noise embedded.

Midi Moose. Midi Issues Everywhere After finalizing the Acid Moose 303 clone build my midi usage increased significantly. So did my midi problems. Unfortunately I just couldn't get the Acid Moose midi interface working reliably. Sending too many messages made it freeze and the whole device had to be rebooted. I tried changing opto-isolators, crystals, pretty much everything around the pic microcontroller but nothing helped. Anything more than simple note on and note off messages would make it fail. Unfortunately that midi implementation is significant part of the sound because it mimics many 303 peculiarities so changing to another microcontroller implementation wasn't an option either. Needless to say the source code is not available. I finally gave up debugging it and decided to add a midi filter in front of it to throw out everything except the bare minumum of needed midi note messages. Around the same time I also bought an Elektron Digitakt sequencer/sampler. ...

Surface Mount Future It's time to face the truth. Nobody uses good old through hole components for professional electronics designs nowadays. This of course means that there's less demand for components and more and more new components are only offered in surface mount form factor. Sooner or later hobbyists need to follow the trend and start using SMD components too. I have been avoiding SMD projects without any good reason. I've seen how easily hardware designers at work solder all those tiny barely visible components but somehow thought it would be too difficult to be fun. And I don't want to waste my scarce free time doing something that I don't enjoy! I have Mutable Instruments Clouds module in my eurorack and have always liked the open source approach they have. I have been aware that many people build their own DIY versions of those brilliant modules but have always skipped those projects because of the SMD soldering. After giving it some thought ...

Danger! Acid Moose on the loose! The Synth Roland TB-303 must be one of the most fascinating piece of music gear of all time. I have never owned or played one but have loved the distinctive sound that has defined the whole acid techno music genre. About two years ago I was looking for interesting synth DIY-projects and found out about Oakley Sound and their TM3030 clone. It's an accurate but modernised version of the original TB-303. It can be built with the original Japanese semiconductors or with more modern and easily sourced components. It doesn't have a sequencer like the original box has but has a special midi interface that reproduces many of the TB-303 features. The Box For some reason I have been hauling an old Macintosh Plus external hard drive enclosure with me for two decades. It's so beautiful in all it's dull greyness and brings back memories from the countless hours spent in front of our first computer back in early nineties. This must have cos...

Modular Drum Machine? It was yet another boring afternoon at work. I ended up searching for some interesting DIY eurorack kits. I had never considered adding any drum stuff to my modular synth. I have the not so perfect Akai Howling Wolf drum machine in my setup and have been somewhat disappointed with the kick drum of the unit. So when I found the cheap  Sound Force 808 kick diy kit  I just couldn't resist. They also have 808 snare kit available so of course I had to get both. Weird-Valued Vertical Resistors I usually start all pcb builds by soldering the resistors. They are easy to install and are the lowest components. Unfortunately these boards are designed for smaller resistor components. They can be built with normal through-hole resistors but everything needs to be installed vertically. This makes soldering much slower and more painful. I have plenty of resistors and capacitors around and these boards don't use any exotic ICs so I thought I could build th...

As already mentioned in my Going Modular! post my modular synth lives in a standard 19" rack. In addition to eurorack modules I also have other gear installed into the same rack. My first rack was just two 16 unit high rack rails attached to a Yamaha TX81Z rack synthesizer. It was dirt cheap but not very stable and it was practically impossible to move it anywhere. Something had to be done. I'm not really a carpenter and also didn't feel like spending big pile of money on ready-made studio furniture. I had an unused wooden shelf laying around. One day I thought it actually looks like a side panel for a studio rack. After some measurements I realized it's exactly 18 rack units high! So I went to Clas Ohlson and bought another one and ordered 18 unit rack rails. After that it was pretty easy to build a better rack. Clas Ohlson sells wooden panels exactly 18 rack units high! How convenient! This is the level of carpentry I'm comfortable with! I re-us...