How To Expand Bastl Kastle & Volca Modular Using A Breadboard

[@glebpalamarchuk9087]

Also remember that LED is assymetrical semiconductor, so you can use it to prevent signal going "backwards" if you need that

[@evanmacbride7189]

Great video! Thanks for making this. I would love to see a similar video about adding active components.

[@ChrisLodyMusic]

Thank you. I'm keen to experiment with a few logic chips and that kind of thing. Plenty to explore

[@MarcoInfussi]

@@ChrisLodyMusic Chris, we are waiting for your video! :D

[@ChrisLodyMusic]

Don't worry it's on the list. I've had very little time to make videos in the last few months though, super busy

[@Vospi]

Lovely. As someone who played with a lot of modular in software, but knows nothing about electricity, I loved all of it. Thanks! Mixers are awesome. Also, would love the "active components" sequel.

[@ChrisLodyMusic]

Thank you. It's been a long time since I made this but yeah I should get round to that!

[@Vospi]

​@@ChrisLodyMusicToday going to buy my first breadboard because of you! Or thanks to you, rather. So please do! :)

[@jeffryarchambeau5441]

This will let me connect Volca Modular into environmental sensors for "green" music. Brilliant!

[@ChrisLodyMusic]

Oh that would be cool 😄

[@spaceshiptripp]

Would love further breakdown of this! The idea of this is so awesome!

[@ChrisLodyMusic]

Thank you. Yeah got plenty more to explore with this idea when I get the time!

[@aaronrosenthal5310]

1] followed your steps 2] I heard, acknowledge & agreed with your warning 3] "unfornately" I "destroyed" my setup! &..... 4] I do find you responsible - Most fun I've had in quite some time. THANKS CHRIS!

[@ChrisLodyMusic]

😬 I hope you didn't really destroy anything 😳

[@aaronrosenthal5310]

just my boredom

[@aaronrosenthal5310]

🤯🤠🥳 again I find you responsible! THANK YOU!

[@ChrisLodyMusic]

Oh that's good then, boredom hacked and bypassed 😁

[@quantum_ocean]

Boss! I was thinking same thing. Thanks for proof of concept!

[@i-like-z-alot]

This video is great and revolutionized how I see electronic instruments

[@philipcarroll7151]

Awesome upload here, Chris...i dont think ive seen anything like this on YT...a genuinely unique tutorial...🙏🔥

[@ChrisLodyMusic]

Thanks very much, hope you find it useful 😁

[@Getthenderson]

Very cool vid, please do the active one you are talking about. I want to see the possibilities!

[@ChrisLodyMusic]

Thank you. Yes I'm exploring what I can sensibility present in a video for that at the moment, simple but useful is the aim

[@johnsaucerhunter]

Chris, this was my first exposure to your content and watched it to the end. Have subscribed.

[@ChrisLodyMusic]

Thank you, I hope you find the tutorial useful. Thanks for the sub too 😁👌

[@dillipphunbar7924]

ty.....simple explanations; practical demonstrations....just what i needed

[@ChrisLodyMusic]

You're welcome 😁

[@dannyroessler]

Well explained to begin taming and expanding that little lovley beasts. Instead of a potentiometer or a pressur sensor I like to add and recommend try using a LDR(the less light it hits the more resistance it has) or(for modulating that change) a vactrol(a simple build with LDR, LED and a resistor) that's powered f.e. by the LFO function, pitch, the sample & hold or what ever is fluctuating on the vm.

[@ChrisLodyMusic]

Thanks. Yes that's something I'll maybe cover in a later video as it's a bit more advanced. The only problem with the vactrol idea is the minimum forward voltage Vs the low voltage of the VMods outputs. It might be possible to bias the connections but I'll have to check that doesn't cause problems elsewhere

[@dannyroessler]

@@ChrisLodyMusic great

[@wireheadinstruments]

thanks Chris, good intro to breadboarding the modular. I will definitely be experimenting with some of these 'weird creepy nerdy hacks' 👍

[@ChrisLodyMusic]

Thanks, have fun 😁

[@edwardfletcher7790]

Thank you for sharing this info, its great to get people interested in the tech behind the gear !

[@ChrisLodyMusic]

Thanks for watching. Yeah I went proper nerdy when the VMod was announced, knew I'd love it 😁

[@SleepingCocoon]

holy crow, how have i not done this! feel like a dunce. cheers for the tips, wonderful!

[@ChrisLodyMusic]

Thank you. I was like a moth to a flame when this was announced tbh, perfect device for me to experiment like this with 😁

[@goesbysteve]

Thank you so much, just what I was after

[@ChrisLodyMusic]

No problem, have fun 😁

[@dillipphunbar7924]

Thanks Chris. After several years of settling on only 3 volcas (fm,keys and drum), then going directly to building a modest eurorack system, I have now bought the volca modular. Why? Don't know but having fun using protoboard connection ideas like this.

