Slow Wit? Slow It.

I just had another experience where being slow at getting something done led to an increase in overall efficiency. Time for a #:semtag for the phenomenon : #:slowit.

The usual one I get is when something is on the procrastination pile, I think of a better way of doing it. I am slow-witted, but that's offset by experience and persistence. I keep returning to the same problems again and again, intermittently but over a long time scale, not a bad process. Not unlike sleep on it, somewhere nearby is measure twice, cut once.

This time it related to an #:electronics project, appropriately enough a delay effects module for the Eurorack #:synth. I figured out a design ages ago, as far as front panel layout which I'd sketched in LibreOffice Draw. But I can't find my original circuit notes (probably hand-drawn, this is a one-off build). I like the panel layout, but it isn't labeled for function of pots & sockets, so I've been kind of backwards engineering what I had in mind...

Last night I got to a design that I reckoned was worth trying on breadboard, but still didn't feel quite right. On dogwalk just now it occurred to me that a twisty bit of signal mixing I had on two of the outputs was not only unnecessary but would actually make the thing less versatile. By not proceeding with the prototyping I've saved myself a lot of experimentation time, a chunk of cognitive load, a bit of construction time, and at least 4 (possibly 8) op amps.

I'll write up the project (codename #:redballoons) once I've got my write-up process sorted a bit better.