FIXING THE 70's DIY MAGAZINE SYNTH THAT BROKE THE RULES - ELEKTOR FORMANT

hello today we're going to be looking at the forant analog symphasis forant analog Sypher so a little bit over a year ago now I did a video on the forant DIY analog synthesizer as part of the DIY synthesizer series to which I've covered a fair few already and there is a link to a playlist below well the forant DIY project came out in elector magazine starting in May 1977 and it gave you all of the information on how to build your very own DIY analog synthesizer there is a link in the description of a PDF file of the full part one series of the elector forant if you haven't watched the first video that I've done on the elector forant maybe check that out first because it will give you more of an insight into the history and the project itself but in this video we're going to build upon what we found out in the last one by making a bigger and better forance a couple of weeks after I put that video up I got contacted by Steve Clark who had a spare box full of loose forant modules of completely unknown condition which I ended up purchasing from Steve they got shipped over from Germany and I had a a good old rummage around there was a fair few modules in this box including a few filters oscillators various envelope generators and voltage controlled amplifiers as well as numerous unbuilt pcbs and panels regrettably for the last year this box has been sitting on a shelf and I really hate having unfinished projects sitting around it makes me feel all weird inside so in this video we're going to make a change to that the elector formant that I covered in the last video I've got to be honest was a bit of a basket case of a synthesizer that's the thing about buying a DIY synthesizer the quality always varies from Project to project that's because one of them could have been built by somebody who knows what they're doing and the other one could have been built by somebody that was very well-meaning however it turned into a bit of a rats nest you know the quality of DIY synthesizers is not guaranteed and that Sy has somewhat test my opinion of the forant and I want to change that by getting a more realistic experience of a forant by making a better one basically the other forant is not completely set up to how it is described in the magazines the thing is the foran isn't actually a modular Sy sythesizer no no no it's a semi modular synthesizer yes it's supposed to be intended to be set up like a COR ms10 or corg ms20 the idea is that there is a default setup for the sympathizer you have no patches in all of those Jack holes and you play the sympathizer twiddle and knobs it's going to make some noise that's because there is a default way the synthesizer is routed so the oscillators get mixed together then they go into the filters and then that goes into the voltage controlled amplifier and so on but once you start putting Jacks into the different sockets you're able to kind of re-root things and change the synthesizer from the default settings this varies from other Combi synthesizers of the time for instance the mini Moog it hasn't got different routing possibilities except for what is available on the knobs and switches the old format however was on the other side of the spectrum it was set up in a completely modular way that means around the back the only things that were actually connected together in the synthesizer modules was the power and this is a very similar setup to most urx synthesizers as well as DIY synthesizers like the digisound 80 as well as my Cosmos synthesizer these are fully modular synthesizers that means none of the modules are talking to each other until you start putting cables Here There and Everywhere this made the form that I have not a great synthesizer because it wasn't originally intended as a fully modular synthesizer so not all of the parameters are actually available on Jack sockets and it somewhat limits the possibilities that were originally intended for the synthesizer I spoke about it in the previous video like it wasn't a problem but since I've come to use to synthesize a more I've realized it's quite a downfall for the machine the problem is making it pre patched around the back makes the whole build quite a bit more complicated and we're going to find out why and how in this video there's also some extra videos samples and songs made with this for and synthesizer available on my patreon which is down below which helps support these silly projects right here anyway enough chatting let's talk about the build I started by bashing a case together I did this in a similar way I've built other synthesizer cases that's with some cut to size plywood panels for the top and the sides I merely glued and screwed them together then used another bit of Timber in the middle to separate the two module shelves and a few even thinner bits of wood to screw the modules into oh yeah and this this is it oh lovely trly woohoo so this case is big enough to fit 12 of the big modules on the bottom and 12 of the little modules on the top I have more forant than this can fit however the plan is is to get this working and then figure out uh making another case on top uh at a later date now we have the case we need to figure out how to put the Power connector chunky bits around the back so we've got this vco we're going to start with the voltage controlled oscillator I think we're going to have one over here first we're going to screw that in and we're going to use this to measure out everything around the back I don't know how obvious