Wiard - Malekko - Megawave - Basic patch notes to help getting started.

This is not a oscillator on it's own.

It's a wavetable lookup device. 

There are 2,560 waveforms arranged as 10 ROMs of 16 Banks per ROM, with 16 Waves per Bank.

The module stores audio samples in the form of single cycle waveforms. 

It's the most recent incarnation of a line of modules which started with  Grant Richter's Wiard 300 Waveform City module. 

The module was born when it was realised that a rising sawtooth into an analog to digital converter could work as an address generator.

There are also "1410 Blacet" (frac rack) and ModCan versions out there in the wild. (The modcan version has it's own internal oscillator)

This is a eurorack version.

The Megawave functions in two different modes (0-10v or +/-5v) set by the “Range” selector switch on the top left. Depress for +/-5v (audio) mode.  

 

The button on the top right  is the input wave type selector for ascending & decending saw waves

So to use it as a VCO , you'll need another VCO. 

If you want the Megawave to track the input frequency of the VCO,

use a sawtooth wave. It should be usable with any VCO sawtooth except a Buchla 258 (which has a unique waveform where the sawtooth has a “divet” in it).

 

You can use other waveforms if you don't mind distortion.

It outputs waveforms from the selected internal ROM bank.

You can use a sequencer, EG, joystick, random voltages, etc to step through various waveforms.

The Megawave module has many functions.

These include:

• audio waveform bank
• complex LFO functions
• random function generator
  
• non linear waveform distortion
• audio waveshaping
  
• stage quantizing

These single cycle waveforms are stored in 10 ROMS.

Each ROM has 16 banks. Each bank has 16 waves.

You can select the ROM with the top right knob or a CV

 

1. Miniwave

2. Socket Rocket (Grant Richter)

3. PPG/VS

4. Darwin's House (Darwin Grouse)

5. Monowave (Paul Maddox)

6. Bosch Gardens (Mathew Davidson)

7. Morphine (Mathew Davidson)

8. Vector 1 (Mathew Davidson)

9. Vector 2 (Mathew Davidson)

10.  Scale Quantizer (Mathew Davidson)

 

 

The banks & waves are selected using the other pots / CV inputs.

The waves & banks are indicated with the numerical LEDs

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So to use it as a VCO patch like this.

The module must be  audio mode (ie +/- 5 volt range.)

Use the Input Offset for optimal audio input with minimal distortion. 

 To use it as a distortion device you may have to first amplify the inputed signal esp if its line level.

Euro rack audio levels are much hotter (5Vpp) than line levels (approx 1Vpp). 

I like the socket rocket banks for this.

When using the Megawave as a complex LFO you may find it doesn't go as slow as you want is you are using a standard Wiard Oscillator.

To solve this use a triangle or sawtooth LFO with a +/-5V or 0-10V swing, setting the Input Voltage Select switch accordingly.

 

The Wiard Anti-oscillator & Oscillator has a push button what turns them into LFOs.

The Wiard Envelator can also be patched to behave like a LFO

Using the Megawave as a quantizer.

Set it to the control voltage range (0-10v) .... that is the button is not depressed. 

The Input Gain adjustment ensures accurate quantizer functions tracking. Also acts as an input gain. 

0-10V gives 5 octaves.

Select the 10th & last ROM - Scale Quantizer

A 0-10V input will result in the following scales when the output is connected to a standard 1V/oct VCO.  

Fairlight CMI IIx - Floppy Disk Controller Card

Some pics of the Floppy Disk controller card.

I'm doing some work on the Fairlight so thought I'l post some pics
of some of the hardware.

This FD controller card is the QFC9

The CMI uses two double sided eight inch disk drives.
Mitsubishi M2896-63 .
Soft sectored, 128/256 bytes per sector.
Data is stored on the magnetic coating of the floppy in concentric rings
On a standard 8 inch floppy there are 77 rings.
Tracks are divided into data blocks called sectors.

The disks look like this:

The drives themselves are controlled by a Western Digital WD 1791 LSI controller located on the QFC9 card.

This switch I understand selects which drive is the primary boot drive which will hold the Operating System disk.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Click here for the main Fairlight index

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SugarMountain Music Festival 2017

Thanks Melbourne for a very enjoyable festival.
I made a special trip to see Kaitlyn A Smith and Suzanne Ciani (see posts below)
but found so many other great acts.


http://djjondent.blogspot.com.au/2017/01/kaitlyn-aurelia-smith-buchla-concert.html
and
http://djjondent.blogspot.com.au/2017/01/suzanne-ciani-sugarmountain-2017.html

..

Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith - Buchla Concert - SugarMountain 2017

Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith's concert - Melbourne, Australia, 21st Jan 2017
Sat. SugarMountain Music Festival.

 Her main instrument appears to be a modern BEMI Music Easel.


Sorry for the shaky camera. Recorded using a Samsung Galaxy Note 5.

Becalmed in Hell - Larry Niven

 This short story first appeared in Fantasy and Science Fiction in July 1965.

It has the same characters from the   "The Coldest Place". and carries off from that.

This is the second story that I understand Larry Niven had ever published.

 

The novelette revolves around the first manned mission to Venus.

Venus is a hostile environment with temperatures of 612 degrees & pressures up to 92 atmospheres.

Howie is one of the human crew members. The second character, Eric is the "Brain" of the ship.

 

Though the mission itself of exploring the planet is interesting, it's only briefly mentioned. The meat of the story centres on

the relationship between Eric & Howie.

 

Eric isn't AI. He appears to be human  .... or rather a brain & a nervous system which is connected to the ship. It seems that Eric was involved in a terrible accident years ago which almost killed him. Engineers were able to "save" him by hooking his brain and nerves to a spaceship.

Here is a description of poor Eric.

 

"Eric’s central nervous system, with the brain perched at the top and the spinal cord coiled in a loose spiral to fit more compactly into the transparent glass-and-sponge-plastic housing. Hundreds of wires from all over the ship led to the glass walls, where they were joined to selected nerves which spread like an electrical network from the central coil of nervous tissue and fatty protective membrane."

Toward the end of the mission, Eric reports  to Howie that he is unable to 'feel' the ramjets they need to get home. These jets are connected to the nerves that once moved his legs. In order to check the ship for any mechanical problems they are forced to land on Venus. Howie however, finds nothing wrong with the jets and starts to suspect that Eric is suffering from a paralyzing psychosis.

 

Howie presents a hypothesis: "I think you've got a case of what used to be called trigger anesthesia. A soldier who kills too often sometimes finds that his right index finger or even his whole hand has gone numb, as if it were no longer a part of him... Subconsciously you've stopped believing that the rams can feel like a part of you, which they were designed to do. So you've persuaded yourself that you don't feel anything." 

This story is really interesting given its date of 1965. The film 2001 a space odyssey by Arthur C Clarke was released in 1968. Both use sentient ships.

The Ship Who Sang by Anne McCaffrey is another great example as are many of the novels of Ian M. Banks.

 

"The ship who sang" is particularly interesting.

Anne wrote these stories in the 1960's

They feature one person, Helva, who becomes brainship XH-834

--------------------------------------------

sci Fi Index

----------------------------------------------

How to Backup your abelton project

"Collect All and Save "

This is important when you want to save your abelton project for future reference or for sending it to

another person who may not have all the samples.

If you don't do this you could loose your project files.

Ff you move locations or unplug a hardrive, your files are still safe 

It's a great habit to get into doing.

What its doing is grabbing all the samples that are outside of the project and bringing them into the project.

It puts them into 1 folder

 

-----------

1.  Go to "File" ... then look at the drop down box.
   
2.   Make sure you save the set into a unique Project folder.
3.   From the File menu click "Save Live set as"

    4. From the File menu then click "Collect All and Save".

   5.   Specify which media files should be copied and click "Ok".

 6. To move or transfer the project, copy the entire Project folder including all subfolders and files.

 

Suzanne Ciani - SugarMountain 2017

Suzanne Ciani's Buchla concert - Melbourne, Australia, 21st Jan 2017
Sat. SugarMountain Music Festival.

A real pleasure  to hear this live.
Some snippets from the concert
Sorry for the shaky camera.

Setting up

Suzanne's 18 panel system seems to be Buchla 200e - mainly
Apart from the Control MARF - multiple function arbitary generator
Maybe a clone ??? possibly a 248r (not sure) or vintage ???
and I think a 291 filter  in row two???

top row:
248 MARF, 227e -system interface - spatial quad sound

middle row:
266e- Source of uncertainity
291 - dual filter ?
281e - quad function manager x 2
292e - quad dynamics manager x 2

Bottom row:
251e  - quad sequencer,
223e - tactile input port for keyboard
261e - Complex waveform generator -
210e - control & signal router
259e - VCO - twisted waveform generator - can set the waveshape
206e - mixer & preset manager

...

Seems that Suzanne is also using a Moog Animoog (ipad)

 and two Eventide H9 Harmonizer pedals.

Pioneer Squid - Toraiz- Patterns & Pattern Set mode - (Song Mode)

Patterns

This is where midi data is stored.

Each instrument (a drum, a sample or a synth) can have up to 64 sequences or patterns associated with it. 

The data is stored on 4 pages containing 16 patterns per page.

Patterns are like clips in abelton live.

 

 Pattern Set Mode

Pattern set mode is like the song mode on many sequencers.

Here you can recall & load 1 to 16 patterns at once

It saves combinations of patterns.

