It lives!!

[minimofo]

Hi all,

I can't quite remember how I came across the MFOS website but I've been building a Mini Synth on and off (mostly off!) since Christmas.
Bought a guitar pedal kit on a whim a couple of years ago and got hooked on making copies of pedals I couldn't otherwise afford. About 20 odd in I began to hunt around for other types of noise making circuits I could put together... hence MFOS.



Made a case from off-cuts of swamp ash I'd got knocking around after a bass build last year, used a sheet of 2mm aluminium from ebay and designed the interface in Illustrator, using the file on offer from the MFOS site as a starting point. I'm very green about all this old school synth stuff, wouldn't have a clue what switch to put where in the build otherwise!

Printed the design out, mounted it onto the drilled aluminium sheet, cut the holes out of the paper with a very sharp scalpel and then lacquered over everything.

Was very nervous about wiring it all up, given the complexity I worried I could spend the rest of my life de-bugging the thing if it didn't work. In the end, I bought a shed load of coloured wire so that I could match the layout on the MFOS site exactly, labelled everything up and just took my time, triple checking everything as I went. Laborious, but I'm by no means a natural... have to make up for lack of inspiration with perspiration

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Little bit anal on the panel wiring, love properly dressing the wire and making nice neat right angles
Wish there was a way the panel to circuit board wiring could be neater (aside from just gathering it all and taping it into groups). Does anyone know of any elastic wire suppliers I could use?!





Had a couple of goes at the power. Initially put the two batteries inside the case and mounted to the back next to the circuit board. Thinking about it though, I didn't want to have to keep removing the panel to get at the batteries. In the end I codged together a box with epoxy and mounted it facing out toward the back with a door I can swing open, might save breaking solder joints long term as I'm a bit accident prone


Like I said, I've no background in the synth side of things... I suppose I'd better put a sequencer together now in order to make use of this. I've already begun on a box for the Guitar Trigger circuit, can't wait to run my 4 and 6 strings through it.

I'm not sure, without a keyboard, how to tune the 1v/oct trimmers... probably can't?
And I'm guessing that CV synth keyboards are rare and therefore an arm and a leg to buy? Is my best option to get a midi synth/controller and a midi-to-cv converter of some sort?

Thanks all

[inlifeindeath]

Looks great! Congrats! Def recommend a seq to control it. I built Ray's 10 step, but wish I had just gone for the 16 step in hind sight. The guitar trigger is a lot of fun. Wasn't really into the trigger part, but running it through the VCF/VCA is rad! For a controller, I built the CGS keyboard controller, but just made a 4x4 matrix of momentary switches instead of an actual keyboard. Haven't tried the Midi to CV route, but then again, I don't use my comp for anything synth related.

[PHOBoS]

that's beautiful!
I really like the color scheme, and you did a great job on the wiring part.
well done

[RF]

Thats really a nice job - Very unique look and well put together!

Congrats!

[Danno Gee Ray]

Most excellent work !

[adambee7]

The panel graphics are great. thats a really nice build man.

[kkissinger]

Congratulations! A very nice build -- well done.

Sequencers are among the most difficult builds (lots of knobs, led's, etc) however it appears that you are up to the task.

[Captain Biscuits]

Very nice. Your bus wiring puts mine to shame.

Really nice tidy job. Hope you are enjoying it.