My synth enthusiasm started with the mfos soundlab minisynth. I was constantly trying to make my guitar sound less and less like a guitar, and after building the soundlab, I found something that satisfied my sound design desire and allowed me to continue with traditional (boring) guitar plucking.
I built the first minisynth into a geiger counter which was dubbed the "egon box".
Thoserecords then decided to build approximately 20 of these "egon boxes" and numerous component kits for them (Click the arrows below to scroll through the egon pictures and drawings).
While building synths, I also built a few other circuits (pultec clone, ssl compressor clone, drewtronics sherlock level loc clone, eltech preamps, and others):
A minisynth was even built into a Rheem keyboard:
Keying off of the great pcb's offered at musicfromouterspace, a large format (5U) modular was constructed. It became a mix of DIY, synthesizers.com and motm modules. The synth slowly evolved from a single, small cabinet/keyboard into a 6 cabinet monster.
It started like this:
evolved into this:
and ended its life as this (each module was sold for reasons explained in a minute):
Then came the discovery of the KEN STONE programmer/sequencer pcb's. The programmer/sequencer is designed in the Serge format, so I decided to do a 2 panel mini system in a self contained, fixed format box using mostly CGS and MFOS circuits.
This small synth was eventually sold to fund more diy projects (more to come on those in a minute). In the mean time, a Moog Little Phatty was purchased along with a Vermona DRM MK-III drum module and Numerology. A Vermona Perfourmer was added a bit later.
Inspired by zthee and his amazing Serge-alike designs (mostly using CGS pcb's), I decided I wanted to build a small but powerful synth in a suitcase.
This idea developed into the idea of a Buchla inspired cabinet (after seeing some designs posted by Jooks on muffwiggler). The cabinet was filled with STS like m-odules using mostly cgs pcb's:
This setup was sold, but a new-and-improved design is currently on the workbench (where it might be sitting for a while).
I built a monome in here somewhere, but I quickly realized that being tied to a computer was not my gig, so I sold it:
The Moog Little Phatty was sold to fund the purchase of a Moog Minimoog Voyager Old School (after the voyager was purchased, of course!):
The Vermona DRM and Perfourmer were sold (along with some other things) to make room for the small but mighty Serge Creature and Serge Quad Slope M-odules.
A second hand Serge Blue Voice panel was added to the Creature, Quad Slope and M-Case for an amazing instrument in a compact case. I really think this is the instrument for me. It is the first synth that really feels like a full system/instrument and not just a collection of ever expanding modules.
Serge as of april 2010 (TKB, Quadslope, Creature, Blue Voice and a couple of open spots):
The serge above was traded for a 12 unit buchla cabinet:
