Breadboard Synthesizer

About the only thing more fun than fiddling with synthesizers is building them. Or at least taking a flying stab at it. Now, I’ve certainly built my share of fairly basic synth parts… mults, an AS3340 VCO, amps, and so on. I’ve even recently made a perfectly adequate Eurorack-compatible power supply. But I decided to kick it up a notch a couple months ago when I built this:

Maybe “decided to” is a bit strong. It just sort of happened, after having watched Moritz Klein’s superb DIY VCO series, his filter, his arpeggiator, and so on. Would you be surprised to learn that synths on a breadboard connect just as easily as synth modules? Derp.

By the time I puzzled out a CD4017-based 16-step sequencer I realized I had something pretty nifty on my hands. Add an envelope generator and a simple clock and you have more or less all you need for a fun little groove-box—all crammed into a series of breadboard knit together by hot glue and tangle of wires. I will be spending some time trying to turn it into a standalone semi-modular sort of deal, and perhaps even a synth module. It might lose some of the rustic charm in the transition, but ought to be a bit sturdier and easier to control—at minimum.

I’ll see if I can’t post a few more things about this thing. Certainly some schematics are in order. You’ll notice perhaps that while the quantizer bears some resemblance to Moritz Klein’s it is also a great deal different. It is perhaps my only true innovation (for lack of a better word), as much of what you see here is cobbled together from datasheets and various schematics floating around.

Certainly I’ll be documenting the journey from breadboard to enclosure in the coming weeks/months/years. It’s something that’s occupied my thoughts a lot lately, and will demand a willingness to launch myself pretty damn far outside my comfort zone’s tight radius. Stay tuned, and carpe diem!