DIY Fake Modular Synth From Monotron Duo and Monotron Delay

I’m slowly working on a pile of unfinished projects from last year. I had played a little with some of the patch points on the Korg  Monotron Duo and Monotron Delay pocket synthesizers. I had already soldered wires onto the pitch/Vrib connections and ground points. I should have left them on and spliced but… I picked up this case at the Habitat “Restore” for a couple of bucks. Some layout work. I would need to assemble the Monotrons after the bottom shell was screwed to the case so I drilled holes through the battery compartment for screwdriver access. Lots of wires were cut. If I could do one thing differently I would have used lighter gage wire. I used 22 and I think 24 orlighter would have been easier to deal with. Solder, solder, solder. The Vrib connection on the Monotron Duo did not survive desoldering the old wire, so I had to snake a tiny wire (ethernet cable wire, which is what I should have used for everything) around and solder it to the ribbon ZIF socket. Holes drilled. Snaking wires. The bottom half of the monotrons are attached to the case with #4 flat head socket cap screws.Held with nuts. Easy? It takes a lot of care to get the wires massaged into place so the cases can close. It’s important to label the wires. #$@%!!!! Oh well. If I end up taking it apart I’ll put the battery covers back on. Now to solder all the jacks and ground wires. This took a long time and was very boring. I soldered wires to the battery terminals on both and terminated with crimp connections so I could attach AA battery packs or in the future wire it for a 3V wall wart. All the grounds connected. I used hook crimps and I wish I’d used eye crimps. So now I have the two Monotrons mounted and can patch them at will.

As you can hear, it’s sort of annoying but shows promise.