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mki x es.EDU VCO is a new classic analog oscillator and is the first DIY module from the new educational series from Erica Synths and Moritz Klein.
It’s been a big year for Erica Synths. There were a lot of releases and product announcements. I count 15 articles on my page in 2021. That would be more than one product per month. Very impressive what Girts Ozolins and his team are making possible in Riga. The highlight of the year was certainly the Perkons HD-01 drum Synthesizer, which will not be released until 2022 due to the known chip shortage.
In addition to these regular products, Erica Synths has also been working on a new range of DIY Eurorack modules over the past few months. That in collaboration with Moritz Klein. And shortly before the end of the year, the first module, the mki x es.EDU VCO is ready for ordering.
mki x es.EDU VCO
The mki x es.EDU VCO is the first educational DIY kit in this series. It is an analog sawtooth-core oscillator with a reasonably accurate volt/octave tracking, made from just a handful of basic components. On the front panel, you have sawtooth and pulse outputs, inputs for 1V/oct, FM, and PWM as well as five knobs. A big one for the coarse, and four smaller potentiometers controls the fine-tune, pulse width, PWM CV level and the FM level.
The focus is on educational. More precisely, they want to teach people with little experience how to design analog Synthesizer circuits from scratch. Each kit ships with a lovely detailed user manual (40+ pages) that will dive deep into not only the electronics behind each circuit but also the fundamental principles of sound synthesis.
It also includes a step by step instruction with big pictures how to solder the modules. A fabulous work. I’ve never seen a manual that goes so deep into the details. An abstract from the manual on the subject of resistors.
Instead, we want to take you through the circuit design process step by step, explaining every choice we’ve made and how it impacts the finished module.
More Modules
Erica Synths and Moritz Klein have developed 9 kits to build a fully-featured modular monosynth. There will be a sequencer, a VCO, a wavefolder, a noise/S&H module, a mixer, a VCF, an Envelope generator, a dual VCA, and an output stereo mixer with a headphone amplifier. An affordable chase with a DIY PSU is also in the pipeline.
Instead of launching all modules at the same time, they make it exciting and release one kit every 4-6 weeks.
Pairing DIY with educational is terrific in my opinion. So you not only have the dry theory, but you can also put what you have learned directly into practice. And maybe later in your own designs. Well done ES and Moritz.
mki x es.EDU VCO is available now for 60€ + VAT for customers in EU without EU VAT registration number + shipping
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1 Comment
Excellent initiative, Erica Synths and Moritz Klein give you the user manual, you buy the components, you experiment on your breadboard, you assemble on your perfboard and in a year you have your first Eurorack synth that you really master from A to Z .
At the same time, others will spend 10 times or more and will know less than you.
Well done Erica Synths and Moritz Klein.
Excellent initiative, Erica Synths and Moritz Klein give you the user manual, you buy the components, you experiment on your breadboard, you assemble on your perfboard and in a year you have your first Eurorack synth that you really master from A to Z .
At the same time, others will spend 10 times or more and will know less than you.
Well done Erica Synths and Moritz Klein.