This one is Ray Wilson’s DIY synthesizer website.

I first saw him on youtube, screwing around with an echo rockit noise box. I was hypnotized.

I found his site and was hooked. I spent the next couple years making synthesizer modules at a manic pace.

The magical thing about Ray’s site is is his teaching style. He gives the circuit schematics, but also explanations of how/why they work in language that is pretty easy to understand. He really approaches electronics from a practical standpoint rather than what you’d get in an intro class somewhere. This website was my introduction to electronics, and it can get you far when it comes to understanding analog design and signal processing.

You can really get a feel for Ray’s personality from his writing on the site. He died in 2016, and I weirdly get a little choked up when I look at that echo rockit page. His website was a right-time-right-place thing for me, and it helped change the trajectory of my life in a very real way.

Anyways. Check out Music From Outer Space, and like Ray would say, Good learning…

  • Barbacamanitu@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Very cool. I used to build guitar effects pedals in middle school and high school. I’m going to have to try some of these.

    Does he have a list of which ones work with a keyboard? Can they all use a keyboard? And does he have any circuits for converting a midi keyboard into an octave per volt one? It shouldn’t be too hard with something like an arduino, right? Just need a way to output a variable voltage.