Friday, April 16, 2010

phase 3

so its all in and working: 3 channels of cv and gate. 2 of them are controlled by one brain of sorts and one by another. its ridiculous.. but the 3rd sequencer is on the way! withe the last portion (the extra gate channel) i learned to manufature the very affordable dpdt switch housings and how to do dual state leds, and single state-cycling leds as well. the extra gate channel was pretty easy to do. minus the tricky diode kluges. (which led to the possibility of the gate holds...more on that as i lay it out further. but i will do a full gate channel layout for anyone who wants to build another gate channel on theirs..its pretty damn easy and dirt dirt dirt cheap. good for env, lfo and any other sort of triggering in time with your sequence. espeically, if you have a modular.

i also inadvertantly came to 2 very nice discoveries. programmable portamento and possible gate time hold per step to give note values other than 1/6th to the sequencer!!!! the portamento is pretty much confirmed a working idea .. the gate may take some further testing. but the portamento will be implemented on the new #3 model. single housing dual channel, dual gate sequencer in a 6 U rack face with akai/emu style angled out control pad/surface at the bottom. (with walnut sides of course...)

this one has the features of the last one plus the selectable portamento. it will be smooth and refined. unlike the DRAX 2 #000 unit, which is a frankenstein and a half. but hey .. you learn on something right? its a crammed tight and almost difficult unit to work on since its grew as i worked on it.. what a freak.

anyway heres the face layout for the DRAX 2 001. for real...and also the black and white mechanical that ill use to do all the machining on the face plate..