Banana Frac: The Definitive Guide

Atticus · Post by **Atticus** » Wed Feb 24, 2010 9:15 am

Phineous wrote:

bump for a great thred

l8r

P

Yes! Great pics in here.

Has anyone any thoughts on bananafying (?) the MOTM modules, is it possible? I've never seen the backs of any but I suppose it'd be difficult.

BananaPlug · Post by **BananaPlug** » Wed Feb 24, 2010 9:25 am

Has anyone any thoughts on bananafying (?) the MOTM modules, is it possible?

Anything's possible I suppose. If you search for it you can find my post about a bananafied MOTM 440 low pass in frac format. It was a very tight squeeze but possible.

adamf · Post by **adamf** » Sat Feb 27, 2010 6:46 pm

Atticus wrote:
Phineous wrote:

bump for a great thred

l8r

P
Yes! Great pics in here.

Has anyone any thoughts on bananafying (?) the MOTM modules, is it possible? I've never seen the backs of any but I suppose it'd be difficult.

Just checked my ADSR. The jacks are mounted on a separate PCB which has a ribbon cable running back to the main PCB. Shouldn't be too hard to either modify the ribbon cable for direct connection to bannanas or possibley desolder the jacks from the PCB and add wire links from the old jack PCB to the new bananas. If I ever do it, I'll repost with the result.

Atticus · Post by **Atticus** » Sun Feb 28, 2010 3:18 pm

adamf wrote:
Atticus wrote:
Phineous wrote:

bump for a great thred

l8r

P
Yes! Great pics in here.

Has anyone any thoughts on bananafying (?) the MOTM modules, is it possible? I've never seen the backs of any but I suppose it'd be difficult.
Just checked my ADSR. The jacks are mounted on a separate PCB which has a ribbon cable running back to the main PCB. Shouldn't be too hard to either modify the ribbon cable for direct connection to bannanas or possibley desolder the jacks from the PCB and add wire links from the old jack PCB to the new bananas. If I ever do it, I'll repost with the result.

Sounds promising. Thanks. Please do post pics if you go for it.

Ekofisk · Post by **Ekofisk** » Sat Mar 06, 2010 5:14 am

Look what I just did!

Have yet to finish the BZ, but I think I'll do the switch-thing that others have done.
It really is amazingly ease to do this. (Haven't tried them yet, but my multimeter indicates connection on all counts, I am assuming they work)

Not in the picture: VCO and MiniWave. Getting done today.

parasitk · Post by **parasitk** » Sat Mar 06, 2010 10:22 am

Nice! Definitely add a switch with center-off for the Binary Zone's clock input. And do the pullup resistor trick on the RST input (it's explained somewhere around here...)

Ekofisk · Post by **Ekofisk** » Sat Mar 06, 2010 9:30 pm

Apart from the I/O, this is last night and tonight. Not too shabby!

And this is the new DAD, built from kit. Actually, it turned into something of a hatchet job, but all fun.
I had to cut one of the banana bushings in half, so the daughterboard is actually not at a right angle to the other board. This made it impossible to use both mounting brackets. Ahh. We'll see how well it all works tomorrow!

DGTom · Post by **DGTom** » Sat Mar 06, 2010 9:51 pm

"one of us one of us"

good work man!

sometimes you need to do wierd things to get it to work, in the case of the DAD I would've substituted the switches for some panel mount toggles & put some spacers in to hold the daughter board away from the panel, may or may not work.

One thing with board mounted parts like that slide switch, if you need to mount them in funny places you can use stripboard & right angle headers etc. to get them off the PCB.

The SPDT C/O on the BZ is well worth it, in fact I'd say even minijackers should do it! Being able to switch the BZ off is great, especially as it kills the Clock Outs so everything down stream can be switched off. Great fun for jamming

Ekofisk · Post by **Ekofisk** » Sun Mar 07, 2010 6:43 am

Yes, good call on those switches on the DAD. I think I'll give that a try.

And the BZ, of course.

Ekofisk · Post by **Ekofisk** » Sun Mar 07, 2010 5:09 pm

And it all fucking works!

I discovered a wrongly polarized diode on the I/O just before switching it on. Works like a charm!

Since I do all this DIY stuff at home, and have no real access to the rest of my studio, my patching with these modules is a little limited, but nonetheless, everyone should do this. I don't really have a problem with minijacks, but bananas are WAY cooler.

Ekofisk · Post by **Ekofisk** » Mon Mar 08, 2010 1:36 pm

Sorry to be hijacking the thread, but as it's all banana relevant, I hope it's ok.

I just got a couple of SPDT/CO switches for my BZ.
For some reason, I just can't seem to "get" how to wire it up.

Sorry, as I know the BZ has been discussed to death in this very thread, but the actual wiring still escapes me.

