Axehole

The Cano Sonosaur is making the rounds of music blogs. It’s a DIY partial kit for creating an inexpensive bass synth.

Here’s the description:

My newest synthesizer, “Sonosaur”, has most of the features of (and sounds similar to) my Saurus synthesizer, but has pots in lieu of the Saurus programmable presets. It’s great for real-time knob-twisting. It’s also EXTREMELY AFFORDABLE!!! This is by far the least expensive way to acquire a full-featured, true analog, monophonic bass pedal synthesizer that captures the sound used by progressive rock bands like Genesis and Rush.

Sonosaur connects directly to a one-octave set of bass pedals, C through C (or any group of up to 13 normally-open switches).

There are several other interesting projects available at the Cano Electronics ebay store - it looks like somebody’s a freak for bass pedals!Features:

• Two oscillators with digital frequency control for drift-free performance. Oscillator 1 is tuned to 16′ (low C = 32.7 Hz), and oscillator 2 is tuned to 8′. A mix pot lets you blend the two oscillator outputs in any ratio you desire.
• A pseudo-random noise generator with a cycle time of more than four minutes.
• Analog waveshaping giving a preset mix of ramp and pulse waveforms, or red (1/f) and white noise.
• An analog Attack-Decay-Sustain-Release (ADSR) envelope generator with true exponential decay and release curves for a natural sound.
• An analog Voltage-Controlled-Filter (VCF). The VCF is a state-variable design with resonance (”Q”) control. The filter tracks the pedals and has variable cutoff frequency along with variable sweep control from the ADSR.
• A Voltage-Controlled-Amplifier (VCA) that can be controlled from the envelope generator or gated by the pedals.
• Eight pots and two switches for creating your own sound. The pots control attack time, decay time, sustain level, release time, oscillator mix, VCF initial frequency, VCF sweep, and VCF resonance. One switch selects either the oscillator outputs or the noise source, and the other switch selects either the ADSR or gate output to control the VCA.
• Direct connection to pedal switches– no other interface is required. You can also add an optional MIDI input retrofit board.