Julia Bondar: studio recording fragment from upcoming album

..

Very Cool.

It's so refreshing to hear danceable electronic music.

Hopefully more artists like Julia, come to Australia when the borders open.

Peter Zinovieff

 It's a sad day.

Just heard the news that Peter Zinovieff passed away.

He was one of the great synth inventors and designers.

Up there along with Bob Moog, Alan Pearlman, and Don Buchla.

 

The Beatles, Kraftwerk, Pink Floyd all used his synths.

 

He will be sorely missed.

Moog SubHarmonicon & Korg Volca Beats

 I only recently purchased the Moog Subharmonicon and have 

been testing it with various other synths & drum machines.

 

 

I don't have a DFAM, but the old trusty Korg Volca Beats seems to sync ok, and sounds fine. The Volca is supplying the master clock.

Ive added a bit of reverb care of a Strymon BlueSky/

 

The Polyrhythms are quite inspirational. 

You can create melodies and rhythms that I don't think I could easily do

with a conventional sequencer.

But you need to play with them for a while .

...... gems suddenly appear.

 

I find that  trying to recreate the sound later is tricky. So if you stumble across a good patch just record it.

 

BBx291 - Nonlinear circuit build notes part 2

This is part 2 of my build notes for the NLC eurorack formatt BBx 291 filter.

Its a module inspired by the Buchla 291.

+ 291r - build pics

Part one is here:

https://djjondent.blogspot.com/2021/06/nlc-bbx-291-vcf-build-notes.html

I'm up to making the vactrol box .

One header at a time.

This uses headers to construct a lightproof box to house a combination of LEDs and LDRs (Light dependent resistors.)

I'm using the GL 5516 as suggested

You can read a bit about vactrols here
https://djjondent.blogspot.com/2017/12/vactrols-optocoupliers.html

 

Make sure you have the PCBs the right way round.

I like to place the headers for the box one at a time.

requires a little patience to line everything up.

 

Time for the LEDS

Using red

+ LEDs 

four B100k pots,

three B10k pots - linear

Next the jacks and the panel LEDs

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All Done

 

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You can find more NLC builds here.

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Moog Subharmonicon - pics

 Just arrived.

 

Love the artwork too

NLC - BBx 291 VCF - build notes

 Finally starting this build of the Nonlinear Circuits 291 filter.

This is inspired by the Buchla 291 bandwidth/bandpass filter.

The BBX291 in Eurorack format.

I don't own an original 291. They are extremely rare.

However I have built a few "clones" ... whatever they call them these days.

 + 291r - build pics

Don B didn't do many filters. I think he preferred waveshaping over filtering.

This however is a great sounding module, and well worth having in your arsenal.

The original 291 (and the clones) used vactrols - four for each filter. They were VTL2C3 vactrols which have a 10M1k range.

Andrew's version uses his "black box" idea.

Rather than use individual vactrols, the LEDs & LDRs are housed in a light-tight enclosure built into the PCBs. It's a really neat idea.

This is a pic of a LPG module that uses the same idea.

Andrew used some clear lens red LEDs and GL5516 LDRs (0.5M-5k) for this filter module.

I'll see what i have.

His suggestions are that if you are using any LDR with an off resistance less then 5MΩ you can leave off the two 10MΩ resistors as they will be superfluous.

Ones that get down to 1k or less are prob best

You can read a bit about vactrols here
https://djjondent.blogspot.com/2017/12/vactrols-optocoupliers.html

Here are some pics of the non populated PCBs and front panel.

On the panel  the two CV pots are sort of attenuverters, so 0 is at mid-point.

Ok back to the build.

Some NLC words of wisdom

ICs 1st.

There are five TL 072 op amps 

Resistors next

Caps next

S1JL, Schottky, power rectifier

To be continued......

BBx291 - Nonlinear circuit build notes part 2

Links

+ NLC wiki

+ Build notes & bom

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You can find more NLC builds here.

http://djjondent.blogspot.com.au/2015/03/non-linear-circuits-ncl-index.html

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Korg WaveState - Arpeggio

Playing around with the Korg Wavestate.

All samples - wave sequencing

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Layers A, C & D are Arpeggios 

Layer B is a Pad 

I'm using a Roland Tr-707 drum as the master clock. It's supplying a very basic kick. 

The 707 is connected via midi.

 

The rest of the sound is just the Wavestate without any extra effects. 

Patch Jono2021b

These are some primary performance notes.

The patch is quite flexible and no performance will ever sound the same.

 The top row of the eight performance mod knobs set the overall pitch of each layer.

The bottom row of the 8 performance knobs are the volume of each layer.

The MOD wheel controls filter frequency.

Layer B is actually a chord layer, though I havent used it this way in the video.

