I dug this out of storage today with the intention of selling it.
I haven't used it in years.
This original Bass Station came out in 1992.
It has that cheap black plastic look but I think it still sounds great.
Not too shabby in the TB 0303 emulation department.
Reckon I might just keep this one.
Saturday, 27 January 2018
Friday, 26 January 2018
Tower of David - The Jerusalem Citadel - Israel
Some pics of the Citadel. This is just inside the Jaffa Gate.
The citadel dates back over 2000 years.
The name "Tower of David" was coined by Byzantine Christians who believed the site to be the palace of King David.
A view of the Imperial hotel where I stayed from the Citadel.
Part of the walls & moat of the citadel.
A view of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
For more travel links click here:
http://djjondent.blogspot.com.au/2015/03/travel-postcards-index-my-travel.html
The citadel dates back over 2000 years.
The name "Tower of David" was coined by Byzantine Christians who believed the site to be the palace of King David.
A view of the Imperial hotel where I stayed from the Citadel.
Part of the walls & moat of the citadel.
A view of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
For more travel links click here:
http://djjondent.blogspot.com.au/2015/03/travel-postcards-index-my-travel.html
227r - System Interface
Some initial tests of a Buchla format 227r.
This is a early rev1 that uses vactrols. It's been many years since I first purchased the PCBs but finally it's working with the help of Dave Brown and his wonderful site ModularSynthesis.
http://modularsynthesis.com/roman/buchla227/227si.htm
These days music is generally played in a stereo format but the 227r is all about Quad Sound.
It's quite a wonderful module. The 4 inputs can be assigned to 4 speakers (2 front, 2 rear at the four corners of your room). This is all voltage controllable.
All the sounds are patched out via the card.
I'm considering making a breakout cable so this card doesn't have to be left plugged into the patchbay.
I'm concerned the weight of too many cables could cause damage.
Another option is a make a preconfigured patch card:
This patches my chosen outputs through the Tape1/2 & Aux1/2 at the front of the module.
This is a early rev1 that uses vactrols. It's been many years since I first purchased the PCBs but finally it's working with the help of Dave Brown and his wonderful site ModularSynthesis.
http://modularsynthesis.com/roman/buchla227/227si.htm
Information on this module is rather scarce.A post shared by jono (@dj_jondent) on
These days music is generally played in a stereo format but the 227r is all about Quad Sound.
It's quite a wonderful module. The 4 inputs can be assigned to 4 speakers (2 front, 2 rear at the four corners of your room). This is all voltage controllable.
All the sounds are patched out via the card.
I'm considering making a breakout cable so this card doesn't have to be left plugged into the patchbay.
I'm concerned the weight of too many cables could cause damage.
Another option is a make a preconfigured patch card:
This patches my chosen outputs through the Tape1/2 & Aux1/2 at the front of the module.
Wednesday, 24 January 2018
USB connections
THere are lots of different types of USB connectors and jacks.
In the synth world they are used for a wide variety of applications ... from simple power to data transfer
The jacks can be confusing
These were the first types
A is still the most widely used type of jack.
USB-B micro is commonly found on lots of synths made in the past 5 years
though it seems to be fading out of popularity in favor of type C
It uses a Type-A USB connector for MIDI
This is a 2HP midi module
It uses a USB-B micro socket
The Roland JUo6A boutique synth also uses a USB port: MicroB type for Audio, MIDI.
Older android mobile phones like my Samsung galaxy note 5 used this connector.
THis has the advantage that you can plug your cable any orientation.
Most android mobile phones like my Samsung Galaxy 9 use this type of connector.
Many of these connectors supply power to your module.
It's handy to know what is what
The first two connectors (A + B) had just
four connections.
1 = +5V
2 = Data -
3 = Data +
4 = GND
The Mini & Micro cables added a 5th connector called
"ID". This helped distinguish cable ends.
So for the Mini/Micro USB A & B
1 = +5V
2 = Data -
3 = Data +
4 = ID
5 = GND This is the Teenage Enginering OP-z
It uses the Type-C connector
The OP-1 used type B-micro
Wednesday, 17 January 2018
Modular Eurorack Compressor
There are plenty of off the shelf compressors you can buy.
However by building one yourself, you'll learn the principles of how they work.
You can actually build a compressor with a envelope follower, a an
inverter and a VCA.
A modular compressor is essentially a voltage
controlled envelope follower tied to a VCA.
The 4 basic components:
1. Mult
2. VCA (linear preferably but a exp VCA will work too)
3. Inverter / attenuverter
4. envelope follower
First split the signal into two.
a. the original signal (A) to be compressed.
b. the side chain detector signal (B)
Signal A --> envelope follower ----> inverter ------> CV input of VCA
Signal B --------> audio input of VCA
The fun thing about building your own compressor is varying the components.
The VCA for example could be vactrol based LPGs
You could use a Make Noise Maths. It could perform the envelope follower & voltage inverter tasks.
A serge DUSG could do this as well, as could the Doepfer VCS( A-171-2).
This is a patch for compressing a bass drum
In this example channel 4 is acting like a slew limiter.
It's output is plugged into the input of channel 3. It's in inverter mode.... creating an inverted
version of channel 4.
Chanel 2 of the maths is simply amplifying the straight audio of the bass drum.
It's then going into the second audio input of the VCA.
I'm using the HP filter to remove some of the lower frequencies. I could also use an EQ.
The delay has lots of CV inputs which could be modulated with LFOs, the Maths, sequencers, or EGs.
The Doepfer A-119 envelope follower has a voltage comparator with a gate output that can be used to trigger envelopes.
