Moritz Klein’s videos on youtube are also extremely worth a watch ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ
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Yes. I ordered the VCO kit in January, before the official release date somewhere around the 1st week of February, if I recall.
I received it about two weeks ago (paying for the cheapest shipping rate to the west coast, USA).
I’m going to put in for the VCA soon.
I have a feeling that I may have a good number of the kits in hand before I melt my first length of solder. However, given the depth of the tutorials and the breadboard exercises, it will be time well spent.
Yes. I have started to watch them.
I am learning so much of the “whys” of synthesis that no matter what happens I feel that I will benefit from this project.
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I’ve been watching a bunch of Moritz Kein’s videos, and now that I’ve sold my Syntakt I’m looking to buy the basics. Before getting a soldering kit and PCBs and all that, I just want to start with a breadboard and components to make this (and branch out and try to make other things, of course):
The problem is, after a bit of shopping around, my cart looks like this:
- 1460x resistors
- 100x diodes
- 50x trim potentiometers (the ones you need a screwdriver to adjust)
- 200x transistors
- 500x LED lights
- 140x jumper cables
- 300x ceramic capacitors
- 200x electrolytic capacitors
- 2x 9v battery clips
- a breadboard
All the items seem pretty cheap by themselves, big boxes full of components for $10-$20 each. But I have to buy a multimeter, jack sockets, alligator clips, and 100k potentiometers from different sites because none of the shops have everything, and that cart is now roughly $120.
What’s the smartest way to get into this without spending more money than needed? Is $120 cheap or expensive for so many pieces??
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While there may be people here who wield a soldering iron (I certainly don’t), you may do better over on ModWiggler, where there is a DIY forum.
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I’ve been through this a while ago. Looking back I’d say never buy components in bulk packages. You’ll end up having tons of resistors/caps/… with useless values for anything synth.
I’m not having access to my resources right now, but… why not try a cheap stompbox kit for a start or something similarly „trivial“?
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Cheap components: Tayda
Top shelf components: Mouser (US)
Test equipment: Amazon
IDK where to shop in Europe. It can be nice to have random boxes of parts, but for projects I prefer to buy the exact correct part so I can specify tolerance via Mouser.
You should get a ~$100 Weller or Hakko iron. A DMM in the $30-50 range should be fine. You won’t need a Fluke.
Modwiggler and electro-musc are better DIY forums. I’d buy @J3RK his favorite beverage and pick his brain. He knows this stuff inside and out.
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Split projects by groups like “all VCOs” or “all modules for a specific synth”. Buy parts for this group. You can buy x10 of basic components (resistors, capacitors) and x2-x3 of more expensive/less universal ones.
But $120 is not too much.
In addition to the list you would want to buy bench power supply and decent scope very soon. And these guys are expensive ones.
I’m somewhere in the beginning of this route, I’ve got parts and equipment and slowly moving through theory. My interest is more digital domain than analog, but understanding of analog circuits is almost must have in digital world. And I faced lack of a scope and proper power supply very soon.
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Thanks for the tip! I found a shop that sells components of individual values, but they’re in bulk of only that value.
It’s the lego-like nature of breadboards that interests me the most, at least right now. If I like it enough, I thought of buying a soldering iron and blank PCBs and whatever else I need to put stuff in neat little boxes with knobs. I did see a few starter kits, but they’re more geared toward Arduino and Raspberry PI stuff so I’d have to buy other components either way.
Building a whole synth seems way too big a project for me! Right now I’m just interested in the simple-looking stuff like that gritty 3-channel mixer. But what I’d like to try doing is make a stereo “saturation” box based on that 3-channel mixer, that takes (and outputs) line level so use it as an external FX with my Octatrack. And if that goes well and I’m having fun, start looking at making the simplest EQ possible. Then a compressor, but the video I saw on Moritz Klein’s channel was pretty overwhelming 
It’s just an example of grouping.
Also, something like Atari Punk Console is pretty small and simple for beginner’s project.
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Atari Punk Console, I think I had their first album on vinyl
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If you don’t already have a modular I don’t think that building synth modules is the best plan (you’ll still need power, a case, and will probably have to adapt voltage levels etc.) I also don’t think a mixer designed to add more harmonics to waveforms before filtering is going to do anything special for an octatrack that you couldn’t do just by overdriving your mixer.
If you’re just starting out, you’re really not going to save much buying parts yourself unless you envision a bigger project and standardize on the expensive parts (pots, knobs, switches, ic’s etc.) and buy them all in bulk and if you don’t know what you want to make yet this is premature. For a beginner I think full kits are the way to go, I would look for something with good instructions and read the instructions before you buy.
To use with the octatrack you might want to look at diy studio gear. Perhaps the diyre colour duo, which will give you 2 channels with 3 flavor of saturation…
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Totally depends on why you want to get into synth DIY in the first place.
If you want to just mess around with electronics and make your own stuff.
If you want to build kits.
If you want to build a modular system and think its cheaper to DIY (spoiler, it isnt)
Id say the most important bit of kit is the multi meter, get a good one.
