Erica Synths Educational Synth DIY Kits

US mki x es .EDU sets out to teach people how to design analog synth circuits from scratch 04/01/22

Erica Synths and Moritz Klein have announced a co-development of a series of educational DIY kits under the brand name mki x es .EDU with one specific goal in mind: to teach people with little to no prior experience how to design analog synthesizer circuits from scratch.

In total, 9 kits have been developed so users can create a fully featured modular mono-synth including a sequencer, a VCO, a wavefolder, a noise/S&H module, a mixer, a VCF, an Envelope generator, a dual VCA and an output stereo mixer with a headphone amplifier. Additionally, an affordable Eurorack case with a DIY PSU will also be available. Erica Synths says that, while these kits are easy to build, no compromise was made on design and functionality.

There will be one new kit launched every 4-6 weeks, and each kit comes with an extensive user manual (40+ pages) that will dive deep into both the electronics behind each circuit as well as the fundamental principles of sound synthesis. Rather than more typical DIY kits that are simply meant to be soldered together and place in a rack, the new educational kits from mki x es .EDU are meant to take users through the entire circuit design process step by step, so every choice is made clear on how it impacts the finished module.

The developers hope that the new mki x es .EDU project will inspire future engineers and will contribute to the ever growing diversity of electronic music

The mki x es .EDU VCO is the first educational DIY kit in this series. It is an analog sawtooth-core oscillator with reasonably accurate volt/octave tracking, made from just a handful of basic components. It features sawtooth and pulse outputs as well as 1V/oct, FM and PWM inputs.