The aforemetioned monday session went ahead and I was spurred on by the enthusiastic woodworking specialist, Gregor. The process was incredibly satisfying, and having the assistance of a woodworking pro lent some really cool tidbits of knowledge and wisdom regarding how to make things neat and tidy, as well as structurally sound. I ended up managing to complete most of the enclosure apart from the faceplate, which works perfectly for me as I’m still deciding exactly what the faceplate will contain. Two or three oscillators? Filters or not? Etc. These decisions are based on two things; time and funds. Troubleshooting larger, more complex circuits will take more time and will likely slow me down more than necessary, but will yield a more satisfying and playable end result. This, after all, is the reason I’m designing such a synthesiser/drum machine. Secondly, regarding funds: pots and switches seem like cheap items (~£1.50 each) but buying 10 or 20 or 30 of them soon adds up, and I’m starting to require an awful lot of them. This project has handily aligned with the cost of living crisis, and I’m slightly struggling to fund my voracious desire to test more and more circuits.

I understand that my project is based on unconventional control methodologies and thus shouldn’t really contain too many knobs and switches, but I feel as though I require a ‘control’ synth to compare the changes in interaction with. Writing this, I’m starting to have thoughts about experiments regarding different synthesiser practitioners (likely course-mates) interacting with two different synthesisers on two different occasions which have wildly contrasting control methodologies, but idential internal circuitry. Recordings of these sessions can then be compared and contrasted to yield some degree of understanding about how performance alters with different control types.