I just got my hands on a Strega.
(thanks Jonathan).
Most of the videos I've watched show it to be a great drone synth, though I hope I can get more out of it.
It should be good for processing external instruments and generating control voltages for use with other gear.
These are my personal notes to help me get acquainted. As I learn more about the Strega I'll adjust the notes.
Do let me know if I have made any mistakes.
The Strega was designed by MakeNoise & Alessandro Cortini.
Strega is Italian for "witch" .
At first glance its very confusing. I think that the designers intentionally wanted the synth to be obtuse and mysterious. Maybe this was to inspire experimentation.
The patch inputs and outs follow the same convention used in the 0-coast and 0-ctrl
There are in addition lots of touch points (11) which also encourage physical interaction.
The circles / squares are patch points for sources and destinations.
Instead of using cables, you use your body.
circle = source
square = destination
Maybe I can use these patch points with external gear ???
Experiment by connecting more than just two touchplates with your fingers.
Try using your whole hand or two hands to make connections.
Basically there are 4 components:
1.an oscillator with a waveshaper.
2. Lo-Fi Delay
3. Multi-mode Filter
4. Function Generator / LFO / EG
In addition , there is an external audio input & a suboctave generator output.
(at the top of the pic below).
I think the various touch points with the squiggly lines are related to this output ??
I think another way to look at this synth is to divide it into two halves.
The left half is the sound source with a external audio input. This feeds into the right half which is a filter/ delay, feedback.
Turning the blend knob fully counter clockwise , you will hear the raw oscillator Tonic side only.
As you turn clockwise, the right (filter/delay/mayhem) comes into play.
So its basically a wet/dry effect knob.
The sound generation section (TONIC) on the left is brought to life with the activation section
It's a triggered, 4 quadrant, bipolar VCA.
It can be opened up by a control voltage.
It's also responsive to the TIME control.
Use this activate some noise.
To start things off, just turn up the activation knob.till you see the 4 leds start to flash.
Increasing Activation interference adds an element of chaos to the oscillator.
The sound generation section in addition to Activation,
also has TONIC & TONES pots.
You can think of TONE as an oscillator.
It has a variable waveform control.
Tonic controls the oscillator base frequency while
TONES controls harmonics using PWM and wavefolding
On top of this, Strega adds a sub-oscillator derived from
the fundamental pitch (mentioned above).
The jack at the top is one way to access the sub-oscillator.
The other way is via some of the touchplates
(The circles are outputs, the square are inputs)
The delay is really noisy ... in a good crunchy Lo-fi way.
My understanding is that it uses lo-fi chips often used in karaoke machines. PT2399-based ???
There are 3 controls:
TIME, Decay, Absorb.
Adjusting TIME takes you from super short repeats to long overlapping, evolving delays.
The Decay & Absorb knobs give more subtle control over the
delay signal
I think the absorb knob controls the amount of the delay signal that enters the filter
..... ????
It seems that the only way to tame it a bit (though this would be a shame) is with the filter & absorb control.
The filter control is for cutoff.
I think that Absorb comes before the filter in the signal chain. ???
The filter's cutoff can be modulated with the Function generator.
It's hardwired, though this connection can be broken with a patch cable . Turn the knob to "+"
to see the effect.
The white squared input jack is where you plug external CVs to modulate the filter
In some of the Makenoise videos they call the FG an agitator.
The Agitation Function Generator can be an LFO, a triggered function G, or a voltage-controllable sound source.
Don't forget that this synth can also be used as an effect module.
Try plugging in a drum machine. I read somewhere, that the preamp is inspired by the EMS synthi.
Links
MakeNoise - 0-Coast/Control
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