i knowingly bought it as “spare/repair” but the previous owner assured me the cem3394′s were still inside, which considering these are £35 a piece, its a good job! they all appear to work, however a repair appears to have been made at some point and the z80 cpu replaced. unfortunately it would appear a good few of the pcb traces have suffered as a result, and are in need of kludging.

i’m still confident that this poor wee soul can be saved from the synth grave yard *fingers crossed*, but if nothing else i have a few more 3394′s to add to the collection, and a good keybed to re-use in another project.

I picked up an old sixtrak for a decent price, mainly because it wasn’t working. For some reason there is no audio output, but thankfully all the important ic’s are there, mainly the cem3394′s which cost around £35 a piece these days!

With a little tlc and a good probing with the scope, I recon it’s going to be an easy fixer upper!

A few little led throwies.

i had the dreaded ipad error 14 today when installing the new update to the ipad. half way through it jumps to the end of the progress bar and gives the error (14) message no matter how many times you try it.

after much swearing and hunting about, i couldnt find anyone with any decent answers on the internet other than “try a different mac” or “a different usb port” or “take it to the apple store” and i tried everything on the apple support site as well. none of it worked…

then i found a you tube video showing how to fix the problem on a pc, which was a problem as i dont have a pc, nor was the problem due to a pc. anyway, i tried hunting about for a few files that might work on the mac, and low and behold, it worked first time after 2 hours of getting incredibly pissed off trying all the other suggestions!!!!!

so here you go, how to fix “error (14)” on the mac.

go to your user log-in home folder in the finder, then library, then itunes, then select the folder for the software update for the “i” product you are having difficulties with. in my case it was the ipad. in that folder, delete the “.ipsw” file thats in there, and then empty your trash.

open itunes, plug in your “i” device, and it’ll download the latest version of the software, which was the same one that appeared to cause the issue in the first place…. once this is downloaded, itunes will then restore the device automatically, and to my surprise it works just fine, no “error (14)” messages!!

you can then restore to the last back up, which hopefully was just before  all this happened.

why the fuck cant apple just tell you this on the support site???

damn you mr jobs. you do make some “magical” gear but why, oh WHY cant you just give us a simple fix like this instead all of the other nonsense thats on the support site?

and while i’m at it, WHERE THE HELL IS IOS4 FOR THE IPAD?!?!?!!!?!!!!

(whilst this worked for me, i give no guarentees it will work for you. if it doesnt, er…. try what it says on the support site, try another mac or take it to an apple store…)

these wee vco ic’s are really good, i dont know why more people dont use them! other than the obviously limitations of linear response and reverse voltage control, i have yet to encounter any major issues.

with a bit of tinkering and snuffling (i have man-flu remember?), i can achieve a good range between 24hz and 1703hz with out any distortion, using only 9 components, which should lend itself nicely to to little drum synths and a replacement to the integrator/comparator vco i was using for the dub siren.

now where did i leave the co-codamol?

off work today suffering with man-flu….. which is good (in some ways) as i just received a few ssm2164 and xr2209 ic’s, however i really cant be bothered unwrapping myself from the blanket and falling off the couch to go and experiment with them, so instead i shall be perusing the datasheets from the comfort of my warm little bubble of illness and consuming gallons of lemsips, water and chomping through some paracetamols.

things on the list to build with these:

ssm2164:

• vca’s (linear and exponential response)
• sinewave vco’s
• 4 pole low pass vcf
• and i might splash out and buy a thomas henry mankato pcb from magic smoke

xr2209:

• vco’s (obviously)
• er….. thats about it.

the xr2209 is similar to the now discontinued, expensive and hard to find 566 vco ic, so it’ll be interesting to see how this wee blighter copes. it only has linear response but i’m hoping it’ll make a good substitute for the vco in the dub sirens. i’ve built nearly 30 of those now and have depleted the stock of pcb’s i had for them, but the parts count was huge for what should be a simple circuit, plus these are still analogue, which we all love don’t we?!

i think i’ll lie down again before i fall over….

One happy customer has sent a link for a track he produced using his ripple synth. Nils McKim, Scotland, produces some pretty dirty techno noise!

I hope he doesn’t mind me linking to his work, but I’m sure he’s available for weddings, christenings and the odd club night. It’s called Bang That Bitch. Any complaints regarding the name should not be directed at me…

Nice!

We have a new site theme and layout, nothing too exciting but I hope it meets every ones approval!

Let me know if you find any broken links or anything. There are still a few issues with comments on the pages, and I’m hoping to have these back up shortly….

Cheers,

Bod.

It’s been a while since the site was updated. Been working on a few projects and keeping my head down due to interviews, lack of funds for projects and sheer boredom. Sorry.

My new PSoC dev kit just arrived. This should be fun!