Thursday, 23 January 2014
Acidic ARP 2600
The Arp sequencer of course sequences the 2600.
The Doepfer Dark Time sequences the TT 303.
The Dark time doesn't have the "accents" or "slides" that the 303's native sequencer
possesses.... Gives the 303 a different character I think.
Some pics of the setup:
Monday, 20 January 2014
Morley Serge - Final restoration pics & notes
I can't wait to have a play with it.
Here are some recent pics of the Serge kindly supplied by Ken Stone.
Here a test run video:
According to Ken there are a few quirks. Osc 1 and 3 track each other relatively well.
The others not so well. They are all very very very early (1st Generation) Serge oscillators ... not 1V/Oct
and we are actually lucky to have any tracking at all. :-)
Whether the VCOs track or not is not a problem. It's all part of
having a vintage paperface. They are fun VCOs all the same.
One Neg Slew is WAY slower than the rest.It was decided to leave
it at that speed because it is of more use for clocks and so on.
More info regarding the Negative Slew can be seen here. :-)
The chaos bank has two inbuilt mixers. One mixes the 8th outputs of each of the three generators. The other mixes steps 5,6,7 of the bottom generator only.
When nothing is plugged into them, the Black inputs of chaos bank pull high, while the red ones pull low. That means if you don't plug something into the black jack, the exclusive or gate is set to invert.
Patching any of the outputs into the red jack then creates a divider, so you
at least get a square wave out of the generator.
Friday, 17 January 2014
ARP 2600 - groove sequence
I've forgotten how great it sounds.
The Doepfer Dark Time modulates the ARP's filter and clocks the 1601
The Doepfer Dark Energy provides some LFO action.
All sounds are live, unprocessed and from the ARP only.
Thursday, 16 January 2014
The Morley Serge - Phaser & Reverb repairs
The VC Phaser has three separate outputs : 1080 degree, 720 degree, and 360 degree of voltage controllable phase shift.
Here is the Phaser data sheet from the 70's
Ken Stone has a great explanation of this circuit here:
Serge Phaser
The Reverb uses 2 spring tanks mounted together in the upper right compartment.
These were originally found to be magnetically cross-talking as each tank's pickup was too close to the other's drive coil.
Here is the Reverb data sheet from the 70's
Testing of phaser & reverb after repairs. (Ken Stone video):
"VCO to mixer.
Phaser out to mixer.
Mixer to reverb.
Reverb to phaser in.
Phaser modulated by second VCO".
Sherman Chaos Bank restoration - part 2
(If you have any info regarding this do shoot me an email).
It was decided to re-arrange the panel. This is always a dilemma - the conflict between preservation of history and returning something to a working state.
So after much deliberation the final panel art chosen was:
The earlier designs were changed in favor of something more "classical" ... in keeping with the rest of the synthesizer artwork, and special aged paper was sourced to blend things into the whole.
I love the final result. Thanks heaps Ken. :-)
I especially like the dual reference to the unicorn. This mythical beast that is Ken Stone's symbol has also been used countless times in medieval Flemish (Belgium) tapestries. Belgium being the birth place of Herman Gillis..........The unicorn is a link between the two.
Here is a test video of the Chaos Bank:
Wednesday, 15 January 2014
Sherman Chaos Bank - David Morley's Serge
I understand that the Chaos Bank was originally designed by Herman Gillis - the man behind the Belgium firm, Sherman (famous for the Sherman filterbank).
This is a very early example of a Chaos bank... extremely interesting from a historical perspective.
It seems that Herman later built 9 Chaosbanks (if any one has more info regarding this please email me so I can correct any errors or omissions).
Prior to restoring the panel these are some of the sounds Ken managed to coax out of it:
The panel layout is unusual especially as much of it was unused.
These +40 year circuits --- are they a short circuit waiting to happen ???
So a decision had to be made --- to leave it as is, or to rebuild.
It was decided to create a new paper panel (without replacing the existing paper), rejack, re-arrange as needed, and finally put that mixer PCB to good use.
The problems with this approach are of course
a) it will change how it looks
b) modern jacks & knobs would have to be used (I would like to keep the components
as original as possible).
Regarding the paper panel. Here are a couple of ideas Ken & I considered:
It was decided to add 2 three-knob mixers to the lower half of the panel. These are to be hard wired to random outputs from the chaos banks. They should allow the creation of some interesting CVs.
Version 2:
Below is an initial test video:
Wednesday, 18 December 2013
Cellular Automata & Music
They were studying crystal growth and of all things, self-replicating robots.
The picture of the above shell is of a Textile Cone or the Cloth of Gold cone. It is a venomous species of sea snail. The colour pattern of its shell resembles a cellular automaton named rule 30
And of course above we have some terminators.:-)
So what has all this got to do with music?
Well, CA exhibits the properties of reproduction and evolution which can readily be observed in nature (and in self replicating robots). Rules 30, 90 & 150 appear to be of special interest among many researchers when applied to music as they produce complex evolving patterns from very simple rules.
Above is panel # 9 from my NLC (Nonlinear Circuit) synth. (The case is under construction at the moment).
It's a analog sequencer based upon the principles of CA.
In 2014 I should have it fully up and running.
There are basically 6 cells/ sequencers. They produce 18 different CV patterns that can be
simple or very complex.
The cells can either be isolated or they can be made to affect their neighbouring cells/sequencers.
You can do this by patching from one into the other/s.
The blue sockets are inputs, and the red outputs.
The the top blue socket on each cell receives the clock (which can be from the same
or a different source). A clock divider will make each cell run at a different speed.
The blue sockets below the clock(CLK) , labeled left & right receive gates.
CVs from each neighbourhood can be summed or subtracted from others.
Here is the user guide.
The sequencer is primarily designed to operate a Serge synthesizer (or a NLC synth) but as most
of my Serge is currently under restoration I've have to test it with a Buchla.
It's interesting though I'm looking forward to testing it with my Serge in 2014.
Here are a few more examples of CA applied to music:
The Nintendo DS (with the R4).
And a Novation Launchpad:
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