I recently finished a sequencer based on a 555 and a 4017 decade counter. The sequencer signal gates a 4093 drone synth. Schematics can easily be found on the net, especially for the sequencer part (do a search for “baby 8 sequencer”). The basics for the 4093 drone synth are explained in Nicolas Collins’ excellent book “Handmade Electronic Music” (see chapter 20). Try different capacitor values until you find something you like. I randomly plugged in some capacitors into the breadboard (making it a little bit different from the classic drone synth set-up) until I got something that – to me – sounded more or less like a lo-fi 303.

I underestimated the amount of work that goes into building a sequencer – on paper it looked less complex than it turned out. It took me almost a week to finish this project, but I learned a lot from my mistakes. Laying out the components and soldering them on the protoboard was the easiest part, the difficult part was arranging and sorting out all the cables that run to the knobs. My first attempt failed, so I had to change my working method. Below you’ll find a clip of me trying out the finished sequencer, two soundsamples that I almost randomly picked from the recording session, and a photogallery.

Next on my list (after a well deserved break from soldering) are: a cracklebox, various effect boxes like a distortion and delay pedal, a sampler/pichtbender and ultimately a rhythmbox.