I've spent most of this week working on the second and third prototypes for the Leapfrog VCF. I'm hoping to have this product available for sale by the end of the month - maybe in time to have some kind of spooky Halloween tie-in for the launc…
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Here's a diagram of something called the CNO process, encompassing many of the nuclear reactions by which stars shine. I thought it would be fun to "sonify" the CNO process by building some kind of simulation of a star and making it generate m…
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I finally got the Leapfrog prototype PCBs from Shenzhen, so I hope to have some progress on that very soon. Meanwhile, Muffwiggler is still down, and the word is that it's because Mike is in hospital. Everyone's thoughts and prayers are with him.…
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North Coast's first fiscal year ends with this month, and I have a bunch of small news items and progress updates. First up, the Leapfrog VCF. This is the big flagship module that I think people are waiting for, and I was supposed to have the…
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I make a lot of music that is intended to be "ambient": something you can put on in the background and have it create a mood without demanding conscious attention in the foreground all the time. I'm also interested in automatic generation: I'd like t…
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This week I'm planning to order the prototype boards for the Leapfrog Filter, and it makes a good opportunity to go through some common questions beginners ask about shopping for PCBs. When you go to buy PCB production services you're typically hit w…
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I've been busy this week dusting off the design for the Leapfrog Filter. I really did most of the work on it back in 2016, and I even built a prototype which works pretty well, as you can hear in audio demos like this one. I'm hoping that will tran…
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Here's a simplification of the output driver circuit from the MSK 008 Dual VC Octave Switch. It's a familiar inverting op amp circuit with gain of -1. The op amp's positive input is tied to 0V; it will act to force its negative input to also s…
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The MSK 008 Octave Switch is planned to launch tomorrow and I've already posted the manual; so I thought it would be fun for this week's Web log entry to introduce some of the software tools I use for producing, and especially for documenting, module…
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Modular hobbyists love to invent fantasy modules. We'll sit down and sketch out just exactly the modules we wish we had in our racks, and then either post the mock-up images to Muffwiggler and leave it at that, or take it a little more seriously and…
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The shop has been open a few days. Response hasn't been all that I hoped it would be. There was a burst of traffic on the first day, especially when I posted an announcement on Muffwiggler, but not the level of third-party referrals, so…
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This is it! After many delays I'm happy to finally cut the virtual ribbon and open this Web shop. Take a look around; most things should be self-explanatory. I customized the theme a bit and am not certain everything will work on all brows…
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