Introducing: HorseDebt

 Here's a FLYING POT!!!

In my tin can synth, many of my modules need a knob AND a button, so back when I was still building tin can modules, I'd often build up a structure with my 3D printing pen (writing pen?) and get a little pushbutton underneath a pot. I even have one module with two pushbuttons under a hinged pot so push the knob up or down? That controls two parameters on one of my modules.

THREE NEW MODULES!!!!

Three? Really? Yes!!!!

Okay first off, my modules are being sold now by my very good friend Mike (Killer Bee Relay Team) over at Hive Mind Synthesis. His whole outfit is so much better qualified to handle the sales and customer service side of this than me, and I'm SO THANKFUL and happy with how it's turning out.

Next? The three modules! These aren't retail-ready, but they've been kicking around in my brain for a long time, so I'm happy to have prototypes being made right now by JLCPCB (not a sponsor). Read about the three modules after the break. 

EasyEi8ht

                                

It's an M4TM EasyEi8ht trigger sequencer whee

This was my very first Eurorack module ever. My very good buddy Nick was willing to do the PCB layout and panel design, and we had a workshop at Knobcon '18 or '19 my lands, has it been that many years!?!?

Real quick before the jump: here's the BUILD GUIDE you might be here hoping to find.

Introducing Etch!

Here's a module called Etch, designed by me and coded by my friend Tyler Klein, is a lo-fi DSP module focused on bitcrush and sample-rate reduction. It's also got a deep quantizer side, which I haven't explored much, since the effects side of things interests me more. Read all about it over at Tyler's Github page!

The build guide is right here. It uses a cheap OLED screen, a screen which is difficult to mount properly, and the quality control on them is poor, so the mounting solution I came up with is quirky and weird, and works great for me, but I expect some builders to find it frustrating to deal with.

I hope you really enjoy the module! The "loop" mode (pushing the middle button) is a TON of fun, I really enjoy playing with that.

ClapClap!!!!!!!

 

Last year at Knobcon (North America's only synthesizer convention) a group of music enjoyers would dance along to the performances. Now you see, modular synthesizer performance is a difficult thing, with many knobs and switches and cables to pay close attention to. It's easy to lose track of the phrasing of your song -- there isn't necessarily a pattern going on besides a single bar or a pair of bars.

So phrasing can be vague, and sometimes wrong if I may be so bold. A meter will be established, a breakdown will occur, there will be a buildup, and then there will be a DROP but sometimes the musician will bring the drop in too early or late by one bar. It's a rough world out there, no shade... it just happens.

Well, a little thing happened where the group of us dancing would go "clap clap" at the end of eight bars of music that we were counting in each of our heads. Often the phrasing would match up, especially for some of the more structured performances, but sometimes there would be disagreements (fortunately it never came to blows).

This little pile of circuitry, my lovelies, is the prototype of a ClapClap module, which counts sixteenth notes and goes "clap clap" at the end of them. That's all it does. Okay fine, it has nine samples, including 4 claps and 5 other short percussion samples. It can serve simply as a percussion voice, if you're good at Arduino, you can swap out samples, and fix my embarrassingly disorganized code.

So anyway, there's a quint of PCBs crawling across the Pacific right now, so we'll see if the module works!

Introducing OctaPass Eurorack module 8x fixed frequency HPF

 

 It's a eight-channel fixed-frequency switchable high-fidelity high-pass filter!

OctaPass

First things first... this is the build guide for this module.


 You've found the blog post for the OctoPass. It's an eight-channel high-pass fixed-frequency four-pole filter (alliteration!) that is a requested build. It's switchable -- there's little toggle switches on the panel that will allow the user to low-cut or not the signal.

The signal switching is done with a ton of Vactrols -- LED and LDR combos. This means very-low-noise, which may be important if you're deciding to cascade all 8 filters with all the normalling going on between all eight channels.

The build is a bit fiddly, with some pads quite close together. Use a sharp soldering iron tip, cleaned frequently, lead-bearing solder if legal, flux if necessary, and double-triple check all your joints. I did have some dry solder joints on some of the op amp legs, but besides that, all four of these I built worked just fine.