Sunday, 18 June 2017

Modular in the (Car)park

So excited about the inaugural Modular in the Car Park.

This will be held on Sunday July 16th, 12noon to 4pm.
The event is open to anyone with a synth.. modular, keyboards, drum machines, etc.
It's undercover so will be held rain, hail, snow or shine.
Please contact me , Andrew, Rory, Claude S,  here, by Facebook or
phone to Prosound & Lighting (02 4226 1177).
Many thanks to Claude Spinelli of Prosound & Lighting for hosting this.

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The address is 16 Flinder's Street Wollongong, 2500
Directions

On street carparking & close to North Wollongong Train Station.

The Modular in the Carpark Facebook page is here

Saturday, 17 June 2017

Roland 121 filter & 521

A viewer requested a comparison between the Roland eurorack 521 and the vintage 121.


My understanding is that the  521 filter is not meant to be a clone of the vintage 121m
The docs state it was inspired by both the Roland system 100m and the 700m.
I like the sound of both 521 & 121.
Well done Malekko & Roland.
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The 121 has a lovely bubbly character.
Possibly due to the BA662A OTA (Operational Transconductance Amplifier).
It's actually a VCA chip that Roland also used in the TB303.


The BA662A is long obsolete so I wonder what replacement was used in the 521

 This is from the TB303 service manual.
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The OTA is a flexible chip... used in the NLC Dual OTA-VCO
and the Cluster matrix mixer
What the OTA  shares with your common Op-Amp is:
1. a single output.
2. They both have inverting & non-inverting inputs.
3. They both have power lines (V+ & V-)

What makes the OTA different is that it has 2 extra inputs (Ibias & Iabc)
and it's output is a current not a voltage.
So, to put it another way, a OTA is a voltage to current amplifier.
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Roland 100m - first pics

Finally .... a Roland 100m.
I loved the Eurorack 521 filter so much I decided to seek out the source.
 
Many thanks to Mark G.

This is a standard setup ...what Roland refer to as a D-set.
Consists of:

112 Dual VCO, with 3 CV ins, 2 outs, and weak/strong sync
121 Dual VCF, with low-pass and high-pass filters with 24 dB/oct slope
130 Dual VCA with a linear/exponential switch
140 Dual ENV + LFO, (ADSR, invertable, and manual gate button) and LFO (5 waveforms with switchable range: x1, x1/10)
150 Ring Mod, Noise (pink and white), S&H (with lag), and LFO (5 waveforms with switchable range: x1, x1/10)

The 121 VCF is a dual 24 dB Lowpass OTA filter that has Roland's warm, bubbley filter characteristics.


The System 100m offers over 20 modular components to pick and choose to design a custom modular set-up.
There were originally just six modules in the series (released in 1979).
These were the 110, 112, 121, 130, 140, 150.
The 110 was a "voice module" combining a VCO,VCF & VCA in one package.

A further four were released over the next five years (starting in 1980).
These were the
131 (four channel output mixer)  4 X 2 X 1, with panning and a tuning oscillator (220/440/880Hz)
132 Dual CV/audio mixer/ voltage processor.
172 Phaser/gate/delay
182 sequencer

I've read that Roland had plans for a further nine modules but cancelled most of these.
After 1983 they did produce:
160 - Computer interface. (No idea what it does. I saw one for sale in 0ct 2011 so it does exist)

165 - Double Portamento Controller, with CV in
173 - Quadruple Signal Gate and six 4-way Multiples
174 - Parametric Equalizer, four-band, with 20Hz to 20kHz center frequencies.

These appeared just before the company deleted the range.
The cancelled modules were :
111 - VCO/VCF
120 - VCF/VCA
141 - dual envelope, gate delay & inverter/adder
170 - Pitch/Voltage Converter, Envelope Follower, and Audio Amplifer

The System 100m has 3 rack sizes, the M-190 holds 3 modules, the M-191 and M-191J hold 5 modules. Each rack provides the necessary 8-pin DIN power connectors and internal CV/gate connections between the modules
System 100M 8 pin DIN plug connections are as follows:
Pin 1 negative 15 volts....blue
Pin 2 positive 15 volts.....red
Pin 3 LED +22 ???....orange
Pin 4 Gate (NC)
Pin 5 trigger (NC)
Pin 6 LED gnd (NC).....green
Pin 7 PSU/ground.....black
Pin 8 CV ....yellow
This might come in handy if you need to build your own rack

The Roland 181m keyboard also needs to be powered from the case.
Its a similar DIN connector.
Six pins, not eight.


My 184m keyboard has it's own wall plug and internal PS.

