Electronic Music 411 - Addicted to DIY instruments and effects.. (and stuff)

Hey all,

I'm not new here but I haven't really been active the last several months. Sorry I've been out of touch. I owe one of you a collab! Anyways, I've been doing much less actual "music" this year, partly because I've been bitten by the obsession that is this: building effect pedals and simple synths. I used to do a lot of electronics when I was a kid (I'm 28 now, ugh). Usually not more complex than simple theremins and 55 timer stuff. I left that behind at one point. Then a year and a half ago I started bending toys, effects and drum machines, and December of last year I started building them from "scratch".

Not always completelly from scratch, mind you. I'm an amateur so I need to look at other schematics and adapt them, or take out parts and use them in conjuction with something else. It's getting really fun though! It seems a lot of commercial effects don't have *exactly* what I look for, like ramp-up in a tremolo, or insane uncontrolable fuzz that haze very little sustain. etc. It's a good learning experience, and it's a great feeling of self-accomplishment recording a track that uses said effects.

Here are a few I've done:

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The bitcrusher is based on the bugbrand circuit, with those hard-to-get ad781 chips. This red one is the second I've built, which has some modifications over the original. I want to find more of these chips so that I can try stuff I have in mind. Some kind of insane sample-and-hold effect that samples milliseconds (the pitch, essentially) of the signal in varying methods. Here are some samples. Last sample has delay and chorus in it though.

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Transformer-based ringmod with simple carrier synth. It sounds really dirty and bad. It sounds really awesome with just a guitar + ebow, which is what a lot of this sample is.

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Feedback looper. Takes the output of an effect or several effects and feeds it back into it/themselves i nvariable amounts. Insanity ensues.

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Transformer octave fuzz-thing. It sounds maddening in a floop, which is what the second stomp engages!

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Tremolo with triangle/square blend, ramp down/triangle/up, spacing between pulses, master gain, speed and depth. Based on the tremulus lune circuit. The next one I want to build will be a dual trem in one box, as I am addicted to out-of-phase dual trem.

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So yeah, those are the better ones. I doubt I'll be seeing this obsession dying off anytime soon. I need to spend less time on it and more time on actual music. Especially this week because I have my first official gig (as cloudscapes) next saturday, so I need to practice and prepare. I'm nervous as fuck!

Bonus blog thing. A jam I did with two other local musicians:
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gmackrr and pk. Check out their shit!
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I really want to get more involved with the community now. More jams with friends and local musicians, more shows! I consider myself to be really lucky to have talented musicians who are into the same oddball music as I am for friends!

And yeah, I gotta get back at being more active here too!