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Casper Electronics Novadrone

borfoborfo
edited December 2013 in Off Topic
http://casperelectronics.com/finished-pieces/nova-drone/

I just finished building a Casper Electronics double Novadrone...  This thing is super fun, probably my favourite DIY build so far just in terms of how much fun it is to sit down and play around with it without having to think about "composing" anything.  Each column of knobs and switches is a drone voice with an LFO, with a whole bunch of input and output signal connections that you can use to connect aspects of each voice in all kinds of ways.  The breadboard at the bottom lets you make arbitrary connections between voices, or even build circuits that modify the sound.  Just screwing around with making random connections and jamming capacitors in randomly is incredibly fun.  The RGB LEDs look great too.  Really fun to play with, and it can make some really cool sounds.

I expect that playing around with this will teach me a lot about synthesis generally, and I'll probably learn a lot about what electronic components actually do in audio circuits from the breadboard feature.  For people like me who learn by fucking around with things, this seems like a great learning tool - you can instantly hear the difference that adding a certain connection or component makes to the sound. 

Reasonably cheap to build if you source the parts yourself.  Cheap potentiometers from Tayda Electronics saves a lot over getting pots from mouser or whatever.

If you haven't built one of these things already, I'd highly recommend it.  Prettiest PCB I've seen so far, too.

Comments

  • rudeogrudeog
    Looks cool. How much did the self-sourced parts come to?
  • borfoborfo
    edited December 2013
    Not exactly sure, I was buying for about 4 other projects at the same time, and I had a bunch of the parts lying around.  The biggest expense would be the 24 pots (although Tayda has cheap pots that fit for around $0.65 each), the sp3t switches (I couldn't find any cheap switches that fit the PCB on ebay or whatever, had to get them from Digikey), and the .1uf caps (there are a lot of them, and I had to get them from Digikey too.)

    ...I built the double board.  It'd cost half as much to do the single, but it's nice having all these voice channels.
  • FreshPantsFreshPants
    I built one a little while ago and agree it's a really pretty PCB, and the RGB led is quite mesmerizing when you start droning for a while. I think its time I hooked it up again.
  • shiftrshiftr
    I have one and also the drone lab.. I use them together with a mi sidekick.. Instant very complex modular sounds
  • borfoborfo
    edited December 2013
    Are those sidekick boards still available anywhere?  The Sidekick looks really useful, but I don't see it anywhere on MI's site.
  • nightworxxnightworxx
    edited December 2013
    No, they are discontinued. Unless a member of the MI community does sell one...
  • rudeogrudeog
    I just ordered the novadrone kit. Should make for a good holiday project.
  • borfoborfo
    They took their time shipping mine - you might not see it before the holidays.
  • dubtomsdubtoms
    If anyone has a Mouser (or any other component supplier) BOM, I'd be interested...
  • borfoborfo
    This page has digikey part #s for most components: http://casperelectronics.com/finished-pieces/nova-drone/parts/

    There's a LED you have to get from sparkfun, and if you order cheap pots from Tayda electronics, you'll save a bunch over digikey prices.
  • dubtomsdubtoms
    I saw it but I'm kinda lazy...
    :\">
    You'll need to tease-me real hard, how much money can I save from not ordering the kit ?
  • borfoborfo
    edited December 2013
    I'm not sure exactly, but quite a bit.  If you do the double, the kit is $150 more than the PCB alone.  Little breadboards are like $2 shipped from China on ebay, get 24 pots from Tayda for $0.65 ea.  Buy all the common parts like resistors/dc jacks/ICs/etc. from ebay in bulk, or from Tayda, and get all the stuff you can't find elsewhere like the switches and .1uf caps from digikey or mouser, and the LEDs from sparkfun.  Should all come in well under $150.

    Tayda has headers that'll work for the breadboard connector too, and if you're not planning on docking multiple novadrones together, you don't need the headers on the left and right side of the board.

    It likes a 12v power supply, so you'll need one of those as well. 
  • CostoCosto
    I built the dual 2 months ago, the day before building my LXR :)
    Indeed it took at least a month and a half after payment to get it shipped. 
    It arrived pretty quick from the US to Belgium though. 

    I ordered the full kit (with the adventure pack), as I find my time is well worth a few dollars...
    Sourcing the parts for my 3 shruthi's (4PM, YM & Pvk) took quite some time and all in all, wasn't much much cheaper than getting full kits (if those were available). 
    Being based in Europe makes Mouser and Digikeys quite expensive (20$ of shipping + taxes...) and not really worth it over a full kit (for me at least.)

    I had issues with a 12v power supply, make sure you get a good quality one with enough amps.

    Still haven't got anything really musical out of it yet, and my wife wants to kill me every time I turn it on, but indeed, it's great great fun :) (also I can make her guilty by saying she doesn't understand my art :p)
    Haven't played much with the breadboard apart some leds yet, but I agree it's genius to experiment with components.
  • borfoborfo
    What's in the "adventure pack"?  They don't have a list on the site...
  • CostoCosto
    Nothing worthwhile if you have some spare components, I guess : 2 transistors, a bunch of 3mm and 5mm leds, 3 caps, a few resistors, connection wires, 5 photoresistors (LDR), and most importantly, a brooch/pins ;)

    I only bought it because I guess they are within the NovaDrone's tolerance and I really didn't want to think too much ;)
  • borfoborfo
    Hm.  I haven't tried transistors in it yet, will have to give that a shot.  Thanks.
  • rudeogrudeog
    looks like they just shipped mine out. maybe have it in time for the holidays!
  • borfoborfo
    Cool...  Was just playing with mine today, running it through the filters on a shruthi...  If you have one of those, try that, really sounds cool.  Either added on to a shruthi synth sound, or on one of the passthrough patch settings (125-128).
  • CostoCosto
    edited December 2013
    Hmm, excellent tip, thanks a lot !
    Got 4 shruthis to test now : 4PM, SMR MkII, YM, Pvk.
    Could do well as input to the Analog Four filters and FX, for a megadrone :p 
    And/or the Octatrack, alongside the LXR :D

    So many things to do :)
  • rudeogrudeog
    This thing is cool. They forgot to include the headers, so they are shipping them out separately, but I'm still able to make some cool sounds with it (mostly sounding like an airplane with engine troubles).

  • CostoCosto
    Well, for my use, the breadboard are more for experimenting than getting a "better" sound...
    After a few hours of playing around with the NovaDrone, I was able to get a few more "civilized" sounds, less noisy, more harmony...

    But I'm definitely looking forward to playing it through the input of the Analog Four for a background drone source with a few FX, LFOs and filtering...
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