Oberheim Matrix 6R teardown and repair

Early music synthesizers required patch cords to interconnect the modules, leading to a rat's nest of wires. This model eliminated the mess with a cross-connect panel, visible in the lower left. See the close-up photo.

Modular synth at the Colorado Modular Synth Festival

Random shot of mounting spacers

On display at the University of Maryland.

Oberheim Matrix 6R teardown and repair. Original voltage regulators. Even though they were putting out correct voltages as measured on a meter, they were faulty. Probably had some AC noise on the line.

A bunch of moog modules scattered about the floor

One of the first tests

Oberheim Matrix 6R teardown and repair. I knocked over a pile of paper with my camera tripod just before posting this. Mess.

USB MIDI cable board before hacking

Kalimba + microphone + Korg monotron (slightly modded)

joy of use: plenty

sonic experience with headphones: tranquilizing

live possibilities, apart from creating superb feedback noise: could be improved :)

First run with all the important parts

Detail of the Pi-DAC+ pin outs

AR39910

Godox tt685s ceiling bounce

Customized USB connector

5-DIN MIDI I/O connectors

My Home Office in May 2012

New toy: newschool is a synthesizer from the Animated Circuits set of software synthesizers from Native Instruments. It's based on the Life cellular automation game developed by John Conway.

www.native-instruments.com/index.php?id=reaktoranimatedci...

Oberheim Matrix 6R teardown and repair

My Arduino Synthesizer. Inspired by an article on Make (hooray for make!). It has an interface built in Processing to control the frequency and waveform.

check out my blog post for more information, the source code, and some videos.

Oberheim Matrix 6R teardown and repair. Main processor board with processor, memory, MIDI jacks and my new battery holder (top right).

Battery powered amplifier using a LM386 IC. Speaker is recycled from a set of discarded computer speakers.

www.handmadeelectronicinstruments.com/

Analoger Sythesizer

Modular synth at the Colorado Modular Synth Festival

One of the first tests

meeaowW!

AIS office in Greenbelt, MD some years ago

Lens: EF 16-35mm f/2.8L USM

VSCO 4 Preset: Fuji Fortia SP - -

My Home Office in May 2012

This is my workspace.

www.myspace.com/radiospectacular

Oberheim Matrix 6R teardown and repair. The battery holder I used to replace the battery backup that was soldered on to the board. Even when plugged in, the Matrix didn't work until I replaced this. I even measured 3v off the one that was there, but it just wasn't working.

A work colleague has lent me his Roland JD-800 synthesiser to experiment with.

Oberheim Matrix 6R teardown and repair. Original voltage regulators. Even though they were putting out correct voltages as measured on a meter, they were faulty. Probably had some AC noise on the line.

Pretty simple kit to build, but does require limited SMT soldering. I succeeded :-).

Oberheim Matrix 6R teardown and repair. The battery holder I used to replace the battery backup that was soldered on to the board. Even when plugged in, the Matrix didn't work until I replaced this. I even measured 3v off the one that was there, but it just wasn't working.

Oberheim Matrix 6R teardown and repair

In the course of Ars Electronica Home Delivery, visitors were invited to see how genarate sounds with a modular synthesizer.

Find out more about Ars Electronica Home Delivery:

ars.electronica.art/homedelivery/en/

Credit: Ars Electronica - Robert Bauernhansl

A super rare Ondioline probably made in the 40's.

Making your own music is way more fun than listening to the radio!

On display at the University of Maryland.

darf use is perhaps like doing manuscript. or perhaps like pulling impressions of etchings.

very very manual, very lonely, many many steps, delicate, rewarding.

amf analog computer. the connection between bowling and analog computing escapes me. but it does work pretty well with music applications, providing mixing, attenuating, inverting, and integrating (lag). i'm not sure what else it can do but am experimenting with it.