I’ve been working on a sequencer for synths and circuit bent toys using the 4017 decade counter. These IC’s only count up to 10, but I wanted a 16 step sequencer, so after a lot of head scratching and sleepless nights, i managed to cascade 2 of them to give me the 16 steps.

For some reason the suggested circuit in the datasheet for the 4017 didn’t work the way I think it was supposed to, nor did any of the other circuits i could find. It would seem that a bit of hackery is required to get this circuit working.

more later.

I’ve been playing around with the square wave oscillators, alog with some ripple counters from the VGA synth, and a vactrol amongst other things, and have come up with a nice little circuit that creates rhythmical patterns.

This was wired up on a breadboard, so the switching between connections is jerky and not in sync. Expect a finished unit by the end of the week…. ish.

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I’ve added a couple of samples to the HR-16 page to demonstrate what these things are capable of….. its techno in a box! Used as part of a larger set up, or standalone, the HR-16 is a fantastic machine for bending, as the results are phenomenal!

I might put this one up for sale, as i’ve not really got the need for three of these machines, i just like bending them!

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These drums machines are great for bending, so many options for control surfaces and bend connections. This time i used a 28 way patch bay to control the bends, and 6 patchable switches to make connections on the fly. Along the bottom of the patch bay is a row of 6 sockets for making multiple connections between bends.

I installed a few LED’s in this for fun, they only indicate if a switch is on or off, not react to the drum patterns.

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Finally got round to getting my own site to host audio and videos from. This theme was made with WordPress Theme Generator.

do you think there’s such a thing as to minimal?

I’ve been playing around with some of the IC’s I’m using for the VGA synth, to see if they can be used for audio. The circuits are based on those by Nicolas Collins, and so far, they make some brilliant sounds!

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Purchased a load of parts from Farnell last weekend for the envelope follower and VGA experiments, along with some switches and PCB equipment from Rapid. The stuff from Rapid came on Monday,but because of the postal strikes up here, the parts i actually need for the circuit from Farnell, are sitting in some sorting office somewhere doing nothing.

On top of that, its been a generally crap week all in all.

Still, at least i managed to finish the HR-16 with the parts from Rapid.

I’ve been busy with the VGA synth experiments, think i’m going insane after starring at flashing patterns for the past 48 hours….. i want the blue blob in my eyes to go away, its not funny any more!!

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Welcome to my wee blog. Here I intend to document various projects relating to circuit bending, synth building and random electronic circuits that i’m building.

Hope you may find it of some use, and please feel free to contact me if you have any questions via (thedomainname)@gmail.com or by leaving a comment.

Cheers,

Bod.