psych tone cmos noise maker _don lancaster

[loss1234]

hey there.

i have found a few versions of this:

http://www.swtpc.com/mholley/PopularElectronics/Feb1971/PE_Feb1971.htm

(PSYCH TONE)


one in the cmos cookbook (which is a very brief schematic and explanation)

and one in popular electronics (but that one uses TTL)

has anyone built this or know if it is that hard to make? it sounds like it would be a really cool noise makers
it seems to use a pseudo random number gen (shift register) AND A BUNCH OF LOGIC.

if this is not the right forum for this let me know

(i love this idea for a forum btw)

[Tronato]

Hello!

I built one back in 1972 and it was pretty cool for its time.

It's randomness was somewhat argueable but it was interesting arctifact.

It had a great number of I would say "programmable" sequences, some of which I used with a band I was in called Blue Onion Band.
It was a lot of work to build but with what is available today I wouldn't go through the trouble of building it again, but that is my personal opinion.
Still I have it in my search choices on eBay in case one is auctioned, but that has probably something to do with nostalgia...

That was a bunch of years ago!

Ask more specific questions and I'll try to remember the answers if possible...

TRON

[BananaPlug]

I picked one up at a yard sale a long time ago. Crude but amusing.

[loss1234]

how crude??

[stolenfat]

im interested too, what kinda of tones does it make?
audio samples?

[velva]

I have 2 of these SWTPC Psych-Tone Synthesizers. I put a lot of time into fixing them up and I'm not sure I've heard their full potential. They were complex DIY kits and fixing something something somebody started in the early 70's is very challenging to wrap your head around. The SWTPC Psych-Tone is a monophonic tone generator with a 6 step sequencer. For historical record it would be relative in sound and features like the Triadex Muse which makes it a museum piece with it's brass face plate and endless set of pattern combinations. The holy grail toy synthesizer like the SWTPC Psych-Tone generator would be the Mego Muson, which has far less combinations and features, but is easy to fix and clean. Like most synths, the SWTPC Psych-Tone Synthesizer controls tempo, pitch, sustain, attack, decay and employs a set of voice selectors staring you with a basic sawtooth waves allowing you to shape the sound starting at a low-fi 8-bit sound to abstract overdriven clipped waves and classic sounds found in early synths and combo-organs. (ie. brass, woodwind, strings, etc.) The tune knobs create different random patterns based on the combination of 3 knobs with 13 positions per knob. Depending on how long you play with it, you can get complex patterns with interesting artifacts and of course external effects (reverb, delay, chorus, flanger, phaser) bring this dinosaur to an outer space level. I would try to bend one, but it still feels kind of blasphemous. If anyone attending electro-music 2014 has any experience with fixing these, I could bring one out to mess around with.

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[PHOBoS]

I haven't seen the one in the cmos cookbook, but I converted the tune computer from the one in popular electronics to a logic CMOS equivalent.

Outputs could be mixed together for a CV to control a CD4046, with the pause output (Q7) used to turn it on/off (U2a could be discarded).

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