So this is my first track using the volcas sequenced by Renoise after spending a few hours yesterday building my own midi thru box based on this design:
It's the little wooden box flickering away, centre frame. I used a 5v power supply salvaged from a mobile phone charger and built the circuit on stripboard. It offers 1 in and 4 outs at present. I almost gave up to begin with as when I prototyped it onto a breadboard it completely failed to work. After a long time testing everything i eventually discovered that a new breadboard i was using was screwing with my inverter chip, far too much capacitance on the board i can only assume. Rebuilding it on my usual breadboard got it going. Lesson learned there.
Whether it was worth me spending the time to build my own midi thru is debatable when they are available with this spec for £40-50. The one advantage it gives me is that this design is expandable, adding another inverter will take me up to 10 outputs for not much cash in parts. Also i'm a pretty impatient guy at times and this was slightly quicker than waiting for a built one to arrive in the post!