the Hohner Bass Threemörk, pt.XI: You Must Be Kidding

no really. all the electronics are in place, the switching jacks are wired as inserts for easy effects hookup - and all of it sounds, well, "pretty ok" (notice the quotation marks) to my ears. 
So, on the menu for tonight: first public performance in a 7-headed improv session @ Fort 8 in Hoboken, Belgium. Granted, not quite the Place one would associate with Space, still.. looking forward to it. See you there.

the Hohner Bass Threemörk, pt.X: Ponderings

the outside of the case looking pristine will not stop me from altering its insides.

while that goes for any make pedals, synths, toaster ovens, and basically anything else i get my hands on, it seems to be especially true for this unfinishable piece of kit. was that a word? is now.

i put in switching jacks for each voice (A, Arp., B) so as to be able to route them each to external effects. problem is, with the crude passive mixing i used, the volume on the master fluctuates with patching. you want the Arpeggiator going to a delay? possible. however, voice A and B will be louder on the master all of a sudden.

not my idea of fun.

so i'm going in for buffer overkill.

(yeah, i know, not my idea of fun either, but that's what happens when you don't really know what you're doing - piecing everything together one step at a time. so sue me.)

and since turning back - like turning down - is not an option, i breadboarded a little.

seems it will work out, in the end. yay.

upon which i tried a cheesy envelope filter on the Arpeggiator.

lo and behold: it started to sound like a Real Synth.

i hate envelope filters on guitar, but all of a sudden they do seem interesting.. should have an old Melos effectmatic (one of many mu-tron III adaptations) lying around here somewhere that's in need of repair. Up two steps on that ol' priority list..

the Hohner Bass Threemörk, pt.IX: Pictures

gutshot shows wiring still not fully tidy.. working on that.

Sounds Coming Soon. (promise.)

the Hohner Bass Threemörk, pt.VIII

did i say 'and after that.. we're done?'
ah, the folly of youth.

it's never over.

the extra gapper oscillator - or MCO, as in Manually Controlled Oscillator. yes, i actually think that's funny -
got its range switch, selecting between three speeds, with an octave (more or lessy) between them.
Chopper to BabyWantsCandy high whine. yay.

plus, i added another switch to choose its destination: the arpeggiator section, running the gapper, or the voice A filters. got its own volume control for that one, determining the submix to voice A.

Since the gapping consist of switching to 4 empty (thus silent) inputs on the Mux, i went ahead and wired them together to a jack. So now i basically have an option to run external audio through the arp section, filling the gaps, alternating with the synth sound. tried it with a heavily distorted guitar and results were funghi sweet.
(heavily distorted since the input needs a dedicated preamp, actually, but that's not there yet. Did i mention it's never over?)
Turning the 4 octave knobs all the way down gives you a squarewave tremolo on the external, with an option of running the MCO gapper as well. Dual trem. Pretty nifty. Do people still use that word, nifty?

Well then, on to the outside of the thing.. aka the Looks.
i picked up a thrift store suitcase with the exact dimensions of the keyboard.
due to my Add On and Pile Up approach, i ended up with a gazillion little subboards that all needed to sit snugly in there.
so far, no problems. loads of wiring though.
ditched the layout testing cardboard for some nice wood panelling, cut ridiculously exact to specs with the help of mr. Zeichnungsfreistelle himself.
drilled pretty clean to photoshop drilling template, so as to stop myself from making further additions: man needs to know his limits, and i'm way beyond them already anyway.
I still need to order me some nice knobs, right now i'm making do with whatever i had lying around.
Was thinking of screenprinting the faceplate, but that would make it Xmas by the time i get finished so i decided against it.
So right now i'm actually in the process of cleaning up the wiring, which sounds pretty final to me.

now for that external audio preamp..