this is but from the back uh this connector is exactly the same height in the case as that connector over there and it is exactly the same depth going back so with this in mind we need to make a kind of metal connector chassis that goes all the way over here that we can connect all of the connectors together so then they all have their designated spots then we wire all of the designated wires to the back of this F goop and it should be done bit b bash how we do that is a bit of a mystery as of right now I've got these aluminium extrudes and we're going to use this I think uh we're going to cut it to size so it fits inside and then we're going to bolt these to some wood or something and then we can bolt this to that and should be all [Music] right yeah I think this is going to work right so that's going to sit right right up here pop that right there Precision Engineering you'll see that I've drawn where the metal seems to sit so what we're going to do is get a bit of wood that kind of sits here sore an earring right here nearly I just got sand off the top and it's all right oh oh yeah bit of the old Gorilla Glue used the clamp and everything beautiful oh yeah beautiful right so now put those bits of wood on the back as as well as ones on for the top rows as well because there's a top row and they've got the same power connectors so we're just going to let the glue dry I'm going to give this a bit of a paint a bit of a wood stain and we're going to get we're going to get going with it now the case has been sufficiently cified we can start building the synthesizer into it we're going to start by putting the metal bars in we're going to screw these onto these metal plates so they're ain't going to go nowhere and then after that we can start putting in the connectors I was doing this by eye so this was the first one I was going to add some supports to this but it's actually quite sturdy so it doesn't need it um then I took out some extra modules from the older rat nest foran because we're going to add to it and you'll notice that they they're shorter how annoying is that uh so I didn't think about this but if you look closely you'll see that these mounts are actually handmade they've been cut up so luckily in this box that Steven had there was some of the official ones uh sitting in the bottom so I managed to uh put some of these on these first modules which made them the same length as the rest of them so they would actually line up with the back connectors and then I drilled some holes put some more connectors in for each of them and bit by bit One By One The oscillators were being put in place and they fitted nicely to the connectors so this is the third oscillator after fiddling with it a bit this next one is a filter it's a 24db filter you can see it's the same length but it's a different size and the rest of it goes on the top as well so these all going quite straightforwards you just pop them in kind of figure out where the connectors go drill the holes pop the connectors in and hope for the best basically and yeah bit by bit uh it started to come together I didn't have enough of those official mounts so some of them had to be put in with spaces and standoffs because they were all different lefts it was quite a hodge podge but it came out all right in the end uh this is a random module I'm not even sure what it is it's on stripboard but I thought it was too cool to not put in anyway and then next to that a ring modulator which is also a short circuit board that is not going to have a connector connected to it this is for the power and also the keyboard connector we'll look at that in a little bit this is going to go and connect in the back so we can connect the keyboard into it and then there's this very small strip board for the power for all of the things that don't actually have their own mounts and connectors on those metal rails now we've got a wire in the power to the back of the connectors this isn't as straightforward as you might think because every single module uh the power is on a different pin uh I I know it's a bit odd but whatever so we had to figure out where the power goes the plus 15 Vols the minus 15 volts the ground and then the oscill is also have a 5vt line as well now all that's plumbed in we can see if all of these modules actually [Music] work so this oscillator worked but the one next to it didn't and I couldn't figure out why until I found out that there was actual power connectors uh at various points on the actual pin connectors which didn't make sense but after I fixed that then it started working but this potentiometer was broke so I had to swap it out and then finally we have [Laughter] life success bit by bit it was at this point a package arrived from jvr Foreman I didn't realize until doing some research recently that jvr actually makes brand new Foreman modules I bought this off him he only sells assembled modules no PCB kits but he offers reproductions of most of the foran modules with a more modern PCB around the back I went for a sequencer to add some more depth to this [Music] [Music] synthesizer now we got to fill the rest of the syn case so we're going to take the other modules out of the older one because we don't need that case anymore because it's a right hodge podge uh these all still needed modifying to actually fit with the normal uh forance sizes and some of the wires actually needed extending because it was extended longer than the original designed forant that that was bodged to there's some dates in there 1981 this was built and then refurbished in 1991 