You Can DIY! Building a Guitar-Controlled Synthesizer: VCA & VCF

Ethan Winer offers his fifth Guitar-Controlled Synthesizer article where he describes how to make two key modules needed by every analog synthesizer: the Voltage Controlled Amplifier (VCA) and Voltage Controlled Filter (VFC). This article explains two different VCA circuits, with a simpler one that works fine for one-off projects where precise unit-to-unit repeatability isn’t needed, and a second circuit similar to the VCA in the original Moog synthesizers. This article was originally published in audioXpress, August 2022.

Universal Audio announced the release of its new UAD Software v9.1, now with Apollo multi-unit support over Thunderbolt for Windows 10 systems, Console 2 software support to users of multiple Apollo FireWire interfaces and fully qualified macOS Sierra for all Apollo and UAD-2 platforms. The professional audio recording hardware and software manufacturer also announced bountiful new plug-ins from SSL, Moog, Softube, and Brainworx.

The Bob Moog Foundation released 15 new schematics from its vast archives of hardware, conceptual drawings, photographs, vintage catalogs, design schematics and more. The release is the second of its kind, following 20 schematics shared on the Foundation’s eighth anniversary, August 21, 2014.

Held January 22-25, NAMM 2015 welcomed a record number of exhibitors to Anaheim. Major product debuts, a bumper crop of new-to-NAMM exhibitors paired with engaging thought-leaders created what many NAMM members called the freshest NAMM Show in years. A record 99,342 NAMM Show registrants and a record 1,621 exhibiting companies made it the largest NAMM Show in history.

Moog Music announced plans to re-commence the limited run manufacturing of three of their most sought after 5U large format modular synthesizers: The System 55, the System 35 and the Model 15, originally created and manufactured by Moog in 1973. Working from the 1970s schematics, the new instruments will be meticulously handcrafted at the Moog factory in downtown Asheville, N.C., as a true recreation of the originals.

Moog announced a worldwide release of the compact semi-modular Werkstatt analogue synthesizer kit, produced originally for workshops at the Moogfest 2014 festival. Previously only released in the US, Werkstatt is affordable, requires no soldering to build, and is a fat sounding Moog analogue synth.

Moog Music has begun shipping the Theremini; a re-imagining of one of the oldest electronic musical instruments, and Bob Moog’s first love – the Theremin. It is the only known instrument that you play without touching. Moving your hands in the space around its antennas controls pitch and volume.