GorF

DIY Mini Sequencer Project

In 2008 Paul Maddox wanted to start building synthesisers again, and not having much in the way of test equipment Paul built a simple 8 step sequencer. This was called GorF and was named after his love of 80's arcade games.

Paul put the video of the early version up on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=df8Q0wIoSRM) which received over 1000 hits within a month. GorF quickly gathered a lot of interest on the internet and won a competition for innovation winning him a zoybar guitar.

At this point Paul decided to make a kit of the project and using the free PCB CAD software called Eagle created a small PCB, 100mm by 80mm. This had all the switches and displays on of the prototype and added memory to GorF. from 2008 to 2011 Paul added a number of features and enhancements and published the code, schematics and PCB files under the GPL license. Peter Kvitek added the Bank Play mode and made a few performance enhancements also.

GorF has the following features -

8 steps per pattern

each step can have a different note length

each step has -

• Note value
• Step Length
• Note Velocity
• 2 MIDI CCs (user definable)

2 patterns can be chained to create 16 step patterns quickly

powerful bank play mode which allows up to 8 patterns to be chained with the ability to repeat a pattern a number of times before moving the next.

Updatable via MIDI sysex

over 250 kits have been sold since their release in 2009 and kits continue to sell under the VacoLoco brand.

Paul has used the funds raised by the sale of the kits to build and develop other projects like Tron and Zira and he is currently developing a Euro Modular version with CV and gate outputs.