there's a picture of the spacer on this one there were all different spacers because all of them were like Hodge pods together this is the envelope generators for the other side of the sympathizer because we're going to make a stereo syn this com is the output it's got a equalizer base metal treble and some volume and also some lights to show you that all of the power is working as it should uh we're going to put this in at the end because that's the output for the synthesizer now we're going to make an aesthetic effort by uh changing the knobs to all of the matching knobs I didn't have enough so I got some spray paint and sprayed these white knobs uh a kind of funky gray to make it fit uh the best one I found was Ford Dove gray to make it it look the same color as your granddad's for CA anyway they match pretty well as you can see I'm I'm pretty happy with [Music] [Music] that [Music] I was so pleased with how the spraying the knobs turned out I decided to spray the knobs of the sequencer as well because as you saw they were not matching at all they were fancy and black ones let's make them into these weird gray things anyway uh we're going to start fixing the keyboard well at least looking and seeing what's wrong with it I mean I haven't even tested this yet so we'll just scope out what's going on underneath you'll see that it is controlled by these Springs and a lot of them kind of were not fitting very well and they were all kind of like caught on different bits but this is premonition because you'll see it's going to bite Us in the eyes later on uh yeah I changed the connector which is not a midi connector it is actually just the connections for the voltage from the keyboard to the syn after I tested the connections were right it was time to add this little circuit board into the module box itself it's a buffer for the keyboard so it goes on the other side of the wire and kind of standardizes the voltage from the keyboard apparently it can run without this but this is a good measure to avoid abnormalities ooh very fancy after that we're going to test it you can see the lights flashing now for the keyboard Gates and then yeah it's buffering that and then I tuned it to be Vault per octave this synthesizes vult per octave so you hit a c and you hit a higher C and you try and get it as close to a volt difference between each of the C's as you possibly can as you can see that's pretty much a volt in each octave after that I was pretty confident that the keyboard was going to work we were going to have to start iring all of the wires into the back of the synthesizer this yellow wire goes from the gate output of that buffer circuit board that is buffering the keyboard and that wires into the inputs of the envelope generators then this pink wire is the control voltage out of the keyboard and that wires into the back of the oscillators to give the tune as you can hear right now it's working oh not for long ah uhoh yeah you know that earlier about those Springs well it turns out they are very easy to kind of flick onto each other and get stuck but now it's starting to [Music] work the voltage of the keyboard also goes into the filter you see that ecv kov switch if you flick that to keyboard output voltage you can actually get it to control the filter with the keyboard as well make it sound like robots now the keyboard's working and all the voltages are internally wired to the modules from the back we can look at this image from the magazine which shows you where all of the connectors around the back are supposed to go the next thing we're going to wire in is the output of the signal the audio out of the oscillators into the input of the filter so these purple wires that I'm putting in are wired to the pins of the output from the back of the oscillators and then they're wiring into the inputs on the VCF so you can see there the purple ones right [Music] there that was the first time we heard all of the oscillators going in into the filter because there's a mixer around the back so that's why we can hear them all a lot of the twisty knobs were wired in backwards it's a DIY syn what do you expect so I wired them around the right way after that uh this oscillator also didn't work because it's a switched Jack when there's no Jack wired in then it goes into internal routing mode but it wasn't working but now it works as you can hear so have a listen here's two and free baby now for the rest of the internal wiring the output of the adsr into the voltage input of the VCF and the voltage output of the adsr into the voltage input of the VCA but the signal output of the VCF needs to go into the audio input of the VCA but then the audio output of the VCA needs to go into the rfm it says it all in the magazine if you want to read it more then the link is below to what I'm reading here it's just a layout but it gets a bit complicated because some of the pcbs have labels and then the unofficial pcbs well they have no labels at all which doesn't help when the pins are all over the place it seems and there's no standardization between modules but anyway I got there in the end so I did all this wiring that I just described and I'm I'm running out of breath already this is a lot of talking I got to be honest but yeah after this we've nearly have a fully fledged S Voice so let's let's have a listen shall [Music] we [Music] [Laughter] [Music] the oscillators all needed a little bit of calibrating but surprisingly not much at all they were already out of the box pretty in [Music] tune [Applause] [Music] you may think we're done but you're