synth from scratch devlog

estimating cost

good morning, let's do some math

bill of materials for vco

• 1 board $1.95
• 2 potentiometers 30¢
• 2 transistors 18¢
• 7 resistors 15¢
• 1 schmitt trigger inverter 77¢
• 1 diode 10¢
• 2 capacitors 23¢
• 2 audio jacks $4.04 (oof)
• 1 op amp 88¢
• total $8.60

I didn't get any FETs, they could be useful. MOSFETs vs JFETs? idk

I've really got to look for cheaper audio jacks next time — would be $4.56 without them. And cheaper perf board

would need to sell 10–11 modules to cover the cost of making them &mash; that's not bad! i think? making $0. only 3 or 4 if $25, making $49–$65 total. Or maybe a better way to look at it is: the first 3–4 I make $0 from, then once cost of all is covered I basically make the full $25? That's a less long-term way of looking at it but makes sense.

also got to look into how to make a business, how to do taxes for it, etc.

here's some guitar looping, for fun

a good starting point

found these videos walking through making the simplest usable synth voice. I'd seen these videos 2 years ago and taken some notes but watching through them again, a lot more is making sense. I'm hoping i can use this design as a starting point and make changes to it from there. It would be fun to be able to make these without using ICs at all, but I think I'll go ahead with this design just to get something simple working

learning about basic building blocks like voltage dividers...

ordered some basic electronics stuff to get started should be here... 5 business days maybe? we shall see, in the meantime, more pondering

doodles

played with the site design; added some temporary doodles.

looked into starting a kickstarter for this?? Need to decide on a bunch of things before that. That has to come after I've made a few proof of concept versions of this. I also really need to redo the math. Decide if I want my name on there or to be toad hill synths. that's not a company name i have or anything so it might make more sense to be me.

finished reading all but the examples section of the first book, i still have so many questions.

more studying

more studying, have learned about resistors, capacitors, the beginnings of transistors, ohm's law, etc.

came up with the name "toad hill synths" borrowing from an older story project. maybe some day make hand-animated videos explaining how a bunch of these things work.

site, book

worked on this site (totally getting ahead of myself, but it's fun to be able to picture a goal like this); made a list of all the kinds of module i might want to make (i'm sure i'll think of more).

borrowed electronics book from john u, started studying

setting some goals

My first attempt only really needs to be a VCO to make some noises. To make it more useful I might want to also try to make (using arduino or raspberry pi) a MIDI→CV breakdown thing. And maybe a VCA since it's probably one of the easier ones to make.

I'm waiting on that electronics book (I don't know what even to google so starting with all the basics seems good), and I'll probably need to buy some parts, so for now I'm sticking with brainstorming and loose schematics.

would love to sell these some day, for barely more than the material cost, since I'm not putting that much into the design and the labor of making them is fun & rewarding for its own sake at the moment

which would mean I'd have to not use other people's products like arduino or rpi, so that's worth looking into. I have two ATTiny85's, but they might not be capable of the kind of computation or power tolerance that I'd need. not sure though

I've also taken a ton of notes that I haven't looked back at yet. I bet I'd find more ideas to put together if I did, so that's another meanwhile goal.

star run thing

• eurorack 1hp = 5.08mm (0.2")
  • height is 3u = 128.5mm

thinkin'

brainstorming a lot about different modules to try to make, watching videos. not much. playing with arduino in the hopes of making a midi → CV module.

humble beginnings

and of course continuing to play with VCV rack

cat_patch.wav

a chance to study

kaes offered to let me borrow his 4-module synth rack, and hopefully diagnose/fix some issues. very excited 🐀 ✨

from today: running a guitar through VCV rack

brainstorming

playing with VCV Rack and dreaming of modular synthesizers -- decided to try and make modules myself because $.

taking notes on Make: Analog Synthesizers and googling random synth and electronics stuff, that's as far as I've gotten for now. Have Make: Electronics on hold at the library.