Yamaha V50

I bought this synth as a new in 1989. Now the internal battery reported it is dead and it needs to be changed. I new that all the internal sounds will get corrupted in this operation. That's not a problem because there was only one sound that I had programmed. Here is a picture of the main-board where you can see the yellow CR2032 battery. The other picture shows my V50 together with analog-friends SH101 and TTSH2600. I think now I am ready to program more FM-sounds. I have the book "FM Theory & Applications" by John Chowning and David Bristow and the original operating manual for V50. Now I must just start to create new sounds.

Prodigy Eurorack Modifications

Here are more detailed instructions on how the modifications are implemented. OSC IN and VCF IN are alredy in the original PCB so they need no instructions.

OFF-position is the original connection. ON-position connects +12V thru R188 to R131/Q39 and opens the 3080 VCA.

When using the KYBD IN V/Oct input you must connect the JUMPER CABLE (see also earlier building instructions in my Blog) so that the KYBD IN is tracked all the time. Leave out the R82 resistor and C23 capacitor. RKYBD replaces the external resistor network.

GATE IN goes direct to R153 resistor. If you are using the original keyboard then GATE OUT must be connected to GATE IN.

Contour Sync OFF-position is the original connection where +12V is connected to Pitch Wheel resistor R180. ON-position replaces this +12V with filter envelope output. When Contour Sync is ON the Pitch Wheel acts like an attenuator where you can choose how much the filter envelope changes OSC2 pitch. When OSC2 to OSC2 Sync switch is ON and this Contour Sync switch is ON then you can change the Sync-sound with filter envelope and Pitch Wheel.

R41 and R48 are both 10k for symmetrical Square. R41 goes direct to +12V and external PWM-input for OSC1 goes between these two resistors.

OSC2 is identical to OSC1 but there is also the R184 potentiometer which adjusts manually the OSC2 pulsewidth.

RIP Don Buchla

Synth pioneer Don Buchla has died at the age of 79. Good news is that his heritage is living strong. Composer Suzanne Ciani played with Buchla instruments in 70's and became a good friend with Buchla. Here this heritage is transferred to younger generation when Ciani plays with Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith in their Sunergy project.

Synamiitti 2016 in Turku

I was showing my DIY Moog Prodigy-clone at this years Synamiitti in Turku. Small place but full of synth-stuff. It is always nice to talk with other synth-builders and people that are interested about synths.

The modular corner.

DIY four voice Roland Jupiter.

My Eurorack Prodigy and it's big brother MiniMoog.

Nice DIY MOTM-size modular.

Electric Druids MIDI2CLK

This is my version of Electric Druids MIDI-to-analog-gate-pulse project (http://electricdruid.net/midi-clock-to-analog-gate-pulses/). I programmed the PIC16F688 chip and build this prototype board. It works great. From one MIDI-clock you get two separate analog clocks with adjustable division rate. I noticed that when you change the clock division this chip loses where is the first beat. To correct this you must stop and start the MIDI-clock. This is not a problem for me because I use this module just to convert the MIDI-clock to analog-clock with no division rate at all. I can easily create those different divisions with my Abstract Data ADE-32 Octocontroller (http://www.abstractdata.biz/products/eurorack/3x/ade32/) which is little bit smarter and handles these division changes seamlessly.

Karelian Skies 2016 Full Concert

Here is the full concert video from this years Karelian Skies!

Alessandro Cortini in Amsterdam

Happily I noticed during my holiday visit to Amsterdam that at the same time Dekmantel Festival 2016 (http://www.dekmantelfestival.com/) was going on in Amsterdam. I picked up from the program Alessandro Cortini performance in BIMHUIS. He had this minimal setup with iPAD working as a sound source and a selection of guitar effects that he used extensively to processing the sound. He created these beautiful soundscapes and little melodies/harmonies with delays, pitch-shifting, reverb and distortion. Distortion can be very beautiful when used deliberately.