As long as your soldering iron has temperature control, thats all you need really.
You’ll also need a bunch of tools, pliers, magnifying glass, clips, a good solder sucker (I have a little japanese hand held one, not a fancy electric one, it works well)
Stuff I have built:
A bunch of educational kits from my local electronics shop.
X0xbox. Yeah, that was my first project…
Elmyra. Should have done this first.
Dreadbox Dysmetria.
Shik NB32 midi controller.
The Elmyra was a gift for my gf. The X0xbox I use a lot. The other 2 I sold, didnt like them.
To answer your question, 120$ seems about right for that size order. Mouser is the place to go for bulk stuff.
If you want to get into the whole bread board thing, I have no idea. Never did it. I liked building the Kits above, but I havent felt like doing any soldering for a fair while.
Not sure if that info helps.
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Oh… edit-
Ive also repaired a few things here and there, microphones, my Lyra 8, and fitted midi to my SH101.
So yeah actually, DIY is cool from a repair/upgrade point of view. Useful skill to have.
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Thanks for all the info, everyone!
I think what I’m really looking for is really just a starter kit to experiment with line level audio. At this point I’m more interested in the messing around with a breadboard and seeing what it does to audio, with an end goal of making a desktop “module” that’s going to do the job worse than just getting a dedicated saturation box.
Pretty much this. There isn’t any problem I’m trying to solve that can’t be done with plugins.
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Seconding this. DIY is fun, it won’t save you money if you could be using the same time to do paying work. My Shruti-1 build cost me more in opportunity cost than my Virus TI keyboard, but it was fun.
Also, Euro modules are hard to sell and DIY modules are harder. People seem to be more open to things like the Shruti-1, which was only ever DIY (AFAIK). But good luck selling even a 4MS module for more than you paid for the kit.
DIY gas is also real. You may want to upgrade your soldering station, DMM, add a ‘scope, Logic analyzer, etc. be aware that there are a lot of tools that are useful to professionals but are far from cost effective for DIYers. Unless you have unlimited funds, avoid the premium brands and the cheapest stuff. Do a lot of research and be careful to buy slowly. But also do buy good wire cutters and strippers and other hand tools.
Edit: I forgot organization, you will eventually develop a storage system. You don’t need a label maker right away, but probably soon. A weed coffee scale and drug parts baggies are extremely useful - often it is easier to weigh a pile of parts rather than count them. IKEA has a ton of useful organization stuff, as do hardware stores.
This is a really tall order. Start out with blinking LEDs. Get some 555 timers and build a bunch of circuits with them. Buy 2-3 of the large breadboards from Tayda and 5-7 of the small ones. Collect as many PDFs on getting started in electronics as you can, as well as a texbook on basic circuits.
EE is very math heavy. The initial stuff is basic arithmetic, but IIRC you get into differential equations quickly when you are working in the frequency domain (as you do in audio). Don’t consider yourself a failure if you can’t assemble useful audio things from a box of parts like you would with legos. Planning and a lot of math are essential.
Try to go as far as you can with your current strategy, but don’t be afraid to fall back to basic kits and guides. I went to an engineering school, and did the engineering core before switching to CS. Circuits 101 and Circuits Lab were hazing classes designed to bounce out the unserious students. On the positive side, almost everyone who passed was into DIY hifi or synths. I was the exception 
Edit: when experimenting, WORK WITH BATTERY POWER ONLY. Do not plug a wall-wart into your DIY breadboard, and don’t plug Euro power into your experiments until they have been well validated with battery power. With enough current, 9v is enough to kill.
Sources:
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Man, you’ve given me a lot to think about. Thanks for the detailed reply!
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Storage
I found a great solution on local marketplace. There are modular boxes like two boxes per block which can be combined in any way. I bought a bunch of these blocks, printed different kinds of separators and got compact and well organized box of parts. Probably you can find something like that on Amazon.
Btw, 3d printer makes DIY life easier in many ways.
Electronics
For someone like me who didn’t have a chance to get a proper electrical engineering education in college, I highly recommend this course. It’s very long, but instructor is great and I really started to understand how things work. Unfortunately, there are too few music related topics.
https://www.udemy.com/course/crash-course-electronics-and-pcb-design/
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3D printing, laser cutting. Soon you start thinking about CNC mills and before you know it you are looking at financing options for a Brother Speedio.
Based on my experience, I wouldn’t recommend a university degree at all. Those degrees are aimed at people who are designing high-voltage systems for the power grid. The fun stuff of interest to us is largely glossed over. Ambitious students either already taught themselves that stuff, or need to work a lot of problem sets to pass. Just get cheap textbooks from 20-50 years ago and augment them with good youtubes and your own experiments and you should be good. Dover Publications republishes a lot of old texbooks cheap, but you can find plenty of PDFs in the usual places.
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Tayda is great! I buy most of my components there. That said, their 1/4 jacks are awful. I recommend up-spending on jacks as they are used all the time.
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