What have I been up to you ask? Trying to navigate the new world. Enjoying the space I have while lamenting the turmoil others are in. Filling in the space with electronics projects.

The projects keep piling up and scattering a bit, which I understand is totally normal. I put together a dintree quad VCA about 6 months ago, and after reading,reading,reading, drawing up a wiring diagram, soldering and wiring it up, I plugged it up and it worked! Then I realized it wasn't quite acting normally! Then it died!

So basically I gave up. In the back of my mind was a mopey asshole who said, "You don't really know what you're doing. You're not really good at anything, just mediocre at many things. Where would you even start?" Etc.

And of course coronavirus, and also I have all this stuff lying around for building electronics... so I decided to start a little smaller, simpler. I stumbled upon an attenuvertor schematic (here) that looked very simple, and I'd made a passive attenuator to get my feet wet a while ago, so I decided to convert it. It worked and worked beautifully. Subtlety can be so fun, and upsidedown voltages opened it up all the more.

So with an actual working module under my belt I picked up the ol VCA, sat with it for a bit, re-flowed some solder joints, and voila!

All this is to say, you can do it! Mistakes and breaks are not only part of the process, they're good! Our model of learning is a dumb one: accruing knowledge first, then applying said knowledge with confidence. I learn that that's bullshit over and over.