Pictures of your builds!

...and how to do so...
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Wow that thing looks and sounds great! Would you mind sharing some pictures of the guts or a bit of detail about building the enclosure?

Boy, that Axiom has seen better days, eh? :hihi:

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Thanks justin.

I did take a few photos but only of the enclosure build. To be honest, the innards are a bit of a mess - it started with me just wanting to build an arduino on proto-board but I then decided to use it for the synth. Then it occurred to me to tack a delay on the output, then, why not stick a chorus in between? and then, let's have a joystick. If I'd known where it was going, I could have laid everything out on a single perfboard but as it is, there are bits and pieces cobbled together and wires all over the place.

The top of the enclosure is all MDF. The separate panels pieces were cut, shaped, drilled and painted before attaching to the top, which was also drilled and painted. I use a basic white house paint that I colour accordingly with acrylic artist paints and apply it with a roller for an even, slightly textured surface. The labels are inkjet water-slide decals (no white option, unfortunately). The sides of the enclosure are plywood. I then varnish aplenty with water based varnish and finally finish the top with a matte finish clear acrylic spray.

Here's a couple more pics that might be of interest. Next time I open it up, I'll try to remember to snap the guts.

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Regarding the Axiom - I love the feel of the keys but it always suffered the BSOD. Luckily someone came up with a fix and I could resurrect it but I also removed the rotaries and pads as I couldn't get on with them and the space is far more useful for placing things - just need to take care not to drop stuff down the holes. Perhaps I should attached a nice flat surface to cover them?

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Thanks so much! Looks like a fun build. I've done a few projects with arduino recently but I'd love to make something with a joystick.

I used to work at M-Audio and I had a bunch of those, missing various parts. Most returns were just thrown out, so the dumpster was full of good stuff that could be easily fixed (until they started locking it). Those were some of my first experiences working with SMT parts. lol

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knockman wrote:The top of the enclosure is all MDF.
That looks amazing, nice work.

I want to box up the controller I've been playing with and thought of a wooden box with an aluminium or plastic front panel but you've used MDF, strong enough I gather? Are the pots bolted to it or just poking through, secured somehow underneath?

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GaryG wrote:
knockman wrote:The top of the enclosure is all MDF.
That looks amazing, nice work.

I want to box up the controller I've been playing with and thought of a wooden box with an aluminium or plastic front panel but you've used MDF, strong enough I gather? Are the pots bolted to it or just poking through, secured somehow underneath?
Many thanks.

I was a little unsure about using this MDF at first but it seems robust enough. I did add a strip of wood under the top as a brace midway, running front to back. The top is a sheet of 4 mm MDF. It's roughy 40 cm x 18 cm - if it were any wider/longer, this might not be the ideal material. The pots are bolted to this sheet with the additional pieces of 6 mm MDF creating the recesses for the knobs. I think these pieces help make it a little more rigid and with all the paint and acrylic lacquer, it pretty solid.

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Thanks. I guess the extra panels would add strength, as well as protecting the knobs to a degree from knocks. I'll have to give it a go.

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I used my new drill press to finally finish my Fuzz Factory build.
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I got the PCB from Tayda and the AC128s from eBay. I added an op-amp buffer to the output and a tone control based on the one from the amzfx page.

It sounds great. Love the self-oscillation!

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awesome! Some fuzz is on my list to do when I have my soldering stuff and workbench set up again.
If you have to ask, you can't afford the answer

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these are some good-looking projects (i'll be they sound great, too). way to go!

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Built an Engineer's Thumb Compressor
It's a Valve Wizard designed circuit: http://www.valvewizard.co.uk/engineersthumb.html
I followed Sabro Tone's layout for the 5 knob version: http://www.sabrotone.com/?p=2901

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It's another MDF construction. Those colourful knobs are old paint tube caps. More pictures here: https://flic.kr/s/aHskQwr614
The enclosure is much larger than necessary but I can stack it on its side and still see the controls if using in on the shelving that now houses my 'studio'.
Sorry no audio to share but it's very clean and quiet - the reason I built it was the Boss CS-3 is so noisy. But as well as guitar, I want to use it to tame the outputs of my PAiA 9700 and Auduino which can both squeal if one is not careful.

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How'd I miss this? Beautiful work!

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justin3am wrote:How'd I miss this? Beautiful work!
Thanks - I've established a method. Here's a couple more recent builds and a video featuring both:

1. Eric Archer's voltage controlled low pass filter
http://www.ericarcher.net/wp-content/up ... iy-lpf.pdf
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More build photos: https://flic.kr/s/aHsm3dB83K
bit of a wiring nightmare this one! Also f**ked up the labeling - used a hpf symbol instead of the lpf!

2. A LM324 based oscillator controlled by a soft pot and 2 LEDs acting on a photo-resistor
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There are a couple of 555 chips - one to control the brightness of one LED and the other the rate at which the second LED flashes. The photo-resistor is connected to the 'wiper' of the soft pot
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More build photos: https://flic.kr/s/aHsm34PH6q
It's more of a sound effect than anything musical and definitely needs some delay on it before it sounds anywhere near acceptable.

I'm really pleased with how the LPF turned out. I'll definitely build another one when I can face the wiring slog again.
I recently picked up a second Roland Echo Mixer - with two of them I can have fun with stereo and the LPF sounds great going into the analog echo. Here's the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ds0hGN8 ... e=youtu.be

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I built a dual modular>pedal interface, because I was tired of taking up rack space for such a simple function. Each channel has an input attenuator and separate wet and dry output levels.
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It's based on the CGS stomp box adapter and two CGS DC mixers. I made a small +/-15v power supply for it on perfboard. Not even close to a neat and tidy build, but nobody is going to see the inside... oh wait.

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Built myself little transformer distortion box from suggestions over @Gearslutz. Simple little project and fun.

These are tiny EI19 and EI25, bought from china, apparently permalloy, guessing 50% or so. Works like a charm! Clean-ish at +6dBu and under - slightly funky between +6dBu and +12dBu, above 12dBu it's a bass fuzz box. Frequency response - flat in the bass till about 14Hz - top end rolls of very smoothly between 11Khz and 20kHz by about 3dB. Transformers were about $70 for all four. Really worth the effort. Now I want more!

Going to write a simple VST-plugin EQ so that I can do a simple +6dB boost in the highs before trafo box and then another -6dB cut afterwards for some flexibility.


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Hey everyone,

My custom MIDI controller :)
Maybe it goes to crowdfunding !!!
If you want to follow the project :
FB: https://www.facebook.com/CircleFade/

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