completely wrong we got to finish the rest of the synthesizer so we're going to put some more modules in this side I went for exactly the same style of syn voice over here so we've got two of them that are going to make different sounds at the same time you'll find out how magical that sounds later in the video but as you can see uh yeah this one uh there was a few problems I needed to swap a few things like this switch which was broken and then I popped it in and then after wiring all of the wires again to the back but on this side it's exactly the same setup as before uh we can test [Applause] these I wasn't as lucky with this side it took a fair bit of trying to get these to somewhat work especially this volage controlled filter which just wasn't working for no reason I swapped a bunch of capacitors and chips and stuff reading the schematic which which made it helpful but it was only until I compared it to the working one from the other side of the synthesizer I noticed that this dualed transistor package was wired in upside down and that'll explain it there's another thing to be said about repairing DIY synthesizers even though you get a pleora of documentation and descriptions on how the circuits work and things like that unless you've spoken to the builder of the kit you can never assume that it actually worked in the first place and an example of that is this filter module it would have never worked because the transistors were upside down there was signs of the Builder trying to figure out why it didn't work because there was a few different resistor values here and there which I ended up having to put back to normal because the problem wasn't actually fixed keep that in mind because you might have to be looking a little bit closer than you were expecting to give it a snip oh come on what's with all the blunt pliers yeah we're getting really close to the end now it was at this time where I decided to do a bit of wax lacing to clean it all up a bit so we got this wiggly wiggly wiggly around the back twist that and just poke this through that pull the whole thing through slowly kind of find where you want it to be it takes quite a bit of practice to get it to the right length and then tug it that way uh and then you just do the same again so I'm going to do it like I did actually that's a different that's an easier way of doing it so twist pop it in the hole pop it in the hoop and then then we got that and then um find where you want it to be roughly and then pull it give it a good tug I like Wax Laing it looks a lot neater in my opinion than cable tires that's why I went for that anyway after that it was nearly done we added this mixer to the output module because there's two synthesizers now that needed mixing together and it's [Laughter] [Music] done [Music] [Music] I forgot to mention I added two output jacks on the side so as far as this video is concerned it is done there are still a few little jobs here and there to do uh one of the lfos here doesn't work the one in the middle it's not lighting up this oscillator's got something weird going on and I haven't quite got to the bottom of it yet and this oscillator isn't even assembled but apart from that it should all be working so let's get it plugged in and see what it can do okay I'm an absolute bliing idiot I don't know how I did this I lend it over and on the corner of the keyboard I managed to snap off the uh the switches of this brand new sequencer bluming thing I'm going to have to contact them and see if I can get a link to The Replacements or buy some Replacements that is so annoying luckily they're not massively important right now but what a pain in the bottom anyway so it's set up like a dual synthesizer this means that there are two separate synthesizers running in parallel this is the same as a synthesizer like the cs15 Yamaha cs15 where there's two separate synthesizers they've got an oscillator a filter envelope generators and vcas two of them so they run in parallel so you get two separate s sounds at the same time albeit being controlled by the same note because it's still monophonic right now they're both being wide via that mixer that we added around the back of the com so they're going in and coming out in a mono form in a second we're going to do a stereo thing let's listen to only this synthesizer first and it already sounds like a 1980s electr pop Banger oh baba baba turn on the rfm the resonant frequency monkey sort of like a resonant [Music] EQ [Music] oh my God this godamn keyboard it's already stuck I've got a spring stuck oh what a pain in the dairy air right one set I got one do this that's why these Springs get a bit too excited with themselves and they end up just popping back up here there's loads of them that have done it what an annoying design oh yeah I forgot we can adjust the base and the mid oh that's the volume and the treble oh [Music] nice nice there's a bit of uh crackling turn this one down and turn up this simple siiz of voice which right now I must add is only a single oscillator because this one's decided to play up there's something seriously up with that one and this one's not even built so we've got a single oscillated one here so double triple and a single but it's it's it's enough to get going so we'll get a nice we'll get a slower thing going oh no and then turn this one back [Music] up oh no oh God damn it this freaking keyboard no you're joking oh that this Gan keyboard's going to be oh my gosh it's got a fair bit of Chunk to [Music] it now okay let's uh I've left it long enough let's get some