I’ve been flying and crashing drones for a couple years now, got my FAA certification to fly commercially and recently renewed it. I studied for months, learning all about airspace, aerodynamics, weight and balance, FAA rules and radio communications. I spent the first two years flying with two Yuneec Typhoon H drones. Planning to fly…
DIY Synthesizer – Sigsaly-X
Back in April of 2016, I heard the 99% Invisible Podcast about speech synthesizers. It was an enlightening look at Bell Labs Voder, the first speech synthesizer, which debuted at the Worlds Fair, in 1939. We had speech synthesizers back in 1939! But most of this episode was dedicated to SIGSALY. This was the codename…
Winter Droning
I was on a site survey in Michigan City and wanted to get some shots of the lighthouse & pier with the ice floating by. I bought a Mavic 2 Pro last November and haven’t used it much yet, so this was a great opportunity to test what it could do and how long the…
Protokulture Sign
I forgot that I had made this sign for my friend John Michaels, at Protokulture. I had some leftover wood from another project and wanted to put it to good use. This was really a practice session to teach myself how to make signs like this. It ended up being much easier than I thought….
Merrily Sign
While cleaning a dam of dead leaves and branches in our creek, I pulled out the coolest old board. No idea where this came from, or how long it had been there (probably a couple years). It looks like the quintessential ‘rustic barn wood’ and was perfect for my next sign. I have been searching…
Arp Odyssey Repair – Part Two
Continued from Part One. Next step in the repair was to either replace or repair the 4023 filter. I wasn’t actually sure if it was broken or not, but thought it would be worth replacing the chips and capacitors anyway. On reviewing the schematics for board C, I confirmed that the high output line had…
Winterizing with Clear Plastic Tarps
During the summer, we spend most of our time in our Michigan cottage in our screened in porch. It’s peaceful, with a great view of the creek in our backyard and surrounded by trees and nature. For the past two winters we have wanted to be out there and experimented with heat shrink plastic with…
Bell Labs Speech Synth Kit
2018 has been the year of my obsession with speech synthesizers. I’ve been experimenting with the Ginsing/SoundGin IC for awhile and recently created my own eurorack-based synth module. In researching speech synth chips, I came across a very cool Bell Laboratories Speech Synthesis Kit, from 1963, on Ebay. A little beat up, but never put…
Prairie Lodge Sign
I needed an excuse to use my X-Carve CNC, so I made a sign for our Michigan cottage. We call it Prairie Lodge, as we live on Prairie Ave. Awhile back, my good buddy Brandon Nelson gave me some really unique pieces of wood that were perfect for signs. Using X-Carve Easel software, I quickly…
Arp Odyssey Repair – Part One
Many years ago, I had repaired a few synthesizers for Bon Harris of Nitzer Ebb. Being a huge fan of theirs I took the opportunity to do the best I could and managed to fully repair a few of them. I managed to repair a very broken EDP Wasp (still my favorite synthesizer), Sequential Circuits…