Not really because of lockdown (kind of the opposite considering my hospital IT day job), but more for my sanity!
I am creating a massive multi-channel synthesizer using only parts (digital logic ICs) available in 1979.
It will be as powerful as the 1979 Fairlight CMI, the system that spawned my interest in digital music...
en.wikipedia.org
To control this massive project that will probably contain 300-500 ICs, I am choosing to use my 1978 Commodore PET computer, which still boots up and runs great. This was the first computer that got me hooked, so it seems like a perfect merger!
I actually own several PETs in my collection...
I intend to weld up a cabinet for the Synth and make it look like the PET steel cabinet. Being stereo, the synth will have 2 stand up cabinets on each side of the PET, probably having 16 channels per side.
Much of the sound generation will be digital, but I also intend to add a lot of analog components as well, Buchla style low pass, spring reverb, distortion, etc. Music will br tracked out on a 6502 assembly program I am writing to run on the PET.
Most likely, this project will take me a few years, but the end result will be a computerized digital instrument that can keep up to modern synth tech but "could have" existed in 1979 if I would have built it then. Of course, I was only 10, so my hacker skills were pretty low then!
Here is a very basic single channel digital playback system I built for my retro game system a few years back, also made with 70's digital logic...
The new synth will have at least 32 full channels like this, plus many analog effects.
I like a mix of techno / house / classical, so it should be interesting!
So the short answer is.... "I am following up on a childhood dream now that I have the skills".
I will add this to my blog if I continue to have lockdown Sunday fun!
Cheers,
Brad