[@ChrisLodyMusic]

Ha nice 😁I started my semi modular journey with the Volca Modular and have since bought some Eurorack compatible semi modular gear. I actually had a Eurorack case for a while but that turned out to be faulty unfortunately. I'm sure that will happen eventually though! 💰

[@Psychoakustik]

Great tutorial Chris. Thank you for sharing.

[@ChrisLodyMusic]

Thanks for watching 😁

[@tweakingtuesday1743]

Awesome! How did I miss this one before? Definitely doing some breadboard hacks soon, thanks!

[@ChrisLodyMusic]

You're welcome, have fun 😁

[@KWHCoaster]

Nice! Started doing some Arduino stuff in recent months and it never occurred to me that I could use the breadboard like a patch bay with the Kastle. Kind of sold me on the Volca Modular as well.

[@ChrisLodyMusic]

Thank you. Yes combining an Arduino with this kind of gear would be good fun. I'm not much of a coder so it's not something I've played with, but I have a Picaxe chip somewhere that can be programmed in Basic which is more my level 😄

[@smellymala3103]

Got my protoboard and a grip of ts jacks pots and switches, let’s goooo, wonder what a pro micro is gonna do for this little cutie 🤔

[@ChrisLodyMusic]

Nice one, have fun 😁

[@gru_day]

I have bought V Modular to try these breadbord mods. Will work for M Werkstatt also. I have some wories with mixing signals with these tho... different voltage probably.

[@ChrisLodyMusic]

It would be best to check what voltages are used on both devices but the VMod does things in practice that are well outside what the manual states. Check here to see what I mean syntherjack.net/the-real-volca-modular-specs/

[@gru_day]

Have found this one, it appears that V Mod have 3,5v, Werkstatt have 5v. With a resistor it shuld be safe to feed Volca with Werkstatt signal. Not so sure other way around. Maybe it is possible to bust Volca signal to 5v standard. Well... thx for grat video! I am inspired as hell with further pissibilities of ARDUINO programing🧐 For now, idk anything🤔

[@it194j]

The next step would seem to be passing control voltages and audio signals between the modules... Is this doable or are the differences in, for instance, peak voltage too great?

[@ChrisLodyMusic]

Yes that's the reason I bought the Kastle actually for a tiny mini modular, Kastle Drum is in order too. There is an argument that the voltage difference could be an issue but I've had no problems. I found a great article called The Real Volca Modular Spec on a blog somewhere, the VMod is stated as outputting 3.3v max but it's actually much more and can peak at 9v so there's much more range tolerance than is written in the official spec

[@keepitshortnsweet]

This! That's actually what I was hoping the video was about.

[@synaesmedia]

This is a great video that I've come back to several times. I'm now thinking about trying to make a resistive touch control for the Kastle. So the idea would be to make a PCB with some touch pads, and just female headers that could be connected up to the various outputs and inputs from the kastle. The question in my mind is whether these can be direct - ie. the +5 output of the kastle can go through a touchable area and directly back into an input - or whether I have to make some kind of voltage dividers, each with a touch pad and resistor connected in series between 5v and ground, and then tap off the voltage in the middle to send to the kastle inputs. The first would be simpler, but maybe the touchpads would be nothing more than on-off switches in that context, while the second would give more control but require soldering resistors etc. Any intuitions about that?

[@ChrisLodyMusic]

Thank you. So if you're going to set this up in the way I imagine which is to create a string of separate resistors in series with various places that you can make a connection to access different resistances, then this would be best set up like a voltage divider. But I really think it's just worth experimenting. In theory adding a resistor in place of a patch cable for example would do nothing as the inputs expect to see a change in voltage, but a resistor connected like this will change the current instead. But you can get some unexpected results sometimes which can't always be explained without knowing what's going on inside the device, certainly not with my DIY level of knowledge anyway 😄 Here's a good example: kzbin.info/www/bejne/gaGwqIqEn62GqaMsi

[@synaesmedia]

@@ChrisLodyMusic Thanks. Yes. I guess I should just experiment on breadboard first before trying to make the PCB. That trick to getting a clean sound by putting extra resistors in series is ... surprising. But a good find.

[@benny1884]

i love your clubs...

[@skipper6528]

so cool man. what other instruments would go with this? I've got the bastl b drum and volca modular

[@ChrisLodyMusic]

Thank you. Well the ae modular system has the same small pin like connection and they also make a module that will make the voltages compatible between them both. The starter system is quite a beast for the money. That and both Bastl Kastles are the only gear I know that has the same pins as the Volca Modular

[@gj2u]

Chris, thanks for sharing! Have you tried building adsr for low-pass gate controlled by trigger?