In layer A, the gate lane is impt. It has 16 steps made up of rests & fully open notes.

Play around with the start and end points of the loop in the gate lane.

In layer C, play around with the start and end points of the loop in the sample lane.

The joystick modulates the Delay & reverb.

Do muck around with the dedicated effects knobs ..esp the wet/dry mix and change the types of delay & reverbs.

The filter cutoff/ resonance and intensity are really tweakable.

as are the envelope settings... esp the amp & filter attack and decay.

Finally, play with the LFO .. esp the filter & amp frequency/intensity.

I can't believe it's not a VCO - NLC Build notes - part 2

 These  notes are a continuation of an earlier NLC eurorack build.

The module is the " I can't believe it's not a VCO"

It's a odd but good name as the module was originally intended to be a filter, but it turned

out to also be a really neat oscillator.

This is the build so far

The first part of my build is here:

 I can't believe it's not a VCO - NLC Build notes - part 1..

some useful Links:

+ NLC Wiki

+ BOM & build notes

+ Youtube

This if the zener diode I was waiting for from mouser.

Be careful of the orientation

Install trimpots, the 10 pin power connector, etc

...These are the headers that connect the two PCBs

Its time for the pots.

One 1 x 1M 

5 x 100K

Some NLC words of wisdom.

We all know him as the director of The Holy Mountain and a early film adaptation of Dune. I didn't know he was a writer.

Where the Bird Sings Best tells the fantastic story of the Jodorowskys' emigration from Ukraine to Chile.

These are the jacks. Use resistor offcuts for the grounds

I forgot to add the 1k tempco

I actually just used a normal resistor

You're Done :-)

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Roland 106 & ju-06a arpeggios

Some experiments with two Roland Synths.

A old Juno 106 and a brand new Boutique JU-06a

I actually purchased the JU-06a for its arpeggiator but alas, it wasn't what I wanted.

However the Arturia Keystep came to the rescue.

..

 The Arturia Keystep is eight-note polyphonic, meaning it can sequence any synthesizer (monophonic or not) with up to eight different notes in a chord.

 

Still, I think the ju-06a sounds great, and compliments the 106 really well.

Patches 1.7 on the juno 106 and 3.1 on the ju06a

I'm just playing different chords on the Keystep and this is sent via midi to the 106 & 06a

Roland 6, 60, Boutique 06 - Arpeggiator

The Roland Juno 60 has a highly acclaimed arpeggiator.

I was listening to a friend's Juno 60 the other day and he turned on that arp.

Those melodies floated in the studio. They just went on and on.

 

The Juno 60's arpeggiator also has a clock input which was designed for a feed from a drum machine or sequencer. By using the clock-in, you can play with different arpeggio styles and adjust the tempo.

 

It's actually a 1/4" input, using a 1 pulse per note system, instead of the 24ppqn DIN Sync standard.

 

Other Roland synths with clock inputs for arps (that I know of) include:

Juno 06, 60
Jupiter 4
Jupiter 6
Jupiter 8 (both pulse trigger input and DIN Sync24 input)

Korg also produce quite a few synths with arpeggiators.

Eg the Minilogue, Wavestate, Monopoly, Poly-61

 Getting back to the Junos

The Juno 6 came out in 1982.

 A six voice, analog, manual controlled synth. It had the lushest, most beautiful, pads.

A five octave keyboard

 There is no MIDI.

This is a pic of its arp.

The arpeggiator of the Juno will sync to a clock signal (+5v) , it does not have an internal sequencer like the sh-101.

 

This is the rear.

Just plug in the rimshot of your TR 808 or the Tom of the 606, etc
 

I sadly don't have a juno 06 or 60. I opted for a Juno 106 back in the day

since it had midi. 

I do wish it had an arp.

 

So I recently purchased a Boutique JU-06

It's small & portable,  sounds great and is a welcome addition to my arsenal. It will be handy esp for live gigs.

The only regret I have is the arpeggator can't be clocked with a external trigger or via midi. The Arp seems to be driven by its own separate internal clock

I tried everything last night.... different drum machines, with triggers, midi, din etc etc.

Nothing would lock onto the arp.

The sequencer was easily synced to incoming clock, so I'm sure the arp

could be synced too. 

I'm hoping Roland's engineers will one day fix this issue with a firmware update.

 

Anyway, the solution was to bypass the JU-06 's arp completely and just use the Arturia keystep. It's arp does the job ok.

I've synced the 606 drum via a midi/din converter directly to the keystep's midi out

...

 One final prob you may encounter is everytime you start the arp, the ju-06a's sequencer will begin playing. The best way around this problem is to erase one of the patterns and use this when playing remotely.

I erased pattern 16, so when I send midi clock to the synth, it doesn't start playing the sequencer on top of the arpeggio.