Mr .Braska arrived at tigrics

Yesterday morning, Mr. Braska arrived at tigrics (http://www.tigrics.hu).
He was tired from the trip and fell asleep on a G2.

Mr. Braska will spend the weekend there, photoshooting with various synths.
He has found some same-sized friends there as you can see from the following pic..



More updates from Mr. Braska during the weekend.

And off we go!

Well, the tour of Vinnui's home and lab has finished.. Mr. Braska will attend a
salsa party from what I hear and then will take off to another destination,
still in Hungary!

Outside vinnui's house is like a small forest, and Mr. Braska felt right at home




Our hosts, Balazs (vinnui) and Kende (his son) were very loving and took
good care of the little frog. Kende was so sweet and he made Mr. Braska
remember his former occupation, being a toy, before becoming a synth model.




Now the little frog has to travel again. So, until further notice, bye bye
from Mr. Braska. He will send us photos when he arrives at the next stop!

Braska on 1RU effects

The following pictures show Mr. Braska on the 1RU effects
that vinnui will use with the modular.

These are:

Behringer Virtualizer Pro - digital multieffect
MAM RS3 Resonator - analog resonator (3 bandpass filters + LFOs)
MAM Warp9 - analog filter, based on Wasp filter, with midi, etc.

In the guts of the polysix

Another photo-shoot, now with a well-respected, retro, gutted synth,
the KORG polysix


Vinnui stated that this polysix had a faulty PSU so after the modular is
completed, he will fix it.


Lucky frog, now sits on top of the polysix and he has nothing cut-off ;)


There is the position of the non-existend PSU


But everything else seems in order.


This is the PSU of the modular


And it seems to supply enough power to support Mr. Braska too!


And a cameo appearance of a midi keyboard!

Mr. Braska chez Vinnui's

It is a fact!! Mr. Braska is now at Vinnui's home! The first photos show him posing for various modules vinnui has made!

(and on his mini-mac)


This is a part of his lab. Mr. Braska feels good being around electronic components


The frog and the tool!.. Mr. Braska and the soldering iron


Mr Braska samples the boards. He will hold them later


Vinnui's ADSR .. Mr. Braska likes the neat cable work!


Ridin' the noise train!


In front of Vinnui's awsome panels!!


Mr Braska asked about the spined skull design. It is hand-drawn by Vinnui himself
and vectorized in Inkscape


Attack of the VCOs


Mr. Braska will now rest for a while in his favorite place. The module box!!!!



This is it for today.. But tomorrow there will be much more!!

Goodnight Mr. Braska

SubAtomicGlue's SID

While searching for midibox SID stuff I stumbled upon Subatomicglue's super-extensive build log. He has info on almost every aspect of making a SID synth. It follows the panel design of the original Midibox SID made by T.Klose and it is packaged inside a Commodore 64.



He has used a custom made panel (Made by Schaeffer)


and he is quite good with the soldering gun :)


More of it on his work log

Frogs on the move

Braska will be away for some time. He wants to know more DIYers and I will grant his wish by letting him do just that!!

From now on, Braska will be on the move. DIYers will get to host him and shoot him (photo shoot that is) with their lab and equipment.. He won't say no to have his picture taken on top of an exotic synth/musical instrument either.



.. So, if you want to host him, just drop me a comment/email at akorbeti [at] gmail [dot] com.

Now, on to his first trip!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(the following photo is on the weigh scale of the post office. There, he had to play dead. Stuffed frogs don't speak or move. (something like toy story!))

Today is Blog Action Day!

Click the image to visit the site.

Braska online!

Braska is now online!

You can follow him on twitter where his rantings will be posted! (and the occasional photo too) and on facebook (if you don't have trouble being friend with a frog. Well he might be a prince but I wouldn't count on that!)

His addresses:

http://twitter.com/braskathefrog

http://www.facebook.com/synthfrog

Join us!

Caniballizing the laughtop

What follows is the destruction of the laughtop. This is not for the faint of heart!



Braska is here still, helping with the hard stuff (posing and getting in the way). When I tell him "get the screwdriver" he always appears with a cocktail in his froggy hand, sipping.


There is a small, lo-fi speaker which I just might keep!



The "mouse":




This will host a rotary encoder when finished:


Closeup of the lo-fi speaker


Name of frog spelled in Greek: (missing the last α) "ΜΠΡΑΣΚ(Α)"




Lower part done.. now to the screen disassembly


This spring is what keeps the screen in position


Braska sits on laughtop's screen and brain.


Screen, off


We like "windows"


Well, this is nice!!


Now, some cutting of plastic parts (specifically, the battery compartment) must take place.. I will have to replace the heat sinks also on the sid because they are BIIIIIIIGGGGG..

SID Repackaging

Remember the babyBotte ? It started it's life as a simple shoebox and then got upgraded to a package that is sturdy and useable with a jack for external PSU so I wouldn't have to rely on batteries.

Same story about the Music from outer space WSG that got a serious upgrade and became a module

Not to mention the AVR-Synth that was repackaged, twice

Well today, another project is starting.. Packaging the Midibox SID to an item I had to wait long to get my hands on!

Being a parent has the advantage of being around toys all the time. The one here is the perfect packaging for my SID synth :Fisher-Price Laughtop . So i got the kids another saying that this was broken and started with Braska to ponder on how to put the SID in.


This is it. with Braska on top..


Since the SID needs at least one rotary encoder, we were thinking of putting it where the laptop mouse now lies. I would make a nice flat round, orange painted knob to put so it doesn't stand out a lot.


At the back there is an abundance of space. Considering that we will have to accommodate two MIDI sockets, two audio jacks (1/4") and the power jack, it should be just enough..



Inside, there are lots of keys (Greek version laptop has 24 keys plus a bigger green enter-like button). The minimum amount of keys to be used is 6. I could wire the others to different functions of the SID. Eg you could have one key, bring up the resonance/cutoff control so with the encoder you could have realtime fun with it.


As you see, the 20x4 White-on-blue screen is EXACTLY the size of the laptop opening. This would look great when finished!!



The next step is to gut the laptop. This will probably be done this weekend because from Monday morning, Braska will be on a (rather big) trip. More on this later on.

Stay attuned!!!