 

This is useful if you want to perform your songs live. 

It helps you to easily create beginning, middle and end sections for your tracks.

 

This works like scenes in Native Instruments machine or Abelton.

 

To enter Pattern Set press "SHIFT + Pattern".

The PATTERN button will flash.

 There is no chaining sadly.

How to enter patterns into each Pattern Set

1. Select your patterns

   (Press the Track button + the pad (pads) with the track/s you want to add).

2. Enter pattern set mode .

   Hold the  <SHIFT> + <Pattern> button together.

3. Press the pad you wish to assign to that pattern set. 

4. Repeat the process.

    You can have up to 16 patterns in each pattern set.

    Thus, using Pattern Set mode, you can load up to 16 patterns at once.

 

 

Deleting a pattern set

1. Enter pattern set mode .

   Hold the  <SHIFT> + <Pattern> button together.

2. Hold the  <COPY> + <PASTE> button together.

3. Press the pad you wish deleted.

    The light of this pad should turn off.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmn4YKXEenw

Minor Chords & Their progressions

 Much dance music is done in the minor key.

Building these chords is a pretty similar process to the major key.

You start with a root note, then count 3 semitones up & then 7 up.

(Major triads : start with a root note, then count 4 semitones up & then 7 up).

 

So a minor triad chord is built from a root note, a minor third and a perfect fifth. 

 

------------------------------------------------------------

 

G minor is made up of G – Bb – D

 

 

 

Below is a  G minor to f minor progression

 

we can instead progress to a F major from the G minor just by moving one note:

 

------------------------------------------------------------

 

D minor is made up of the following notes: D, F and A

 

 -------------------------

 

A minor is made up of the following notes: A, C and E

 

 ------------------------------------------------------------------

E minor is made up of the following notes: E, G and B

 

 

Recording an external midi instrument into Abelton setup

This is a basic Abelton setup.

How to record an external instrument into Abelton 

I want to be able to send and receive MIDI note data.

I also want to record audio from the synth.

 

Some synths use USB MIDI. Others use DIN MIDI

The example below is a VIRUS which uses USB and DIN.

In this example look up the preferences menu & make sure the soundcard is selected.

It will then appear in the dropdown box of its MIDI channel (1 MIDI).

The Virus is a really simple audio interface.

It has just one stereo input. 

In this case, its set up as external inputs 1 & 2

For every synth we need two tracks 

Audio track & MIDI track

Deluge - Parameter Automation

Steps to record automation
1. select the parameter to record. Press the associated button
2. Press record
3. Press play
4. Twiddle the knob you wish to record.
5. Any automation is overwritten if the sequence loops
    while changes are being made.
6. Automation is not connected to the notes entered. So you can change the note sequence
    for example, and the automation will remain.
7. Automation can be applied to a song, a clip, or a pad.
    To automate a PAD hold the pad and twist the parameter knob you wish to record as the steps above.

Deteting Automation

1. Select the parameter to delete by pressing the button.
2. Shift + press the associated knob.
3. You need to do this for each parameter.
4. The display will show 'dELE' to confirm deletion.
5. The deletion can be undone by pressing 'Back'

Braids - Chords

Making chords in a eurorack modular is really difficult
It at the most basic level requires 3 VCOs, a filter, VCA and EG

Mutable Instruments Braids has a number of modes that approximate chords, though there is no official chord mode

X3 mode is a good place to start
There are four variations of this mode

 /| /| x 3 mode  is 3 saw waves with individual tuning.
This mode is I think inspired by past synths like the miniMoog, EMS synthi, the electrocomp 101, etc. The saw waves can be tuned independently giving pseudo chords.

nn_X3 ... three square waves
The tuning of three oscillators is tied to the Coarse knob & Timbre knob.
By turning the timbre & Color knob, two of those oscillators can be detuned above or below the central tuning of the primary oscillator.
These two controls are quantized to “snap” on musical intervals like octaves or fifths.

 

 

/\X3.... three triangle waves

SIX3...... Three sine waves

/|/|/|/| ....... 7 super saws detuned

--------------------

The second pseudo-chord mode is the WTX4 mode
WTX4 is the wavetable times four page.
This mode is a 4-voice variant of the WLIN mode.

TIMBRE morphs through a small selection of 16 waves.
COLOR selects the harmonic structures between the 4 voices - from a predefined set of chords.
When COLOR is at 7 o’clock, all voices are playing the same note with a variable amount
of detuning, creating a thick chorus effect.

This is a great manual with the impt chord table for this mode.
http://www.vo1t.com/Euro//BraidsIllustrated1.8.pdf



There are a few variations in the original braids firmware which add extra chord modes.
Renaissance is a great place to start.
https://synthmodes.com/modules/braids_renaissance/#info