Say you've got the board and parts in front of you. Congrats! Now put it together.

It's not hard, but it's got 550 solder joints. The good news is that none of them are particularly critical or difficult. If you're a beginner with the soldering iron, you'll be experienced by the time you're done. (Or you'll be driven stark-raving mad.) Even if you're a seasoned flux-wielding veteran, you'll need some patience.

I've built up a few of these now, and here's my advice.

First, put all the header pins in their respective holes.

Now get a piece of cardboard and put it on top of the pins before you (gently) flip it over. This way, you stand a chance of getting the pins aligned straight with the board upside-down.

Now solder in one pin from each header, to make it easy to adjust any that are screwy.

Only once you're content that they're all in straight, solder the headers in for real. It's a lot of soldering. Take a break when you're done.

If you've followed along with the Logic Noise series, you've noticed that I designed the sessions to build on the previous ones. Because the board is essentially modular, you can now do the same assembling it.

That is, build a section, explore it, learn it, internalize it, and then move on to the next section. Think of this as a pleasant stroll through the pastures of silicon synthesizer possibilities, rather than as a project you'd like to get done fast. It'll keep you sane.

The board is going to need power. Wire up a 9V battery clip to the far-right section labelled GND / + / GND.

Make absolutely sure that you connect black to GND and red to +. Really. This kit has no reverse-polarity protection except for this step. Don't mess it up!

Once you get the clip connected correctly, you can't reverse a 9V battery without really trying, so you can breathe a sigh of relief. Don't plug in the battery until you're ready to play around, though.

If you're feeling saucy, you can also populate the 10uF capacitor on the far-left of the board. This part is polarized -- pay attention to the + marking.

For the first real module, I'd solder up the left-hand set of six oscillators. Only the potentiometers, chip, capacitor sockets, and output pins are truly necessary.

Plug some capacitors in the capacitor sockets and make sure that everything's oscillating. If that's all working, solder in the diodes. (Note the polarity!)

If you've already got an external amplifier set up, you can build all of the circuits in Logic Noise: Sweet, Sweet Oscillator Sounds. Spend an hour or so tooling around.

If you didn't have an amplifier on hand, solder up the Mixer section on the far right of the board as well.

Pay attention to the polarity of the output capacitors, but also to the resistor networks. They've got a spot on one end -- that matches up with the squared-off pin on the silkscreen on the right-hand side, next to the word "Mixer".

You can then plug in some headphones and connect the square waves from above into the low-gain (left) channel.

Tool around as above.

Now you're set to follow along with the Logic Noise series, building up one module as you go. Next up is the 4040 binary counter section:8-Bits: The 4040.

And while you're here, I'd solder in the LEDs, because they help you visualize what's going on with the counter and the state of the board in general.

Note the polarity of the LEDs. One side of the case is slightly flattened-off, and the shorter pin goes on that side.

Plug up some of the higher divisions from the 4040 into the LEDs. Blinkies!

Next up is Logic Noise: The Switching Sequencer Has the Beat and the 4017. This one's a peach to solder up, but very powerful.

Spend a while sequencing your six oscillators off of the 4017. Don't forget that you've got the 4040 as another rhythmic source to exploit.

Somewhere around now, you'll find the Mults handy. They're simply four pins that are electrically connected together, and they're useful for sending one clock pulse to multiple destinations, for instance.

If you haven't already soldered up the Mixer section, now's your chance. Logic Noise: Sawing Away with Analog Waveforms is about playing around with the 4069UB chip as a buffer amp.

To make the sawtooth wave, you need to insert a diode into an oscillator's feedback path. Fortunately, there is already a diode soldered to the oscillator's input. All that missing is a connection to the output from the side of the diode that we normally use for "sync". Connect the other output to the low-gain mixer channel, and you've got a sawtooth wave.

The triangle with overdrive is a little more involved. See the tutorial in the logs section.

By now you've got the hang of building this thing, and you're on your own.

Parting comments:

• Diodes and electrolytic capacitors are polarized -- double-check their orientation before soldering them in.
• The 2N3904 transistor needs to be oriented so that the flat spot in its body matches the flat spot on the silkscreen.
• Other capacitors and resistors are unpolarized, and go in however you want, although it looks nicer if they're all lined up.
• Keep the battery out while you're soldering. You don't want to short it out accidentally.

Build a module, and then take the time to play, explore, and master that module before moving on to the next. You won't get it finished in a weekend, but you'll understand what you've built, and had a good time getting there.