The
DS7 Drum Synce (DC860) is a little analog
percussion synthesizer from the 80's made by CORON. This
drumsynth was dedicaced to drummers : the DS7 was fixed
on the border of a drum to be played/triggered by hitting
the drum.
The DS7 contain
a VCO +VCA chain. The VCO is modulated by a cheesy LFO and
a simple decay envelope trigged by the piezzo cell pulse.
The cell work as a pressure/hit sensor. It can be replaced
by a jack to be used with any kind of trigg pulses or even
gates. In this case the "decay" pot become a "Release"
pot ... The VCA is directly controled by the envelope. The
LFO can drive the VCO from slow modulation to hi-speed to
produce FM like sounds.
It is very simple
to build, common parts only basic analog stuff inside !
The
DS7 clone is builded with 2 quad opamp, 1 OTA ,1 transistor
and 6 pots and only classic passive parts. The original 2SC???
VCO transistor was replaced by a BC550, many other NPNs will
work here. The
Trigger input (J2) was originaly connected to a piezzo cell,
but i prefear a jack 6.35 here even it is still a good idea
to plug a cell for tests.. Any gate signal (0.5V to +5V) will
work depending position of the sensitivity knob. This pot
can be replaced by a preset to drive the DS7 with calibrated
output trigg levels. The footswitch pedal ( manual ON/OFF
control of the VCA.) has been removed . The 7805 regulator
is now in TO220 package : more reliable than little ones...
The DS7 is powered
by a 9Vto 15V PSU single power supply or a 9V battery
Potentiometers
value and what they do...
VCO
47k Log
VCO initial
pitch
MODE
47k Log
LFO modulation
depth
SWEEP
47k Log
EG modulation
depth
SPEED
1M to
2M2
LFO frequency
DECAY
470k to
2M2
EG decay
time
LEVEL
47k Log
Output
volume
DS7
Clone prototype picture
DS7
Sounds
The DS7 clone is directly connected to a 24/96 sound card,
sampled at 44.1. No FX, EQ, super tube preamp, mega plugins
or such artifacts...Just digital normalize. It is trigged
with a Piezzo cell i hit with my fingers, a bit like with
the original Coron DS7. Some sounds are very short ,
open them with a sound editor ...
Here
is the "new generation" of DS7 & DS8 Drum synthesizers
All are made
by DIYer's. If you have builded a
DS7/8 clone and you would like to
see it here,
just send me pictures of your realisation.
Here is the DS8 demo videoclip made by Djthomaswhite (UK) .
Thanks to all the contributors !
Last entries are at the page's end -Clic
on pictures to enlarge.
The red
DS7 by Chazam (France)
A great
and compact 5x DS7 analog drumsynth with mix output
. Made by
Heitor
(Portugal)
Blue
and Red customised DS8 housed into plastic colour boxes with
faders, multiples switches and tactile sensors ... :)
Builded buy Paul Taylor ( New Zealand )
DS7 module
3U rack19"; with an epoxy multicolor front panel
made by Retrosonik
(USA)
Check synthi 2 page. but take time to visit Jame's
incredible site too :)
A superb
and sexy Dual DS7 pedal/pad designed by Retrosonik
(USA).
DS7 included
into a little snare drum . The DS7 is triggered by a piezzo cell..Nice vintage knobs all around ...
Builded by Electric Lullaby (France)
MathFlan's
DS7 clone ( France) . in a large low profile box with
Moog like style knobs :)
Very small but nice design !This DS7 clone come from the North : Builded by Sakari Jantti (Norway ).
Dan's
indestructible Dual DS8 in a strong yellow metal box
with push buttons fire manualy each section.
Made by Freaksomnia from the Netherlands: a nice
DS8 with many addons:
"it
has extra led for trigger activity, extra pot for
noise volume and at the front there is an extra
9 V DC output so i can connect my DS8 and my tr626
to the same powersupply"
The
case is very strong (12/10 steel) and come from
an old pwr supply for antenna amplifier.
The top is plexiglass over a thin colored sheet.
The CV in have the attenuator trimmer and we are
building a ribbon controller to drive both the CV
input and the trigger in
Another
very nice DS7 from The Netherlands made by Frank
De Groodt
Housed
into an nice and desig aluminium
box with a blue led and the CV input.
DS8into an Hammond alu box with tiny
Moog style knobs comes from Belgium provided by David
Herard.
The
DS7 Drum Synce (DC860) is a little analog
percussion synthesizer from the 80's made by CORON. This
drumsynth was dedicaced to drummers : the DS7 was fixed
on the border of a drum to be played/triggered by hitting
the drum.
