
<synth-diy at synth-diy.org> wrote:
>
> You can’t get rich writing a book on modular synth design either: find a PDF copy of my book Electronic Music Circuits….
>
> Barry
>
> On Apr 8, 2024, at 4:40 PM, Pete Hartman via Synth-diy <synth-diy at synth-diy.org> wrote:
>
> 
>
>
> On Mon, Apr 8, 2024 at 5:54 PM Paulo Constantino via Synth-diy <synth-diy at synth-diy.org> wrote:
>>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> I want to build an analog synth from scratch. I currently work as a digital IC design engineer at a semiconductor company and I have good knowledge in analog circuit design, but I'm not that good at advanced analog circuitry.
>>
>> Can anyone recommend me a book or some tutorial on synth electronics?
>
>
>
> This is a perennial topic.  I'm sure there are good things in the archive:
> https://synth-diy.org/ (about half way down the page are the archive links)
>
> If you can find a copy, Electronotes taught a lot of folks here the foundations of what they know, and worked out and explained a lot of what is considered standard now.  Unfortunately they're no longer available from Bernie (and please, list members, let's not turn this into another debate about that topic), so you will have to find someone who is selling their copies.  Join the sister list marketplace at synth-diy.org for your best shot at this.
>
> A lot of folks will recommend _Make: Analog Synthesizers_ by the late Ray Wilson, whose website is still available here: https://musicfromouterspace.com/
>
> I learned a lot from several books by Thomas Henry which are available at lulu.com
>
> https://electro-music.com/forum/ has a lot of discussion and lots of contributions by various folks with "names" in this area, as well as a wiki containing a lot of circuits.  You'll find recommended websites to look into such as https://yusynth.net/ https://ijfritz.byethost4.com/ https://www.schmitzbits.de/ and a ton of other discussion.  https://modwiggler.com has some fora that also cover this sort of thing, but there are lots of other topics there too, like discussions of the latest gear from the major manufacturers etc etc.  Some of that goes on on E-M as well but modwiggler has been the main hub for that for a while now.  It's all background that would be good to have even if not directly about the electronics.
>
> Dr Aaron Lanterman has kindly made his Georgia Tech course "Analog Circuits for Music Synthesis", which covers a lot of the common blocks that a lot of analog synths/modules use as standard, available on youtube.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYk8r3QlNi8&list=PLOunECWxELQS5bMdWo9VhmZtsCjhjYNcV
>
> And there is some very good advice from Paul Schrieber of Synthesis Technology here, about things which aren't usually given much thought: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBGyEBQnIws
>
> As for getting rich :) I think Paul S has some relevant commentary about that as well which should be findable in the archive.
>
> Pete
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