Wednesday 17 October 2012

Rob Hordijk Benjolin

Over a year after my first encounter with Rob Hordijk's wonderful instruments, I've finally built my own Benjolin.



It's a joy to play and sounds great:






This was my most involved DIY project. Sourcing the parts took time and there is a fair bit of soldering. I got the Cool Audio SSM2164 clone from Magic Smoke Electronics. I'm indebted to Chrisi from Koma Elektronik for etching and drilling the PCB. Inspired by Leaf Audio's practical solution, the enclosure is a €2 snack box - a perfect fit.



I kept my Benjolin simple: there's just an on-off switch and one, filtered, output. With Tom Whitwell's Turing Machine and my own Bitsy, I have enough shift-register-based sequencers. The Benjolin is unique as it chases its own tail and falls into patterns which can be manually nudged. It's a patch in itself; a fun, hands-on instrument.

Benjolin documents and info can be found here and here. Casper Electronics suggests some mods and will offer a kit.

Thank you Rob for giving us the best little noise box around!

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