I’ve just slapped together the final home for the System 700. Having built a few of these already, I feel like my craftsmanship in case building is slightly improving. I bought a cheap table saw and table router to assist with the task, resulting in some nice, rounded edges on this case. Using mounting templates , drilling holes, and mounting the rails before gluing things together definitely helped keep things well aligned this time as well, there was no forcing screws into the rails with this one, which is the situation with my 3-row rack.
I bought metal edge protectors and feet for 3 cases, and plan to install these on this new case. My initial routing job on the outside edges doesn’t quite match these brackets, so I think I’ll need to go over these again with the router to make deeper edges, which should allow the brackets to fit better. My last task on this case is to attempt to put black Tolex on it.
At this point, I am waiting for a spring reverb, a MIDI interface, and one VCO to complete things out. The spring reverb module is a kit, which I expect to be fairly simple as it uses a spring tank rather than circuitry. The MIDI interface is ordered, and I might go ahead and finish the problematic VCO and install it for the time being.
A great deal of time has been spent over the past few weeks tinkering with, calibrating, tuning, and troubleshooting this system. The last not-fully-working module, the Problematic VCO, is working, but has not been fully configured yet due to two of the contact points on the Range switch being bad. As this switch has about 12 contact points, it might be a challenge to remove from the board, and the part is out of stock on Mouser now as well, so is currently not replaceable. I have a question out to Pharmasonic about the switch, and once I hear back, I plan to either call it ‘done’ with these bad range points in place, or move forward with suggested repairs.
I added a 4MS SISM to the setup to assist with what I expect will be a regular task of converting 5V CV’s to 10V, which will ease cross-talk of CV’s from other modules to this system. I’ve ordered a black faceplate for it to allow it to match the rest of the system. The Intellijel buffered multi is the only thing not completely black, and I will probably move that to another system as soon as I score a pure black buffered multi.
How Does it Sound?
Yes, I’ve since actually tuned the 2 working VCO’s and it sounds much more ‘harmonic’ now. This is literally the sound it made as soon as I turned it on and hooked it up to Marbles. I have had a couple chances to actually ‘play’ it since then, but haven’t produced anything video-worthy.
Other DIY Projects on the Horizon
Also, as part of the troubleshooting of VCO3, it was suggested that the LM301 was bad and a fellow in Portland offered to give me one. I happened to be in Portland that weekend, so did so and also picked up two V2L1’s from Weston Audio. These sport two VCO’s and 1 LFO each and look like great compact solutions for a small system.
I also pre-ordered 2 Pharmasonic 717 Sequencer clones. These are 3 channel, 12-step sequencers that occupy 2 rows of 84hp per sequencer. I bought 2 more 8′ boards with plans to build cases for them, which also need inside-the-case power supplies for both of these, as there will be no room in for a power supply module on the front of these.