I Dream of Modular Synthesizers

Its True. If you love electronics, especially stuff with a classic old-school look. There is something I love about having to patch in the sounds you want with real cables, not by pushing buttons.


Things like the Buchla 200e make me wish I had thousands of dollars to spend sweet toys. The thing looks like it should be on the set of a 50s Sci-fi movie. It also happens to be used in the studio by bands such as Muse and Nine Inch Nails. The school I went to has (had?) a Moog Modular that is in need of repairs. It was really fun to look at and play with the parts that worked.

Over the years I have been secretly planning on building a giant modular synth. I have a lot of schematics and research information. A lot. A friend recently pointed me to a website, that pointed me to another website that might make this dream a possibility.

Say hello to Music from Outer Space. They have what I desire, and that would be PCBs for synth parts. Like VCOs and filters, and step sequencers. I never liked making PCBs, or, never did it successfully, so finding a place to buy them makes things much more appealing.

Now that I have a way, a modular synthesizer is a very real thing for me to build. What will go in it you ask? Let me tell you.

3 VCOs
2 Filters
3 ADSR envelopes
Noise generator
Some kind of phaser
A really cool chorus unit I have the schematics for (thats a post in of iteself).
16 step sequencer

I would really like it to be polyphonic, but that will not be easy, so monophonic it is. There will probably be many changes to the rough idea I currently have, but you gotta start small. I'll probably buy a PCB for a VCO and start there, buying each part seperatly, slowly building this thing over many months. I will also need an oscilloscope to test and calabrate the parts. It should be a really fun project.