Dutch Modular Fest

The DIY Professor is back at DMF’24!

Finding vactrols is getting more difficult in Europe: time to roll your own! But… sometimes people tell me that their DIY LPG sounds too dark or too slow. When I ask how they built it, the most common answer is: “I made 2 DIY vactrols and put them in the circuit”. Bad! Every vactrol is different, just putting random vactrols in your circuit is NOT the way.

Commercial vactrols are not expensive because they are better but because they have been tested and sorted. If you have a good way to test and sort your DIY rolled vactrols, your LPGs can outperform commercial modules!

This vactrol workshop consists of 3 parts:
1. Theory about
– basics of vactrols
– how to use vactrols
– how to drive vactrols

2. DIY Vactrol Station with
– ZIF socket so that all vactrols fit
– test tone generator
– adjustable gate so you can listen to the attack and decay
– easy way to measure the resistance with different current levels
– minijacks so that you can choose to use the vactrol station as a stand-alone tool or to control it with your own eurorack signals
– schematics and explanation how the Vactrol Station works

3. roll your own starter collection of 10 vactrols
– roll your vactrols
– test your vactrols with your Vactrol Station to test and sort them

Aside from soldering stuff, don’t forget long nose pliers and a multimeter
Rolling your own vactrols is very cheap, and having a method to select the best vactrol for every application is very rewarding.
If you are into DIY, this workshop can save you a lot of money in the future and make you smile.

Exited?

Masterclass Vactrols – DMF DIY Area. No extra materials needed to do this workshop, all is included into the ticket price of the ticket below (not including general DMF Festival Ticket) bring your own soldering iron if you prefer to, workshop is beginner friendly and will be held in English!

You can find the DIY Ticket (€30) for the Masterclass Vactrols by Jan de Block in the DMF Stager

action shot of Jan de Block and his famous flipboard 🙂 at DMF 2022- Image by Paulus van Dorsten

action shot of Jan de Block and his famous flipboard 🙂 at DMF 2023 – Image by Paulus van Dorsten