Bill and Will's Synth
Face Plate Design

Jan 2008 -

History:

At first, our interest in Face Plate Design was to illustrative.  We wanted to illustrate our synth so we could design its layout and to help us decide what modules we should have.  Also, in the olden days, I had a patch reference sheet for my synthi-A which came in very handy for recording my patches.  I wanted us to have one of these for our synth.

When Mike came along and suggested we do some MOTM designs for some modules he wanted too, we did these and added them to our design collection.  They're all on our Synth Main Page - click here.

As time went on, we found ourselves designing MOTM face-plates for Jürgen Haible's modules, the Tellun Doomsday Machine, and Magic Smoke's Mankato Filter - these designs were adopted and manufactured by Scott Deyo of Bridechamber.

Then it came to designing the panel for our 22 band version of the Yusynth Fixed Filter.  Well - we did, but it's not likely anyone else will want this behemoth (who in their right mind would). 

We began designing some panels to order from Front Panel Express.  We also tried out Front Designer and

This page is an attempt to document our thoughts and discoveries about the MOTM standard panel design and applying that standard to custom modules and especially modules larger than 2U wide.

1. Units of measure

English vs Metric:

When we actually measured some of the Synthesis Technology panels, they seem to measure more perfectly in metric units but Paul' specs are clearly in English units.

2. The MOTM "Grid"

POTs vs Jacks

No matter what the units of measure, there are two standard vertical distances used on MOTM panels; one for POTs at the top of panels and one for Jacks at the bottom.  Where rows of these elements overlap, they generally stick to their own vertical grids.

Horizontally, the POTs are centered in 1U panel space whereas the jacks are centered in half a panel space.

Other elements fit into these grids as seems appropriate and, occasionally, a switch or LED will appear off the grid to save space.

Paul has this example of his specifications for the MOTM440 panel on his site, clearly using English measure - click here to download Paul's pdf file, click on the image to download a large .jpg:

Oh - also, the MOTM standard font is "Alternate Gothic No. 2" Click here to download.

3. Front Panel Express FPD Panel - MOTM-510

We developed this MOTM 510 panel using Front Panel Express.   Click here to download our FPD file - click on the image to download a bigger one.

We approximated the Alternate Gothic No.2 font by altering the width of the "DIN451-1 stroke" font.