Building your own modular synth
A couple of cabinets of my modular, chilling out with a plant in the photographers gallery at oxford street, London. 2017
Hello! so this is KOSMO well an early iteration, and you’ll be pleased to know this year (2020) i am releasing 1 pcb/panel project each month. The initial reasoning for this was to increase the reliability of my touring modular rig, however an offshoot of that is i have gone and designed fully fledged products, so may as well pop em up on the shop for people interested!
WHY KOSMO FORMAT
I see kosmo format as a middle ground that makes sense to me, if you dont like having small and fiddly eurorack, this is the next step up, with big robust big jacks, its made to be performed. Inspired by the simplicity of finding 20cm panels. Its Actually cheap and easy to build. You could get a filter built for £40 including the pcb/panel.
KOSMO FORMAT
yes all these designs are actually in their own format, i call it the kosmo format but it has also been called metric 5U in the past, but it is completely compatible with eurorack, it even uses the same power connectors, and here is the criteria :-
-20cm tall panels widths of 2.5cm/5cm/10cm/20cm/40cm/60cm/80cm
-BIG jacks
- allowance for 10mm top and bottom for rails, which will usually be inexpensive wooden rails, mounted with small wood screws. however the mounting holes are for M3 bolt sizes.
- To ease the build and intergration with other systems it adheres to the eurorack power connector and voltage standard of -12v GND +12v
-1v/octave, v trig
-specifically for all projects and modules i will be offering, they will be of similar style, and the front panels are like a lot of eurorack modules made from the same material as pcb’s the reasoning for this being black metal panels are less hard wearing and these synths are made to be gigged, pcb material with black masks are very hard wearing, it is cheaper which keep kit costs down, as the size is larger. In the future there will be circuits on the front panel aswell, which for obvious reasons you cannot do on metal panels.
If anyone else wants to make any designs or module products in kosmo format please by all means do so! If you do i will happily promote it either on this site or on my youtube, as i think kosmo format is basically the big jack “more useable” version of eurorack.
This zine specifically covers a lot of questions i get. how to make a modular synth on the cheap! there are more zines on my patreon :-
Hopefully this will aid you in your journey!
READERS BUILDS
below are some builds of kosmo format synths from around the world! if you have any, send us a pic and ill include it here.
Image of Damien S Fears modular project in the kosmo format above! Hes using minijacks to work with his arturia minibrute.
Heres another pic of Damiens synth, its looking good so far! with an arduino 16 step sequencer. which is a project currently on my patreon but will be available soon! but if you can work it out its just a slight change in code to the keyboard sequencer on the projects page
This was made by Michael Hoby https://m.soundcloud.com/michaelmundai , made to the kosmo format! looks proper neat, with the tolex on the outside of the case. it looks like he's put together the keyboard sequencer and the safety valve projects in my projects section.
another great cabinet by dud! :-
CABINET 1 by Dud. more info in the link below :-
Above is dud’s double cabinets! more info on this build at the link below:- https://soundbender36.wordpress.com/sommaire-synthetiseur-modulaire-diy/
PCB’s
im starting to make PCB’s of the synth modules. i only have 1 out right now but that will be changing thick and fast
check out Josh Rodriquez’s ongoing kosmo project!!!!
Below are creations by christian Pearen, Canada. Also a Link to soundcloud
if you have projects you have made from this site, im happy to share pics of em on this page, just send me a message from the contact page! or message the look mum no computer page on facebook