DIY Modular kits / DIY semi-modular kits?

[b3groover]

Anyone build the sound lab or have any comments? I'm looking into it, seems kind of fun. The Elby stuff looks cool but that prices seem prohibitive once you add them up it seems like your better off just buying a used synth with similar capabilities. I mean the full kit for the mono "PPG" unit is over $800 when you can buy the original waldorf mocrowave for what $500? and it's polyphonic.

I'm building the MFOS Ultimate right now. Been on the shelf for a few months since I'm too busy to finish it, but its a very nice kit. I'm right in the middle of wiring the front panel and I still need to build a case for it. Hopefully I'll finish it up next month.

[meatballfulton]

otto,

You are correct about PAiA value, I have owned three 9700 systems (don't ask) and I paid less than the kit price for all of them. All were already built but needed some recalibration done. I also owned a small dotcom system that I bought used for $600 less than the original owner paid. I think the low resale is due to it being used...it's hard to argue that the buyer should pay more just because the original owner built the kit. Also PAiA doesn't have a lot of mainstream visibility considering they've been making analog gear for over 35 years.

As far as sound quality, PAiA did not put a limiter in the 9700 VCF so unlike most analog filters when the input is too hot you can easily drive the filter into very ugly distortion. I did experiments and found that if you simply attenuated the input to the filter it was very sweet and controllable. Unfortunately, there is only one attenuator in the base system and that doubles as a mixer so if you want to create dual VCO patches tweaking the filter gets very touchy. The filter also has a relatively narrow sweep range controlled by the freq pot, you need to supply additional CV control to get the full sweep range. I'd call the PAiA quirky, it's a lot like early analogs in that respect as are the other modern DIY kits. Once you learn the inherent limitations you can get some decent sounds. If you like noisy modular synth demos, you can check out some PAiA demos of mine here.

Regardless, if you want to go the DIY/kit route PAiA is a good choice. Blacet is better but way more $$$$$.

[nuketifromorbit]

Any one modify the paia fatman? How hard are the mods to do? Especially for someone who has very little soldering experience? I'm talking about the simple circuits, like implementing hard sync, adding a sub octave generator, and looping the simple filter envelope.

the schematics and part lists for the things are found here
http://home1.gte.net/res0658s/fatman/

[otto]

Anyone build the sound lab or have any comments? I'm looking into it, seems kind of fun. The Elby stuff looks cool but that prices seem prohibitive once you add them up it seems like your better off just buying a used synth with similar capabilities. I mean the full kit for the mono "PPG" unit is over $800 when you can buy the original waldorf mocrowave for what $500? and it's polyphonic.

I'm building the MFOS Ultimate right now. Been on the shelf for a few months since I'm too busy to finish it, but its a very nice kit. I'm right in the middle of wiring the front panel and I still need to build a case for it. Hopefully I'll finish it up next month.

Just curious how much it cost you, aside from whatever your case ends up being. Early in the thread someone said $400 but people are building and selling these things on ebay for around $300 so I'm guessing it is cheaper than that.

[otto]

otto,

You are correct about PAiA value, I have owned three 9700 systems (don't ask) and I paid less than the kit price for all of them. All were already built but needed some recalibration done. I also owned a small dotcom system that I bought used for $600 less than the original owner paid. I think the low resale is due to it being used...it's hard to argue that the buyer should pay more just because the original owner built the kit. Also PAiA doesn't have a lot of mainstream visibility considering they've been making analog gear for over 35 years.

As far as sound quality, PAiA did not put a limiter in the 9700 VCF so unlike most analog filters when the input is too hot you can easily drive the filter into very ugly distortion. I did experiments and found that if you simply attenuated the input to the filter it was very sweet and controllable. Unfortunately, there is only one attenuator in the base system and that doubles as a mixer so if you want to create dual VCO patches tweaking the filter gets very touchy. The filter also has a relatively narrow sweep range controlled by the freq pot, you need to supply additional CV control to get the full sweep range. I'd call the PAiA quirky, it's a lot like early analogs in that respect as are the other modern DIY kits. Once you learn the inherent limitations you can get some decent sounds. If you like noisy modular synth demos, you can check out some PAiA demos of mine here.

Regardless, if you want to go the DIY/kit route PAiA is a good choice. Blacet is better but way more $$$$$.

I get your point about the items being used.

Thanks for the demos, I've been listening to a few. As with most modular demos, people tend to post the far-out and weirdness they are capable of. Any comments on the musicality of the 9700 aside from noisier/weird/experimental stuff? I'm talking more standard bass, leads, etc.

[meatballfulton]

Since I've always had other synths to do the "normal" stuff, I used my modulars for the weird stuff that only they could do. Still doing that with an Evolver now.

Limitations of the PAiA for typical synth sounds are related to the filter. A limited basic sweep range (I tended to always patch the pitch CV in for 100% key tracking which makes a huge difference) and the tendency to overdrive if you set the filter for extreme resonance. Filter tweakage is manageable in the studio but tricky live. A simple DIY workaround is to build one or more patch cords with attenuating resistors inline,or even put attenuators on the filter inputs. I'm surprised PAiA never addressed this issue themselves.

For a while I used one of my 9700s with a Moog CP-251 which really opened up the capabilities. It has two attenuators with polarity reversal, a 4:1 mixer with CV offset (those two features tamed the filters), a VC-LFO and a S&H. Downside is it costs about 60% of the 9700 list price and you need to mix 1/8" and 1/4" patching. At that point, buying an MFB Kraftzwerg (which I've also owned, do a search for my thread about it) is cheaper although you lose a few things compared to the PAiA/Moog combo (multimode filters, MIDI controllers to CV).

As was mentioned in an earlier reply building a kit is not to save money but because you are interested in DIY.