Hi all, great group, long time lurker, first time poster.

Since I've got a bit of spare time (as if) I thought I might build an
interesting controller for my modular (doepfer, AS, harvestman). I
need something to send gates and control voltages, but not scaled as a
keyboard since a lot of my stuff is microtonal, or involves switching
between odd frequencies that work well together through eg ring
modulators, or by setting controls on eg A112. I've got some vague
troubleshooting and assembly skills but I am no electronics ninja, so
I'd be grateful for pointers on the circuitry which should be very
simple.

What I am planning is this, and it's rudimentary:

1. Obviously I want a control surface which looks pretty. This one
will be very pretty once I have attacked it with the dremel and my
extensive collection of nice knobs.

http://uk.rs-online.com/web/search/searchBrowseAction.html method=getProduct&R=2071515#header

2. Nice big buttons (got lots lying around) to send gates

3. Nice big knobs on potentiometers which will let me set control
voltages, with momentary switches etc to choose between them.

As far as I can see the electronics side of it is going to be pretty
simple. Here is my kludge plan, please forgive/assist me if it is loopy:

For the gates, which are a positive going 5v, to avoid messing around
with voltage regulators etc, I will just take the 5v from the power
supply ribbon, and use that to feed my gate switches, with a 470 ohm
resistor to avoid short circuits.

For CV I will just take the 12v +ve from the power supply, feed it
into linear 10k-100k pots, using those as attenuators, and then I'll
have my nice CV out the other side in a minijack. Should I bung
something in there so that I can use the full travel of the pots,
instead of being stuck with 0-12v

Then I will have momentary switches, and selectors, etc, to choose
between eg which CV is going to an oscillator at a given time.
Switching between those will of course produces horrible glitches, I'm
sure. No problem.

Does this sound okay, or do I need to delve into it more deeply and
have some proper circuity in there Hopefully not.

Later I'll built some fun stuff into the controller too. I want to
make a mechanical sequencer with a rotating wiper on metal plates.