Visible atari punk console … in progress

From the MAKE: Flickr pool

The Botomless Paddling Pool constructed this excellent freeform APC circuit –

I’m taking a paper in the first semester coming up on making your own synth from scratch and I thought that I’d better polish up on my electrical knowledge as it’s been a while since I’ve done anything that needed any real effort. As I’ve never made an audio circuit before I thought I should start simple and progress to the harder stuff. So I decided to start on the popular and simple Atari Punk Console (APC). Anyway, I made it and I was getting sounds from it, but nothing like what I should have been getting. The sounds I was getting sucked, mainly just static mooshed up with high pitched whines. It was bad for the ears, especially as I had the volume up and my headphones on! I eventually found out what was haywire, the chip I was running it off was wrong, as in one letter different in the code from the proper chip. Not a big problem, frustrating at most. I’ll make the APC soon and put it in a nice case. I have the neck of a violin that it’ll look cool in. The body I’m saving for a bigger project, perhaps a Weird Sound Generator.

I hope he doesn’t abandon this design – it would look way awesome cast in resin! – Atari Punk Console… gone wrong