[@ChrisLodyMusic]

Thanks for watching. I've not built an ADSR but I can built simpler envelope shapes like an ASR using a logic chip and a few other components, I might to talk about that if it's not too complex for a video

[@afraidhishorses]

Reaaaaally aprechiate this, very useful good information, than you for sharing!!!

[@ChrisLodyMusic]

You're welcome, thanks for watching

[@HenningSprang]

cool stuff! so we can all have modular systems without spending millions of bucks for gear and then the huge space the eurorack things need!!! I like you volca modular tutorials a lot, they help getting actual nice sounds out of it ;) Why dont you have a playlist with these collected? (yes I know I can just use KZbin's search, but the playlist might also get you a lot of views as I can just start it and let it play through... ;)

[@ChrisLodyMusic]

Thank you. I do have a playlist of all my synth tutorials but I've not bothered to bundle together the Volca Modular yet. I don't have a huge amount of spare time with all the work I do to be honest

[@HenningSprang]

@@ChrisLodyMusic no problem, i might make one myself just thought it might be useful for you too ;)

[@DroneDrummer]

Is there another way to do the ground? I use mine with a cv keyboard and would like to sill be able to play it when patching like this. Also do you need to ground bastle and volca together to patch in between them? Like maybe cv keyboard to cv in jack then the breadboard connection from cv in on modular to the breadboard for the ground? That way it would still get the gate and pitch info from the keyboard but could use the extra attenuator you made on the breadboard? Or just sync in as a negative if it's just acting as 0 and not actually a ground?

[@ChrisLodyMusic]

Yes there's lots of ways to do it. All the sockets will provide ground so you can always find a way. Actually the simplest way is just to connect audio out on both the Volca and Kastle to the same audio mixer or interface. I didn't show that method as it uses more gear but it works fine. Also I think the hex screws on each corner are connected to ground so you could unscrew one and loop a wire round it if you want to free up all your sockets

[@DroneDrummer]

Awesome thank you for the info! I bought all this stuff today. Can't wait to make a few more attenuators!

[@DroneDrummer]

@ChrisLodyMusic OK, last thing, I promise, lol. Have you figured out a way to just control a knob the way you can with the attenuation knob when you only have one jumper going from slot A on atenuator to a knob like the fold knob. I'm trying to see if it's possible to control 2 or 3 knobs movements from one knob.

[@DroneDrummer]

I actually figured out a way of doing this. You use the attack release function. Connect negative and positive of AR function to the left and right of the breadboard attenuation knob and then the middle to the knob you want to control when you press a key the attack if sent to the fastest (all the way to the left) the knob will go up or down based on your attenuation knob. Not as functional as slot A on the modular but does the trick. And you don't really lose the + and - from the Attack Release since you can split it on the breadboard and reuse it anywhere. As long as your attack is fast.

[@KeurslagerKurt]

I like how you keep it nice & simple, seems like a really good starting point to get people into experimenting on a breadboard! Another synth/system that I really like because of this is AE Modular, which uses the same size of breadboard/dupont cables. I def recommend checking them out as it's a very fun & affordable modular format. Love to build stuff on the breadboard and plug it in directly in this kind of synths. Makes for great fun experimenting & prototyping. Thanks for the video!

[@ChrisLodyMusic]

Thank you. Yes I only found out about AE modular systems just recently and it looks right up my street to be honest

[@KeurslagerKurt]

@@ChrisLodyMusic I had my AE Modular for a good half year now, and have been enjoying it a lot! The community is also great, it's small but very much alive on its own forum & a Discord channel. But above all its just a great instrument that sounds really good and has some quite unique features & flavors (just like the fantastic Volca Modular!)

[@patrickbodine1300]

Fun stuff!😀👍

[@ChrisLodyMusic]

Thanks 😁

[@DonatasNoreika]

Amazing!

[@ChrisLodyMusic]

Thanks 😁

[@sammywarren]

My volca modular just stopped making sound . The lights and everything work but Korg won’t help me because I bought it in Italy and I live in San Diego 🤦🏻‍♂️

[@ChrisLodyMusic]

Ah damn that sucks. I'd recommend finding someone local to you that knows electronics if you're not confident to try fixing it yourself. It may be something simple like a bad connection

[@benny576]

very cool.... I've also been infested with this MINI DIY SYNTHESIZER VIRUS since last year...greetz from Germany

[@ChrisLodyMusic]

Thank you 😁 Yes I knew the Modular would be fun for this kind of thing when it was first announced, I love it 😎👌

[@benny576]

@@ChrisLodyMusic I love it too

[@ErichNolanBertussi]

This is sweet.

[@ChrisLodyMusic]

Thanks man, glad you like it 😁

[@quantum_ocean]

Boss!

[@fly2334]

非常精彩 但是制作是很麻烦的