Monthly Archives: March 2023

Open Source Synth Build (Introduction)

Project Goals

  • Learn to use Kicad
  • Work with a PWB fab again on a more complex board.
  • Use Github to successfully fork a project.
  • Have a new midi monosynth to play with!

Introduction

I’ve been thinking about a new hobby project for 2023. Last year I dove somewhat deep into USB drivers and proprietary Microchip libraries which had my head spinning when i just wanted a simple USB audio interface. So this year, I’m going to tackle something hardware only and use my oscillocope more than ever!

A few months back https://mutable-instruments.net/ announced that their synthesizer product line was shutting down.
Sad news, but fortunately for the engineers with too much time pinteretes has opened source’d many of his designs. Before starting my first job in 2012, I was really into synth kits and modified my monotron for midi control but never returned so this will be fun. Those kits were cheaply made for a reason and I didn’t really have the patience or spare resources to build a more proper synth. So I’m going to attempt to build the Shruthi!

Fully Assembled Shruthi XT (taken by pichenettes)


This blog will be broken up into a few blog entries with some major phases of the project (I will link to the posts as they go live):

Part 1 (link):

  • Porting from Eagle to Kicad
  • Rerouting the analog filter PWB due to some obsolete component packages
  • Using Git and Git hub to fork the original tree

Part 2:

  • Purchasing of all components, PWB Manufacture and full build (and Rebuild).

Part 3:

  • Testing the final product and lessons learned.