About this forum

mosc · Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2008 2:56 pm Post subject: About this forum

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 · Joined: Sep 25, 2005 Posts: 1351 Location: Telford, PA USA

Bravo! I await the colective genius.

Coriolis · Joined: Apr 11, 2005 Posts: 616 Location: Stilling, Denmark

This sounds like fun!

C

CJ Miller · Joined: Jan 07, 2007 Posts: 368 Location: 127.0.0.1

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- · Joined: Oct 26, 2008 Posts: 787 Audio files: 13

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 · Posted: Sat Jan 30, 2010 6:34 am Post subject:

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 · Posted: Sat Jan 30, 2010 12:59 pm Post subject:

-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 · Posted: Sat Jan 30, 2010 5:11 pm Post subject:

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- · Joined: Oct 26, 2008 Posts: 787 Audio files: 13

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...

jurekprzezdziecki · Joined: Mar 22, 2016 Posts: 68 Location: warsaw

Hi Howard and the forum guys,

Great to hear that. I'm really into this circuits even though i'm a beginner.
I have a great stock of polish CMOS and TTLs made by polish company named CEMI. i have a lot of them as an inheritance from my father, a retired radio circuits electronic engineer. I want to use them, have some ideas in mind. I know that is a place to ask and develop those ones.

Thanks for you help

Jurek

Project_2501 · Joined: Jan 31, 2018 Posts: 68 Location: Los Angeles

Ironically I stepped into the DIY Electronic universe not even knowing who I live with.

I live with Stan's grandson!, Henry. Went to Jazz school with him.

I started making my own little oscillators on veroboard at home and henry got so excited I was building my own instruments that he's bringing stan's last creation to the house before he past away.

I don't know much about electronics, I just got my feet wet with a veroboard layout that I found online, but I'm excited to see this thing. His last instrument was called the cube. I assume few forumers may know what this is. From Henry's understanding it's Stan's life work inside one box that can generate a sound sequence on it's own for a month.

When I see Stan's cube, I'll try my best to document it. Henry and I want to record some songs with it, so I'll keep you posted Very Happy

It's funny to here Henry talk about his grandpa's house. He wired the house with creations. He said there was a light sensitive sound thing that his grandma hated to death, and she would always put a rag over the sensor to diminish the sound.

mosc · Posted: Sat Apr 07, 2018 1:23 pm Post subject:

I know the cube very well. It was originally built by Stan in the 1970s, but he would often modify it. I don’t know what his last project was, but the cube was not it, unless he completely rebuilt it unknon to me (very possible). I’d be very interested to see photos of the insides. He sometimes built huge circuits in the space wire style. If he liked it he would put the prototype inside an existing contraption which he called gizmos. He had great luck with these, some would keep working for years. His schematics were just incomplete notes on pieces os scrap paper. If Stan’s grandson could locate some of these notes, it would be a great public service to post them online, preferably here. 🤗

Anyhow, welcome to electro-music.com. It’s great to hear from you.