2021 - two years on

 2021 is nearly over.

So many things happened but it sometimes feels like 2020 just repeated.

I was reflecting on the late Chinese Ophthalmologist, Li Wenliang. It's the 2nd anniversary of the day he first learned about Covid-19. He was reprimanded by the local police.

On Jan 12, 2020, he went to hospital infected by the virus and died on Feb 7, 2020.

 

Lets not forget Dr Wenliang and the millions of people who have suffered these last 2 years.

I hope 2022 is better for everyone.

DFAM - Moog - Acidish Baseline

 Certainly not a 303 but a really cool baseline.

 

 

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The more I use this box, the more I realise it isn't a drum machine.... well it is ... but...

Oh dear. i might have to buy a second one to be a drum.

Talking Bass

 New Tunes

 

 

....

Allinaire - Northern Beaches Soundscapes

These are a series of five Soundscapes inspired by locations on the Northern Beaches of Sydney. 

The tracks include 'found sounds' and field recordings taken around Narrabeen Lagoon, Turimetta Beach, Warriewood Wetlands and Ingleside Reserve.

 

The first soundscape is titled Lagoon.

 

 

Allinaire · 1:5 Lagoon - Allinaire

 

.... 

The other soundscapes and detailed info of each track can be found here:

https://allinaire.blogspot.com/2021/12/soundscapes.html

Hugo Awards 2021

 Just announced

The Hugo awards for 2021

 

 Network Effect, Martha Wells (Tor.com) - best novel

This book is part of the Murderbot Diaries

The books in the series are:

+ All Systems Red (2017)

+ Artificial Condition (2018)

+ Rogue Protocol (2018)

+ Exit Strategy (2018)

+ The Future of Work: Compulsory (2018)

+ Network Effect (2020)

 + Fugitive Telemetry (2021)

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A Murderbot short story, "The Future of Work: Compulsory", taking place before All Systems Red, was published in Wired in 2018.

 

https://www.wired.com/story/future-of-work-compulsory-martha-wells/

Signum HyperChaos - build part 2 - Nonlinear Circuits

This is part 2 of my build of this Hyperchaos module from NLC.

Signum is Latin for "sign".

The sign function or signum function is an odd mathematical function that extracts the sign of a real number. 

https://youtu.be/T_pGvvyjIkI

Part 1 of the build is here:

https://djjondent.blogspot.com/2021/11/nlc-signum-hyperchaos-build-notes-part-1.html

The module has 6 outputs:

5 different CV outputs and 1 gate output.

(X, Y, Z, Signum W, Inv Z & GATE)

There are 5 inputs

(CV In, In1, In2, SW1, Sw2)

 

 

 

 

IN1 and IN2 are the inputs for the Signum switch, they are also connected via their switching pins to the internal workings of the hyperchaos circuit. 

 

SW2 is also the internal switch for the hyperchaos circuit so if you use this input you will find that switching only occurs with an external signal. 

 

Use SW1 if you want to control the switching of the hyperchaos with an external signal.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The CV IN is associated with the CLIMAX pot which determines how high the peaks go. The module can be greatly influenced by the CV in signal and can exhibit some fairly nutty responses at times.

SW1 & SW2:

the switching signal is +1 or -1. This means you need a signal crossing 0 to make switching occur. A regular gate may or may not work

 

B1M linear taper pot x2

B100K Linear taper pot

 

LEDs I'm using blue ... my fav colour ... just make sure they are all the same colour.

 

It's done

 

Links

+ Wiki

+ BOM

+ NLC Blog

+ John Waters

Synths with digital outputs

This is a list of synths with digital outputs (S/PDIF)  that should work on channe1 7/8 of the Roland MX-1 mixer. S/PDIF is an acronym for Sony/Philips Digital InterFace.

It's unusual that Roland chose to add a digital input to this mixer. Lot's of people complain about this saying its a wasted channel.

Possibly, the reason Roland did this was to allow addition of older digital synths with a S/PDIF output. 

There are two types of SPDIF, coaxial using RCA plugs and optical which uses optical cables.

Roland uses the former.

 

You can of course just use a analog to digital converter if you just want to add an analog synth..

The MX1  needs to be set to the correct sample rate : 96, 48, 44.1 etc that matches the ADC you've purchased.

 

 

Access Virus TI **

Akai MPC 1000

  actually  lots of samplers have digital outs (like my Akai S3200  

Yamaha A3000, A4000, and A5000 samplers

Roland SP 606 sampler

Roland MC-909

Yamaha Motif XF, ES

Proteus 2000 , 2500

Roland V-Synth GT.

CD player - eg Pioneer Nexus 

    Many home audio devices have SPDIF outs...CD/DVD players, MiniDiscs, HDTVs, etc

Waldorf Q Rack

Novation UltraNova

Novation X station

Roland XV5080

Korg Z1

Korg M3

E-mu Samplers ( e6400, e4XT)

E-mu XL-7 Command Station  

Kurzweil K2600, Kurzweil K2661

Fantom X 

Jupiter 80

Arturia Origin **

Oberheim OB12  

Boss DR-880

 

Let me know if there are any mistakes or additions.

I'll add to this list as I find more of these old synths.

NLC - The Big Room - Build notes - part 1

 These are my build notes for the  NLC (non linear circuit) Big room.

This module merges the Polyfusion reverb driver circuit with the NLC Segue for VC panning between wet and dry signals. It also has a VC feedback circuit.

22. Segue - NLC - VC panner/crossfader

The driver circuit was used in the NLC CellF Voice panel.

63. CellF Voice - build notes

You'll need to build a lightproof box. A bit of light leakage is Ok though.

