A quick look at an x0xb0x being built by my work colleague SuperNick (Nick). It is a DIY analogue synthesiser based on the Roland TB-303, and this is an Adafruit-era build. Since this video was made, SuperNick (Nick) has tested parts of the board using an audio-card oscilloscope and confirmed sawtooth and square-wave output. That does not mean the whole synthesiser was finished and working.

SuperNick (Nick) had gone home for the day, so naturally I decided it would be a wonderful opportunity to have a look at his project and record a video about it. What a thoughtful work colleague I am! I hadn’t actually done any of the assembly myself, so all the credit for the soldering goes to him.

Before this I’d hardly heard of a x0xb0x. The name sounds like somebody tried to spell Xbox and became terribly confused along the way. It turns out to be one of those wonderful little machines that makes bleepy, bloopy electronic noises. Or at least it should, once somebody finishes putting all the bits together.

The main circuit board is packed with resistors, capacitors, IC sockets and all sorts of interesting things. It’s a rather complicated-looking arrangement, and there’s even a knob sticking out of one side that had me wondering whether somebody had assembled something upside down. Apparently I should probably learn a little more about synthesisers.

There’s a separate power supply board too, with a familiar-looking 7805 voltage regulator. Now that’s something I recognise from all the old Sega and Nintendo hardware I’ve been poking around in. A few components were still missing from the build, and progress had been held up while waiting for additional parts.

I must admit that I usually prefer repairing old electronics to assembling something new from a pile of components. There’s something rather satisfying about bringing a faulty machine back to life. Still, looking at all those freshly soldered components makes me wonder whether I should try building a project like this myself one day.

If we are lucky he’ll make me up some tunes to go with some of these videos. I sometimes think I am going crazy due to the same six songs, over and over and over and over. Stay tuned! 😄

For now, this is very much a work in progress rather than a finished synthesiser demonstration. The later testing of parts of the circuit was encouraging, but there was still plenty to do before the whole thing could make music. I reckon SuperNick (Nick) is doing a pretty good job of it so far.

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