Those are Frequency Central White Face VCFs. I used jumper cables to attach them to Kosmo sized panels. I have one still on the bench I’m still trouble shooting.
My two goals for the system was 1. To build giant playground of basic circuits, in the same vein as the early modular systems like a Roland 500 or a moog.
And the second was to have the ability to do 6 voice polyphony; because I have a crazy idea to build a cv guitar with 6 lasters to trigger notes and capacitive touch switches on the neck.
That second part is a long way off, but in the mean time this rack is gonna be a lot of fun on its own.
I’ve done a lot with guitar synths and hex pickups. Mostly GK pickups. I too have plans for my ultimate guitar with soft pots and capacitive touch. I’ve used resistive touch screens in the past for some mods.
Not heard of lasters, can you explain?
I think I originally got the idea watching laser harp videos on youtube. Most of those run off of an arduino outputting midi.
My idea was to build a guitar shaped “thing” with 6 lasers in The body you break to send a gate to one of 6 envelope generators.
Then 6 rows of capacitive switchs up the neck to send pitch voltages to the 6 VCOs.
I have no idea what it would be like to play, but I really want to build it and try.
I’ve also had a lot of fun with a regular guitar signal in my syth. My favorite method is patching it’s amped signal into the control voltage of a VCA. Depending on what kind of sound you patch into the vca’s audio input you can get a lot of really weird fuzzy sounding effects.
My big problem is I spend too much time thinking and building and not enough time actually practicing the guitar.
I like to take individual string sound and use that to trigger and provide pitch but I also use alternative tuning patches which are great fun.
Lasers you interrupt get tricky the longer you have to beam. I have designed two laser harps and each was a bugger to get focused.
I did add one of those cheap laser harp kits to a guitar as a sitar like chord that you could strum. Looked awful but as a controller was ok.
Have you looked at resistive strips, soft pots, fabric potentiometers and strain gauges?
I put a cheap strain gauge in the neck pocket of an old strat clone to activate pitch bend on the gr33 guitar synth when I pulled the neck back. It also did little wiggles when I hit it and died from over use. Huge fun.
Im bedbound at the moment but still try to play every day or learn something new. I have a roached old Spanish guitar with high tension strings tuned down to C standard so I can play bass lines as well. Making changes and different styles and tunings keep me challenged and practicing. Play on.
I was looking at arduino driven touch plates a while back, but I still have a lot of research to do. If anyone has used a product they like I’d be interested to hear about it.
But this project is probably a year off. My current list is
Finish the rack
2 . Finish the black metal album my buddy and I started before the Pandemic
Well… The one I’m building has a light and sound board kit from GBfans.com, so it’s already getting wired up for batteries and speakers. only thing is, I’m being a real sticker for details on that project. I’ve managed to get almost all the real world parts that went on the original props.
I’ve often though the trap had a lot potential to become a stand alone semi modular synth. it’s already got knobs on it, and an expression pedal. The doors could open to reveal more controls, or maybe become a yellow and black keyboard. either one would be really cool.
The angle the picture is taken at makes them look massive. It is like it wouldn’t fit in the cupboard in the background. Because the color of the table is very similar to the floor It took me a while to grasp the perspective.
thx !
especially the size, too big, it is real size about 35cm tall.
I used a simple circuit with a CD4017 it could also become the visual of a sequencer
