About this forum

[mosc]

I've gotten requests to go into depth on the little cheap simple digital synths called Lunettas. See: http://electro-music.com/forum/topic-23215.html . These machines are named after Stanley Lunetta of Sacramento, California. Stan informally taught a few of us how to build these things in the early 1970s. He was an inspiring teacher, to say the least. He never liked us calling these things Lunettas, but, Stan, you don't always get what you want. We call these Lunettas as an homage to a great man, a creative inspiration to me and many others.

In this forum we will explain the basic concept and draw up a few circuits to give members an good idea about these fun circuits.

Lunettas are very simple, digital, noisy, quirky, and lots of fun. Forget the analog synth model - no VCOs, filters, ADSRs, and that stuff. In some way, these aren't synthesizers because they aren't designed to synthesize any sounds. They are certainly electronic musical instruments.

Anyway, we're getting ahead of ourselves. This forum is for discussing these circuits and this philosophy. The main ingredient is creativity, so I hope after getting this started with a few topics, other people will come up with ideas and present them.

Everything is informal. Every Lunetta is different. Most of the time, the only person who can play a given Lunetta is the person who built it.

[Danno Gee Ray]

Bravo! I await the colective genius.

[Coriolis]

This sounds like fun!

C

[CJ Miller]

This is wonderful! I have wondered about very simple digital synthesis like this for a while, but only recently got around to getting logic chips and breadboard. Thank you Mosc for getting us started!

[-minus-]

Hi mosc and all!

I've just tonight stumbled upon this 'Lunetta' thing. Wondering if there is any info anywhere which can explain what this idea is about? My gut reaction is that this is something I should know about. What are the key ideas about this design approach? If possible, links, schematics, some sort of historical overview etc would be much appreciated... not asking for much am I?

"In this forum we will explain the basic concept and draw up a few circuits to give members an good idea about these fun circuits."

This is the bit I am wanting to find. Can you give me directions please? In the meantime, I shall continue searching. I may be on a several year tangent here with this Lunetta thing instinct tells me!

Thanks for the catalyst!

[RF]

Hi -
Great to have you here!
Everything is in this forum somewhere:) just start reading the posts.

Here's another forum
http://deathlehem.com/php/forums.html?sid=4c6e29a813b0cbeb19213a640d310b5e
- but use it quick as it may be gone in a month or so,,,

These are really fun - I look forward to seeing/hearing what you come up with!

bruce

[mosc]

-minus-

I think RF said it right. The info is in the subforum. I suggest you read all you can and if you have any questions after that, ask them in this forum, but not in this topic. Start a new topic for each question / concept. That makes it easier to follow for readers.

I have a poster of the "World's First Lunetta Concert" which was held at Mills College in Oakland, California in 1971. Of course, it really wan't the world's first Lunetta concert because Stan Lunetta was a professional musician for years before that. I'll try to dig that poster up and scan it. It's amusing.

[droffset]

I have a slightly fleshed-out skeleton of an intro document, I can clean it up and post it since it looks like I'll need help getting it completed.

[-minus-]

Thanks everyone!

Yeah... after asking the question, I scrolled through the subforum stuff and looked at milkcrate.com.au. Lots of info there. I think I'll have a good read through everything here and see where it leads me.

That poster would be interesting to see mosc. I hadn't begun school when that happened! Giving my age away here... Still, must have a good 20-30 years soldering left in me yet...