A truly horrible sounding device came out into the world over the weekend. It is based in the gating properties of the 4066 Quad Switch and the amplification power of the LM324 Quad op-amp. Originally inspired by a section in the Practical Oscillator Circuits book, which describes creating an oscillator from 4066 switches. It worked to some extent however the frequency range was nothing impressive in my experience. I then decided to use 4066 for gating signals and also relying on the fact that the control for the switches is very sensitive to the electro-magnetic fields of the body and other objects, making a sort of proximity controlled Theremin. The switches get “confused” and start triggering when something is near the antennas attached to the pins. The signal consisting of a negative and a positive is split and routed to separate switches on the IC. This particular device can be used with a stereo signal or 2 separate signals. The gated output of the 4066 IC was then fed to a switch based patch and distributed to the various configurations of the Op-Amps. There is a summing/mixing, difference, integral, and a Triangle shaper configuration. The output from the Op-Amps is routed to another switch bank to be mixed and sound flows to the output set of RCA jacks. The device runs on 2 sets of 9 Volt batteries that take up most of the space. A point job will most likely be in order for this terrible creation. All of the connections are point to point instead of perf board. I don’t mind the method be cause A.) It is fast, and B.) It allows me to arrange the components in 3D. The rough sketch of the schematic is pencil drawing from memory, which will get revised as time goes on. I don’t recommend following it right as it is, but the main idea is there. The sound samples are very harsh and may only be admired by Noisecore fans, so please watch your levels.
Sample 1 with Classical Music processed
Sample 2 with Classical Music processed
Sample 3 no input signal present
Sample 4 with 555 based oscillators processed
Sample 5 with 555 based oscillators processed
Sample 6 with 555 based oscillators processed
Sample 7 with a Rock song processed