Alpha Potentiometers in the UK

Places to buy Alpha Pots -

Doctor Tweek (UK)

CliffUK (UK)

Watford Valves (UK)

Farnell (UK)

Bitsbox (UK) - Narrow leg footprint.

Hotrox (UK)

MOTM sites

Richard Brewsters MOTM

Synth DIY - a list of sites

Here's a list of Synth DIY sites

Eurorack websites

Eurorack Database

FM Synthesiser - Raspberry Pi & Arduino

Here's how to do it.

DIY Drum Machine Circuits.

DIY Audio Drums 

Panel Design.

How to get LazerTran on to your panels.

Capacitor Codes

How to tell what your Capacitor is.

Capacitor Code Calculator.

Free Component Samples

IDT (Integrated Device Technology)

DIY Guitar FX

Valve Wizard seems to have a lot of DIY circuits and what not to look at.

Small Time Delay 

DIY Audio Circuits

A collection of different DIY Audio Circuits to make.

Bobs Data - Sine Wave Generator

LED Music Level Indicator or LED Sound Level Indicator

DIY - Making your own PCBs

Here's an in-depth page all about how to do it, and all the various options.

A more concise how to from Befaco.

Get PCB's manufactured here or here (OSH Park).

Help! A step by step guide to building a MOTM system

Bill and Will have it all covered in Dragonfly Alley.  Step by step process reports on how to build everything (that they've built).

Here's a viewer to read their BOM's which are downloadable .xls files - Zoho Sheet Excel Viewer.

Rare Monacor VU meter

Retro and very snazzy looking Monacor VU meter available at Electrical Mate.

DIY sequencer

Fonitronik Synth DIY have a great looking (i.e. simple to make) 10 step, rack mount sequencer design.

Proper DIY - schematics and off you go and make it yourself

Getting about as DIY as you can -

Thomas Henry's 555VCO

Bergfotron (Sweden) - How to make just about anything bleepy by the looks of it.

Animodule (USA) - Collection of modules

Dintree (?) - Collection of modules

Eurorack Multiples DIY

Doepfer DIY Synth

Doepfer make a DIY synth which is essentially a ready made and populated PCB; your job is to build a case for it and put lots of knobs in place. Sounds good to me.

Blogs about Modular Synths

Here's a list of Modular Blogs.

Synthemoduliare (France)

Wiring a Jack

Which cable goes to which part of the jack?

Here's the answer.

Arduino - Circuit Design

123D Circuits allows you to design circuits for Arduino.

Fritzing - PCB design software

Fritzing allows you to design (and I think manufacture) circuits and PCB's.

Anushri - DIY synth from Mutable Instruments.

This was the first synth that I built myself.  I'd say I took on a bit more than I could chew with this one never having built anything of this magnitude before, but it's done, and it works, and it sounds magnificent.

Available as a DIY kit from Mutable Instruments.  It has great step-by-step instructions for building it on their website.  Well worth a go I reckon.

Here's someone else's page with a timelapse video showing them building theirs.

Building it as a synth not a Modular jobby?  Then you'll need a power supply.  Here's all the details on what's required.

Here's the MuffWigglers forum page all about it.

Here's the cheat-sheet showing what all the buttons do.

Yusynth DIY

Yusynth is a great collection of DIY module schematics, PCB designs, and BOMs running on +/-15v.

Here's a list of the various modules that are available.

Front Panels are available here (UK).

MFOS (Music from Outer Space) DIY kits in the UK

Soundtronics seem to have a pretty substantial and well priced range of MFOS kits and other stuff for sale in the UK.

How to power your Modular set up (cheaply).

The people at paper-products have written a very helpful DIY article on powering your system.

Emu Modular Synthesiser - Sound on Sound article

A good read on the Emu Modular System.

Robot! Eggbot DIY kit.

Make a robot that draws on eggs or balls using a Sharpie Pen.  It's called Eggbot and looks groovy.  Kits in the UK available from ProtoPic.

DIY Ikea Rast Unit Case for synth modules

Here's an instructibles page on how to make your own.

And here's Cane Creek's web page showing a step-by-step tutorial (and finished product in situ) of how to do it.

DIY Modular - kits and PCB's, etc

Here's a list of places to get DIY kits in various formats from -

Ken Stone's Cat Girl Synth (USA) - PCB's of loads of different bits and pieces.