The switch has three lugs. Which go where?

DGTom · Post by **DGTom** » Mon Mar 08, 2010 8:14 pm

In the case of the BZ its going to use a SPDT as a "2 in, 1 out"

You have 3 wires to connect to it. 1 from the banana & 2 from pads on the board. The clock input pad is connected to the middle lug of the switch & the other 2 go on either side, hope that makes sense

Ekofisk · Post by **Ekofisk** » Tue Mar 09, 2010 3:51 pm

My new DIY self esteem boost kicked in today, and I tackled the 3P.

Stripping away the daughterboard and wiring up those inputs!

New members to the team, KW and MP, meeting up with the newly finished BZ.
(note the remains of the minijack 3p laying at their feet!)

Ekofisk · Post by **Ekofisk** » Sat Mar 13, 2010 3:27 pm

Probably not that exciting to anyone, as these are available in banana anyway, but this what I did last night (minus the DAD).

Hope I'll be able to replace those military greens with something a bit more... bug-friendly, soon.

BugBrand · Post by **BugBrand** » Sun Mar 14, 2010 8:41 am

You machine!

Wunderbar!
(good to see the bugmodules taken back to their proper ways!)

DGTom · Post by **DGTom** » Sun Mar 14, 2010 10:37 am

What an odd journey those have taken!

Love the pile of discarded Blacet minijacks in the corner of the pic!

alesauskas · Post by **alesauskas** » Sun Jun 10, 2012 10:29 am

This thread is great info for a newbie, thanks for the sticky!

otoskope · Post by **otoskope** » Fri Aug 03, 2012 7:11 am

Just to wake up this thread a little...I've been successfully bananafying (bananifying?) the following modules the last few days (all frac):

Bananalogue VCS
Encore Freq Shifter
2xPlague Bearer
Blacet VCO
Blacet Freq Divider (old version)
Oakley RM-4014 Ringmod
Metalbox/CGS Dual Real Ring Mod (in rack ear)
Metalbox/CGS ASR (in rack ear)

If someone's interested, I could post pictures and some comments regarding encountered peculiarities (but don't have the time today).

/Palle

zerosum · Post by **zerosum** » Fri Aug 03, 2012 3:50 pm

I've been successfully bananafying (bananifying?)

If someone's interested, I could post pictures and some comments regarding encountered peculiarities (but don't have the time today).

Definitely post them

I'm too unmotivated to do any of these mods myself at the moment,
but I still want to see someone else do it so I can pretend like I will
motivate myself enough to do it someday.

reignbear · Post by **reignbear** » Thu Aug 16, 2012 11:50 pm

anyone had any experience with banana-fying the frac frequesnsteiner? i don't have one, but might have a chance to pick one up to play with the

BananaPlug · Post by **BananaPlug** » Mon Oct 01, 2012 11:28 am

I've had one of these for a while. I gather it was not a wildly popular module but I like it.

It just needed some compression!

Now what do you think?

Cat-A-Tonic · Post by **Cat-A-Tonic** » Mon Oct 01, 2012 11:46 am

^ You read my mind in regards to panel-width.

Nice solution for the effect type legending.

Does it really sound that nice?
I was kind of turned off by the digital multi-effects concept,
but I understand putting them in earlier parts of a patch
might be the context that can make this cool.

BananaPlug · Post by **BananaPlug** » Mon Oct 01, 2012 12:16 pm

There are cheesier digital effects out there. It does have some of the hallmarks of a dinky little digi unit but it's useful. The fact that it has a clip LED and level controls for in and out makes the limited headroom very easy to live with. The 2 echo modes and the reverb are what I use the most. I have this and a spring reverb in my portable and they complement each other well. The 3030's reverb has a very neutral color to it and a touch of graininess. Real different from the spring. With each reverb on a different patch there's nice separation and sometimes I use them together on the same patch. The max echo delay time seems a tad longer than the 1 sec it's supposed to be. Modulating that rate produces little ticks but the other CVs work pretty cleanly. For live hands-on playing I like that I can adjust an effect, reverb and level all in one place.

synthcube · Post by **synthcube** » Sat Oct 27, 2012 10:07 am

anyone know the precise diameters for panel holes for the standard 3.5mm jacks vs the bananas? I know the 3.5mm holes can be reamed out pretty easy, but curious about what the actual delta is

Ted2 · Post by **Ted2** » Sun Mar 17, 2013 11:09 am

Contemplating removing all of my Blacet panels and replacing them with some home-made ones, with banana jacks. A little bit terrified to do so though, I am very inexperienced with DIY.

MUFF WIGGLER

MUFF WIGGLER

Banana Frac: The Definitive Guide

Blacet 3030 FX in 1fu