Make Music Anywhere! - Battery Power Your Synth or Drum Machine

Just imagine the possibility to go into the woods and create some ambience music or whatever you desire ? I'm going describe my portable 4 track studio that I can stuff into a bag and carry anywhere! I'll explain what you'll need, from cabling and how to power your electronic instruments.

How to build it

1. Multimeter or Voltage Meter
2. USB cable
3. Barrel connector and wire for your synth or drum machine
4. Soldering iron and solder
5. LM2596 Step Up convertor board.
6. USB Battery 5,000 mAh or larger capacity

I had initially used my Korg XD synth with a USB convertor and USB battery. Unfortunately when combining it with another USB converter for the Nord Drum, I had a lot of ground noise. Buzzing occurred in the audio output. I replace the Korg XD with an Arturia Microfreak as it runs directly off USB power. I'll probably come back to resolving that issue at another point. For the moment the Nord Drum and Microfreak will be my portable sound making studio.

In the image, I tested and wired up everything before taking out into the field.

To build a step up voltage for your synth or drum machine you need a few things. Take the LM2596 board which is a DC-DC Buck Converter step-down power module.

1. Solder the plus and minus wires for the USB cable to the board, then do the same for the output plus and minus wires – usually black and red respectively.
2. Now test the voltage output and adjust with a small screwdriver the blue trimmer on the board until you get the correct voltage required.
3. Ensure the barrel connecter’s polarity is correct. Meaning the negative and positive are wire correctly. Usually the positive is the inner part of the barrel but it can be reverse, match it up with your equipment.
4. Before plugging in double check the voltage and the polarity. At your own risk plug into the equipment and see if it works. If nothing happen unplug immediately to avoid damage!

Once you have your equipment running over a USB battery. Try it out for an hour or two. A 5000mAh will last quite sometime with a modern synth. Older synths will most likely use a lot power so consider this. These days 10000mAh battery are pretty inexpensive.

Additionally to the synth an FX pedal was required to add reverb and other effects to the output of the Microfreak, as it has none. I'm using a Zoom multistomp pedal MS-70MDR. Using the Zoom Effect Manager I can manage the FX on the pedal best suited to the synth setup.

Two little tracks I produced while in the greater outdoors

I had a lot of fun doing this, definitely recommend a journey into the great outdoors with your electronic music gear!

https://gavinlyons.photography/nord-drum-on-batteries/