Elby Designs (Australia) - Shop selling kits and PCBs from a range of manufacturers.

Synovatron (UK) - Prototyping kits, other stuff.

Befaco (Spain) - Kits.

Sountronics (UK) - MFOS kits

Ljunggren Audio (UK) - Kits.

Mutable Instruments (France) - Anushri synth which is easily convertible to Eurorack format.

Future Sound Systems (UK) - A few modules and accessories.

Gieskes (Netherlands) - A couple of kits.

Frequency Central (UK) - PCB's, Kits

Thonk (UK) - Kits and components.

Non Linear Circuits (Australia) - PCB's and Panels.

Tellun (USA) - MOTM PCB's.

Erica Synths (Latvia) - Kits.

Delptronics (USA) - Sequencer Kit.

Music Think Modular (UK) - Kits.

Stereoping (Germany) - FX Kits.

Bridechamber (USA) - Everything.

Razmasynth (France) - PCB's and Panels.

Blacet Research (USA) - Kits.

Papereil Synth Labs (France) - +/-15v PCB's.

Paia (USA) - Kits, modules, synths.

Hexinverter (Canada) - PCB's.

Barton Musical Circuits (USA) - PCB's.

Magic Smoke (USA) - PCB's.

SynthCube (USA) - Everything.

4MS Pedals (USA) - Kits.

L-1 Synths (USA) - PCB's, Panels and components.

Convert a broken laptop's screen into a second monitor.

You'll need a special circuit board.  Just like this one on eBay.

And once you've got that, here's how you go about it.

Resistor calculator

Online resistor calculator.  Helping you find what all the colours mean, and what numbers they relate to 

DIY Synth kit - Xoxbox

Acid making machine.

DIY kits available from x0xsh0p in Germany.

Seems like the current complete kit is 319Euro plus 17.95Euro shipping to the UK.

Looks ace!

Alternative is the Eurorack x0xheart DIY kit available from Synthcube in the USA.  You'll need to get the main PCB, another PCB (called the pacemaker) and a front panel from them, plus all the relevant bits and pieces from components shops.  Goodness knows how much import duty you'd have to pay though. 

Learn how to use a breadboard

Very informative page showing how to use a breadboard and teaching you how it all works.

Learning Electronics

Khan academy is amazing.  It's an online teaching resource that teaches you how to do a huge amount of things via free online tutorials.  What's great about it is that it has excellent tutors and a linear hierarchy approach to learning, i.e. learn one thing to progress on to the next, choose from a few things to learn, learn that, then progress to a new selection.  It feels like a game as you score points and stuff as you go along.

The Electricity and Magnetism series of tutorials are here.

Places to buy components

Here's a list of places to buy all the stuff you need to make things work

Mouser (UK) - A lot of everything.

Doctor Tweek (UK) - Guitar effects and project parts.

Fuzz Dogs Pedals (UK) - Kits, switches, PCB's.

DSM Components (Czech) - Cheap bits and pieces.

Rapid Online (UK) - A lot of everything.

Bitsbox (UK) - Components specifically for music projects.

Electrical Mate (UK) - Monacor VU meters.

Front panel designer software

Schaeffer create software that allows you to design your own front panel.  You then upload the design to them and they'll manufacture a very snazzy looking panel.  

Oakley Modules

Oakley Modular give you the  +/-15v system of modular synth PCB layout to etch your own modules, BOM's, schematics etc.

Here's a suggestion of what you'd need to make a complete basic setup.

Power supply information.  Best to order a unit from the USA by the looks of it.

Oakley LFO unit.

Front panels

A couple of places to get front panels which can then be drilled out to fit specific layouts.

Conrad Electronic (UK)

3 U front plates (W x H) 101.3 mm x 128.4 mm Silver (matt, anodised)

Emis Music (UK) - Doepfer front panels

B1	1HP (5mm) Width blanking plate	£2.50	£2.25
B1.5	1.5HP (7.5mm) Width blanking plate	£2.50	£2.25
B2	2HP 10mm) Width blanking plate	£2.50	£2.25
B4	4HP (20mm) Width blanking plate	£3.00	£2.75
B8	8HP (40mm) Width blanking plate	£3.50	£3.00
B42	42HP (210mm) Width blanking plate	£9.50	£8.50
B84 Backplate	Full Width back panel plate	£14.50	£13.00

Yusynth module panels from BigBlueWave (UK).

Synth Panels (USA)