patch cables on the Go okie dokie so we're going to start patching we get a single patch cable going here and doing all the stuff a control voltage input modulation input uh from this oscillator right [Music] here right let's get the uh LFO coming out of here into the clock input of the uh sequencer get that coming out of the uh voltage output into the voltage input of this oscillator [Music] so now via these cables over here both of these are coming out of separate outputs uh right now left and right slightly panned so we got the got the left and right [Music] oh yeah going have to modify it to actually get it to um talk to the keyboard and the gate at the same time that's a bit annoying it's a bit of an oversight with this uh machine is there's no external gate input in the design initially so uh it's just keyboard right now and the keyboard's absolutely [Music] rubbish [Music] the thing that really stands out with this one with its setup right now is it's actually pretty damn chunky sounding I don't know whether that's the correct definition but in the next one when we finally have six oscillators and the modified external gate and keyboard inputs and extra things I don't know when that'll happen but I really think this synthesizer might be a force to be reckoned with and if you've noticed there's only two patch cables in it right now in fact like I've been perfectly happy just fiddling around with it with its internal patching it's really [Music] nice oh oh [Music] [Music] yeah [Music] [Laughter] wow that's pluming awesome actually that sounds really cool it's like two synthesizers in one but it's got a real fat sound to it get a little bit of um LFO into this filter and then a little bit of LFO from the other LFO into this [Music] [Music] filter [Music] I really like this I wasn't expecting to really like it I mean when I've got over the fact that the keyboard's a bit of a mish mosh this is really cool I haven't even used the external sequences and stuff well we've used the sequencer a little bit but it just sounds really good get some more lfos on the go all right let's add this to the [Music] CV oh yeah see the fact is this actually has six lfos in it Al be one of them isn't working right now but it really means you could just plug in random lfos into random [Music] Malak oh the wobbles The Wiggles the wobblies random voltage out of the noise plug that into external CV we'll get the external CV plugged into it that means it's not going [Music] to the sequencer as well and we're going to sequence it's all going to be going on now flick it over from the keyboard control I think there we [Music] go one back up it's going crazy now [Music] um there's a lot to focus on that's pretty mad I've really need to get more into this I want to fix this I want to fix these two oscillators I'll do this in a subsequent video and we'll get more out of it then and then hopefully maybe in that same video there'll be another case which will have another I've still got another four oscillators a bunch of adsr and VCA so there's enough to get a whole other syn voice so that'll be free simp voices uh all controlled by the same notes and stuff so you get the same kind of texturization from the foran it's pretty cool it's really interesting to build it as it was intended because it makes you use it completely differently you save all of the patch cables not just for getting the bug standard synth route and you end up using it all for modulation like I've done right here there's a lot to focus on isn't there how cool is that for this video because it's getting quite long this is the end of the road but there's going to be another part after this hopefully it won't take as long as the last time I've included a direct recording of all the sounds and Rifts and stuff you can chop them up and use them as you will and like and they're over on P patreon so if you want to use them for things and stuff and support making these machines and these videos then go and check it out over there there's a bunch of other videos on that I did a bunch of videos whilst this was going up including outter wax lace and stuff like that so that's over on patreon supports all of this stuff and the museum that this is going to go into because by all means come and play on this it will be able to be played in at this Museum's not obsolete the link is below uh with a load of other DIY sympathizers and things like that there might be a weekend I don't know which one it'll be gone again because I'm going to try and build it and improve it and fix it and stuff but for now if you want to play on it come over to this Museum's not obsolete anyway I hope you learned something today I'm look my no computer this is the foran sythesizer if you like what you see don't forget to subscribe and don't be scared to try don't be scared to try maybe don't sit here and cry for a soam for a [Music] [Applause] week [Music] n

Channel: LOOK MUM NO COMPUTER

Views: 60,290

Keywords: history, technology, speaker, hammond speaker, leslie speaker, diy, electronics, recycling, upcycling, modified, science, look mum no computer, hainbach, krautrock, rock, electro, daft punk, kraftwerk, music production, analog synth, string synth, drum machine, synthesizer, modular, synth, modular synth, music, doctor mix, composition, buchla, buchla music easel, don buchla, bob moog, synth history, electronic, formant, elektor, depeche mode, andrew huang, music tech, producer, analog, colin furze

Id: 02Ul4Jh84NI

Length: 33min 13sec (1993 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 06 2024