Light Vader

Light Vader This is a home made diy synthesizer built from two getlofi.com 555 timer kits. This two oscillator synth has a square wave output and a very weak triangle wave output, both waves are switchable. Osc 2 can be synced with osc 1 or ran independently. Both oscillators have a pitch control and a volume control. There is a setting which allows you to control the pitch through two photo resistors, with one of them being tilted to allow for variation.

There are four outputs on this machine, two RCA and two 1/4", one of each is for osc 1 and 2. There is a 9 volt battery inside the enclosure, but is switchable to a 9 volt power adapter.

On the side is a semi lfo mode. I basically added an extra 500k resistance to lower the pitch. But at these low frequency the triangle wave can can be heard and the square wave will function as a controlled voltage on / off. Added sync, triangle square switch, volume, photo resister, RCA and 1/4"outputs, and some what of a lfo mode.

Casio RZ-1PLUS Drum Machine Circuit Bent Mod

Its finally done!



If you want to skip the explanation and hear what it does, skip to around 4 min.

This is the Casio RZ-1 Plus version. This is Casio stock version of this type of mod:
here
The kits are acoustic, electric and Latin. The number one best feature about Casio version is that its has four banks of sample memory giving you the ability of sampling 16 sounds.

The bends and mods to this drum are similar to this one:
here
I painted this one white, redid the text, added wood panels, and upgraded the materials used.

Has a 30 point RCA patch bay that short circuits three of the eprom chips for a total of around 480 possible patches (if I did my math right). You can patch with in the chips and chip to chip. In addition to the patch bay there are five input / output on/off switch section with toggle switches and momentary buttons. Each toggle switch also has an LED indicator.

I also added a switch to bypass the RZ-1s main timing crystals with two getlofi 1799 precision oscillators to allow for some great pitch control. These also have LED indicators.

I've added 10k pots on the top to easier access the samples tone control. Also, I replaced the internal permanent soldered battery with a replaceable one.

Drums in the song you here are also the RZ -1

Also, tucked deep in the lab is a Commodore 64 that I'm working on.

A few projects I've been working on

Casio Vl-Tone /Vl - One

Toy Keyboard


More info to come on these items...

New Project: Casio RZ-1 PLUS

OK, so here is an update on my latest project. As you know, if you read the last post, that I recently circuit bent a regular RZ-1, but am now working on the plus version, which has three kit banks selectable from two switches splitting the pads into groups of six. It also has three sets of sampling memory!

So what I'm doing for this mod/circuit bend is this. I will The same basic bends as the my last, two sets of pitch control, modded tone control for the samples, a patch bay, a switch bay, and momentary buttons. What I'm adding to this one is a new paint job, with hand written labels, and custom graphics. I'm building custom wood panels for the sides. I 'm upping the patch bay from 24 points to 30, and the switch bay from 4 to 5. Also with the switch bay, I'm adding LEDs to trigger when the switches are activated. I also built a custom piece of metal to hold the patch and switch bays.

Below are some pictures of my progress. I have already finished the paint job.