I like to use black electrical tape to reduce the light leakage as much as possible.

Some pics of the bare PCBs

 

072, 13700 -- op amps

These are the op-amps I used to build the Cell Voice

BCM847DS - bipolar matched transistor

BC857 and rectifiers

SMD, Schottky (best option) or standard power rectifier diode 50- 600V 1A or more, dot on PCB indicates CATHODE (stripe on component) Or use a resettable fuse or just a 10R. 

To be continued ................

Links

+ BOM

+ Wiki

Part 2:

  Big room - NLC - Build notes - Part 2

Rumble of Ancient Times (SOMA Lab main DEMO)

....

This looks really fun. Its a standalone 4 voice 8 bit noise synth  .

It's battery powered and can work up to 130 hours on one set of AAA batteries.

Soma abbreviate it to ROAT.

The built-in sequencer can be synced to an external device and also send clock out.

 

" this synth celebrates and emphasizes what can be achieved with efficiency of code and using chips considered obsolete by industry leaders. We live in an age where text editors can be 1GB or more and simple things like checking email require the latest OS and powerful processing, despite the core tasks being no different than 15 years ago with a fraction of the computational power. (SOMAs website) ."

 

So true.

 

 

Product - NLC build notes

 These are my build notes for "product".
Its a NLC eurorack module. Part wavefolder, part VCA

 

It's quite a complex wavefolder as it uses a series of non identical

diode based wavefolders.

Because of this, the wavefolding is not uniform and thus not "neat"

 

datura beer

Datura is a genus of nine species of poisonous, vespertine-flowering plants belonging to the nightshade family Solanaceae. 

 Datura belongs to the classic "witches' weeds," along with deadly nightshade, henbane, and mandrake

TL072 or TL082 3 Soic Tayda: A-1139, one is marked U9 for no reason whatsoever TL074 or TL084 1 Soic Tayda: A-1140 or A-1137 LM13700M

There are lots of diodes.

5V1 zener diodes x 4 

Andrew uses TZMC5V1-GS08

Ive had to order these from mouser, so I won't be able to finish the build till they arrive

Schottky diodes:

MBR0540

Andrew  uses MBR0540 in a sod-123 package. Any with 30V+ and 0.25A+ ratings will do. 

I've ordered this:

863-MBR0540T1G

On order till mid 2022 .

To be continued..............

NLC Product - build notes 2

Links

+ Wiki

+ BOM

Quad Swarm - clocking from abelton

 The swarm syncs really well with analog clocks.

So its great with a modular synth. This is straight out of the box.

 

A really easy way to sync with abelton is using the Touchprone MIDI to Clock module

The swarm manual suggests syncing via midi.

I found this not as easy ... press (noise) tab 8 on startup.. mine seems to lock up.

Maybe im not doing it correctly.???

 

Anyway, this works a treat. 

 

It's unpowered so great  for a portable rig.

 

Fez - 1- Videos Morocco -

 These are videos taken of everyday street life.

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Moog DFAM - Patch Rhythm bass

 Uses the HP filter

Maid serves you the techno Buchla modular live set Feat. Hatsune Miku

Choral Generator - part 3 -NLC

 

This is part 3 of my build of the Choral Generator module from nonlinear circuits..

 

It's a BBD based triple chorus generator.

It is inspired by the Choral generator in the ARP Omni

 The earlier parts are here:

88. Choral Generator - Build notes - part 1  

      Choral generator - NLC - build notes - part 2 

 

Some NLC words of wisdom

 

Experimental raw materials of an experimental nature for art, hobby, industry, science and religion

 Life is one big experiment.

Nothing is guaranteed.

 

Headers to join the two PCbs

 

Trimmers

 

 

The toggle switches can be ON-ON or ON-OFF-ON. These select positive or negative feedback, or off if using the ON-OFF-ON type. The REGEN pot can simply be set to 0 if you don’t want feedback and have used ON-ON switches.

I'll be using just On-On switches

The  B100k pots - linear

 

The BBDs... finally arrived and they work

MN3207

 

"As is, a signal patched into in 1 will be fed thru all 3 BBDs and arrive at out all, so the 3 BBDs operate in parallel as is done on the ARP Omni. The best effect is to modulate them with a 3 phase signal"

Alternatively, the three circuits can be used individually; patching to the inputs will break the internal routing.

 

 

 It's done

 

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

 

.

Links

+ Wiki

+ BOM

elk elektronik - Synth meeting Nov 20, 2021

 Thanks to Ed for hosting the latest Synth meeting last Sat arvo.

These are regular synthesizer & electronic music meetings held in Wollongong, 1.5 hours drive south of Sydney.

 

It was a blast to see my old friends again, listen to some synth talk, live electronic music and see video synths.

 

 Thanks to Chris for bringing & performing with his great LZX setup

It's been many months since the last meeting. COVID has caused the shutdown of much of NSW lately.

Our state is now over 90% double vaccinated so hopefully life can get back to normal & this is the beginning of a open & healthy 2022.

 

Thanks to Andrew for showing us and performing with the Eowave Quadranto Swarm.

Cute puppy ;-)

Thanks to Lachlan from Earthling Designs for the demo of his latest pedal.

https://www.earthlingdesigns.com/store/p4/GLISS_DRIVE_-_GD.01_%28BLACK%29.html

 

 

I think these meetings are being held every 2 months (the 2nd last sat of  the 2nd month).

So the next meeting will happen I understand on the 22nd Jan 2022.

Check Elk Elektroniks for updates & details:

https://www.elkelektronik.com.au/ 

https://www.facebook.com/elkelektronik/  

Youtube

Instagram

 

Address: Shop 3/266-268 Crown St, Wollongong NSW 2500