This is a 191J  five-module rack with multiple connectors on its base.

Yangon Burma 2016 pics

Yangon served as the capital of Myanmar (Burma) until 2006, when the military government relocated the capital to the purpose-built city of Naypyidaw in central Myanmar. With over 7 million people, Yangon is Myanmar's largest city and is its most important commercial centre.

Yangon boasts the largest number of colonial-era buildings in the region, and has a unique colonial-era urban core that is remarkably intact.

The Sofaer and Co. building in downtown Rangoon was completed by Isaac and Meyer Sofaer in 1906. Both brothers were Baghdad-born.




High tea at the Strand Hotel. Opened in 1901.
It was built by the British entrepreneur John Darwood but later acquired by the Sarkies brothers, who owned a number of luxury hotels in the Far East, including the Raffles Hotel in Singapore and the Eastern & Oriental Hotel in Penang, Malaysia.

 The Myanmar Port Authority.

The colonial-era commercial core is centred around the Sule Pagoda, which reputed to be over 2,000 years old and contains a hair relic of the Gautama Buddha.


 The city is also home to the gilded Shwedagon Pagoda — Myanmar's most sacred Buddhist pagoda.



The mausoleum of the last Mughal Emperor is located in Yangon, where he had been exiled following the Indian Mutiny of 1857.







Wednesday, 7 June 2017

Deleting print jobs - windows

This is a useful thing to know.
How to delete print jobs ... if you have accidently hit the print all button on a 1000 page document.
This is relevant for windows 10

You can either use:
1. Command prompt
2. Services window.

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

1. Command prompt
I think the command prompt works the best.
You must do this as the administrator.

Right-click the Start button.

    Click Search.

    Type Command prompt.

    Right-click Command prompt.

    Click Run as administrator.




Type :
net stop spooler
and hit Enter on your keyboard.




    Launch File Explorer from your Start menu, taskbar, or desktop.



    Click the address bar in the File Explorer window.

    Type
C:\Windows\System32\Spool\Printers
    and hit Enter on your keyboard.

 Delete. all the files in the printers folder

    You can now return to the Command Prompt to restart the Print Spooler.




    Type net start spooler and hit Enter on your keyboard.


-------------------------------------------------
#stuck print job, cue que, printer won't stop printing
print queue delete cancel

Monday, 5 June 2017

Cluster Matrix Mixer - NLC build notes.

These are my build notes for the NonLinearCircuit Cluster Matrix mixer module.
It's 42Hp Eurorack format. The mixer has 8 ins & 4 outs.
 
Lots and lots of SMD here so be warned. This could take a while to put together :-)

Andrew's build notes are here.
http://www.sdiy.org/pinky/data/CLUSTER%20guide%20&%20%20BOM.pdf

The NLC blog has some pics that might be useful.
http://nonlinearcircuits.blogspot.com.au/2015/03/cv-controlled-matrix-mixer.html

Some NLC words of wisdom.

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Back to the build.
My PCB is version 2.
So only two mods need to be made. Check out Andrew's build notes for more details.
A trace needs to be cut where the yellow line is.
I've also circled it in the image below.

There are 32 VCAs

It uses 16 of these  NJM13700M s:
Mouser cart 

The NJM13700M is a Transconductance Amplifier or an OTA (Operational
Transconductance Amplifiers)
It has 3 input pins (V+ & V- like in standard Op amps plus a 3rd input)
 In the above example the pins are respectively, 3, 4, & 1.

The output of an OTA is not a voltage like in a standard opamp. It's a current.
(Now I understand the Tesla vs Edison quote. It's a reference to the AC Vs DC battle). 
The gain of the OTA is controlled by this 3rd input pin.
 It seems that Andrew has used these 16 Dual OTAs to build the 32 VCAs.

If I'm reading this circuit correctly The TL074 acts as the current to voltage converter.
The output of the OTA feeds into the regular Op-amp which has its feedback loop.
This effectively has infinite input impedance.
Since the original input of the OTA is inverting, the final output of the TL074 is non inverted.

 I like to get all the IC's on first.

 Then the rest of the passive components.


 These are the mods needed for rev2 PCBs.

Pots first. These are all B100k.

Jacks next.

The first mod wire broke and removed some of the PCB trace.
So I reattached it further down.


Initally there was a slight hum on the top channel .... channel A.
Andrew suggested checking the channel A 470R resistors are soldered properly to ground, same or any opamp pins that should be going to ground.

I touched up Pins 3 & 4 of the 13700m VCAs. This fixed the hum.

Nice one Andrew.

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You can find more NLC builds here.
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