We received this fine note from Scott in Chicago:
” My daughter asked me to build her a Macchiato Mini-Synth from Zeppelin Designs. This is how it went. I have very limited experience building electronics from scratch, so when I read online that the Zeppelin folks prided themselves on ease of their instructions, I took a measure of comfort and a big gulp of coffee and began. I needed fairly simple tools, mostly a soldering iron and solder, a well lit workspace, and a magnifying glass (the color stripes on the resistors are a little tricky to differentiate). The process was straightforward and satisfying. It took me a couple of hours with my average soldering skills. At first it didn’t work, so i went back over the solder points and…Bam! I was making synthy sounds! We had purchased the case kit and that was fun too. I just needed model airplane glue, an exacto knife, and an emory board to quickly assemble another satisfying DIY project that made the Macchiato look completed and fully awesome. I proudly delivered the results to my excited daughter and hopefully scored some Dad points in the process, although I’m pretty sure she could have built it just as easily herself.”