I love emails and an update of the 800DV synth reconstruction

I’ve been working on this project for a year and finally have a platform to host a website for it:

https://800dv.paperboat.website/

Follow via RSS or paperboat for all my 800DV posts.

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Synths were much simpler in the 70s. No chips, only simple resistors, capacitors and transistors. To the point where it’s actually possible to draw and print the circuit boards, populate them with components and hopefully have a working synthesizer.

That’s what I’m doing right now. An invaluable resource have been photos of the back sides of the boards and lots of deep knowledge of the modwiggler community.

I documented my progress on YouTube and have been posting all my stupid questions on the forums. Sharing my progress really was the best idea.

I’ve received emails about projects and videos before and last week I got another email from an owner of two KORG 800DV synthesizers.
He has been restoring these instruments and there are some issues he hasn’t been able to work out. We’re now sending messages back and forth about troubleshooting and he also kindly sent me detailed scans of the boards. I’ll actually be able to accurately trace the original boards without having to guess the intended layout. Lightyears ahead of the low resolution photos I’ve been using.

I hope we can get his synth up and running again. Forums and email is all you need for the deepest rabbit holes and passion projects. I’m really happy that stuff like this still happens on the internet.