Custom Modular Synthesizer

I've always been fascinated by the classic mammoth Moog modular synthesizers from the 60's. Whats not to love? All those patch cables, knobs, modules, all housed in a huge wooden cabinet just looks plain cool. Basically how they work is you have all sorts of different modules that do different things like generate tones, filter out different frequencies, amplify, control the shape of the sound, ect. You then patch various modules together with 1/4" cables to create a "patch". Some of the advantages to these analog monsters is of course sound quality and the maximum realtime control over sound. One of the big problems in my opinion with digital synths is the complexity in editing sounds, because you need to scroll through menus, which sucks, and its easy to screw up a patch by pressing the wrong button.

Keith Emerson of ELP custom Moog synth

I would love to own one, but unfortunately they are extremely rare and pricy. Of course there are other means to acquiring such a beast. Hmmm...DIY anyone? There are many sites such as "Music From Outer Space" and "Yusynth" as well as many others that offer great schematics for all sorts of different modules for modulars that you can build yourself. 

I ordered most of my parts from mouser. 

Heres the first board I made. Its a Yusynth vco. I used the Iron transfer method to copy the circuit on the copper clad. Eventually I would like to photo etch the boards to get a higher quality transfer.

Heres the vco almost fully populated.

MFOS dual envelope generator.

If you look around on my boards, you can see little symbols I etched just for the heck of it. 

I salvaged the keys for the keyboard controller from an old Kimball organ. The organ had 2x3.5 octave manuals. I wanted a 5 octave keyboard, so I cut part of the one of the keyboards off and added it to the other one.

I'm building the cabinet out of poplar. The keyboard is made out of some leftover poplar trim from my house.

Almost completed vca board.

Really cool poplar board I found for the cabinet.

I decided to for a 2x19 space cabinet. The standard cabinet size is usually 22 spaces, but I made mine 19 instead to fit on top of the hammond.

Finished vco, minus completed panel.

The vco worked the first try!

Testing the keyboard circuit, which also worked the first time!

Finished ebony stain on keyboard with a bit of poly.

Almost completed keyboard.

I added some red felt for looks.

Heres how the panels will sit in the cabinet.

I bought a 24"x48" piece of 22 gauge steel to make the panels out of. I bent the panels in my metals shop at school. The finish on the panels is black with a speckle clear coat.

Sitting on top of the hammond with the keyboard garage finished.

Heres a picture of the synth how it will sit on the hammond. The cabinet still needs a few more coats of polyurethane.

Finally got to work on my synth a bit. I started routing the power cables and hooking up the power supply. I also drilled the power panel.

Trying to keep all of the wiring nice and clean.

The power switch is a key ignition. The power light is a vintage jewel lens with a neon light behind it. I left a little spacing between the panels because I am going to have red lights in the cabinet and they will show through the slits. 

More to come! Stay "tuned"

The Megatron

Well, I've got a new big project to start after Im done with my synth. A digital mellotron.

The mellotron uses tapes with recordings of actual instruments on them to make sound. Some classic sounds are flute, strings, cello, choir, and violins. Each key has a tape loop with three different instruments, so when you press a key, the tape is played and you get about 7 seconds of sound.

 Mellotron tapes

The mellotron is very quirky and has lots of problems, but it just has such a unique dark sound. This instrument can be heard on many classic recordings such as the flute intro to"strawberry fields forever" and the string sounds in pretty much every Moody Blues song. Anyway, I really want one but they very rare and hard to come by (and expensive too!). So I had the idea to use a sampler to play mellotron samples and use a midi keyboard to control it. Others before me have done the same thing, but I like the idea. What I want to do is build a case for it that resembles a real mellotron, but instead uses the digital sampler to play the mellotron samples. It will also include a mixer that I will build to run all my other keyboards through. Then the base will be a big, high wattage tube amplifier that the mellotron and mixer will run through.

The keyboard part can be removed from the base and each part can be used separate from each other. It will also be easier to transport that way.