Of course the signal processed in the VCA doesn't have to be the same signal that is being analysed by the envelope follower. The open architecture of a modular synthesizer allows you to design any kind of side-chain compression scenario your heart desires.
Its just 5HP and contains two Envelope Followers with inverted and non-inverted
Envelope Follower Output. There is also a Compressor CV Output with indication LED
(only negative voltage when envelope is greater than the threshold.
When the Compressor CV is plugged into CV input of a VCA with offset and attenuator knobs you get an Compressor!
Extra modules that would come in handy
5. mixer
6. Slew Limiter
7. EQ
8. filters
9. comparator
Links
Friday, 12 January 2018
Timers and interrupts - basic using timerOne library
Timers
Many arduino functions use timers.
Mostly, they are hidden.
The Uno, running the ATmega328 has 3 timers: Timer 0,1,2.
It's a square wave produced by this crystal on the left.
This clock can be directly or indirectly connected to the timers.
16Mhz is the max speed that the timers can increment their counters.
However we can control the speed of the timers using what is called a prescaler.
The prescaler divides the clock
Each of these timers, count up till they reach a max counter value.
They then tick back to zero. This is called overflow.Timer0:
TCNT0 (Timer Counter 0)
Timer0 is a 8bit timer.
Timer0 is a 8bit timer.
Thus it can store a maximum counter value of 255.
It's used in functions like Delay(), Millis(), Micros() .
analogWrite() pins 5,6
Timer0 is already set up to generate a millisecond interrupt
to update the millisecond counter reported by millis().
Timer1:
TCNT1 (Timer Counter 1)
Timer1 is a 16bit timer.
Timer1 is a 16bit timer.
Thus it can store a maximum counter value of 65535.
It's used by the servo library
analogWrite() pins 9,10
Timer2:
TCNT0 (Timer Counter 0)
Timer2 is a 8bit timer
This counts from zero to 255.
It's used by the tone() function.
analogWrite() pins 3,11
Interrupts
An interrupt is a mechanism for performing an immediate action , irrespective of whatever else
the program is doing.
You can think of it as something extra that runs in the background while your Arduino is
executing the main body of code. It will do this extra thing at certain pre-determined times.
There are 2 types of interrupts.
1. Hardware
2. Software
Hardware interrupts happen, based on something happening on a pin.
(Eg a certain pin goes high or low)
Software interrupts happen at certain times.
This can be pretty useful as the interrupt allows you to pause the events taking place in the
loop() at precisely timed intervals.This allows the program to execute a
separate set of commands.
Once these commands are done the Arduino
picks up again where it was in the loop().
It's important to not make your interrupts complicated, otherwise it may pause
the rest of your program for too long.
Interrupts are meant to be short and sweet.
Interrupts can generally be enabled / disabled with the function interrupts() / noInterrupts() .
By default in the Arduino firmware interrupts are enabled. THis circuit uses just two 220 ohm resistors, two LEDs.
The anode of the LEDs connect to pins 9 & 10 (via the resistors).
Cathode to gnd.
For this first bit of code , we are using the TimerOne library.
This is a 3rd party library. It's the easy way to write your own timer interrupt service routines.
Timer1 gives finer PWM control and/or running an periodic interrupt function
Author: Jesse Tane, Jérôme Despatis, Michael Polli, Dan Clemens, Paul Stoffregen.
Timer1 gives finer PWM control and/or running an periodic interrupt function
Author: Jesse Tane, Jérôme Despatis, Michael Polli, Dan Clemens, Paul Stoffregen.
The code:
//&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
/*
This program mixes the delay function with timer interrupts
Uses two digital pins & two LEDs
*/
#include <TimerOne.h>
String LEDStatus="OFF";
// using pins 10 & 9
// the red led is using delay
// Green LED uses interrupt
int GreenLED=10;
int RedLED=9;
int redDelay=1000;//millisecs
void setup()
{
pinMode(GreenLED, OUTPUT);
pinMode(RedLED,OUTPUT);
This program mixes the delay function with timer interrupts
Uses two digital pins & two LEDs
*/
#include <TimerOne.h>
String LEDStatus="OFF";
// using pins 10 & 9
// the red led is using delay
// Green LED uses interrupt
int GreenLED=10;
int RedLED=9;
int redDelay=1000;//millisecs
void setup()
{
pinMode(GreenLED, OUTPUT);
pinMode(RedLED,OUTPUT);
// Timer setup code is done inside the setup(){} function in an Arduino sketch.
// initialize the interrupt, specifying what time frame you want it to “interrupt” on,
// and then what you want it to do when the interrupt alarm goes off.
Timer1.initialize(200000); //0.2 secs ... millimicrosecs
Timer1.attachInterrupt( FlashGreenLED );
Serial.begin(9600);
}
void loop()
{
digitalWrite(RedLED, HIGH);
delay(redDelay);
digitalWrite(RedLED, LOW);
delay(redDelay);
}
void FlashGreenLED() // void = function
{
if (LEDStatus=="ON"){
digitalWrite(GreenLED,LOW);
LEDStatus="OFF";
return;
}
if (LEDStatus=="OFF"){
digitalWrite(GreenLED,HIGH);
LEDStatus="ON";
return;
}
}
// &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Links
+ https://www.instructables.com/Arduino-Timer-Interrupts/
+ https://toptechboy.com/arduino-lesson-28-tutorial-for-programming-software-interrupts/ This is a good link for the TimerOne library
Monday, 8 January 2018
Roland Jam - 100m, Aria TR8, MX 1
A quick and fun jam.
I love Roland gear, new and old.
I'm using Aria gear TR-8 drum & a MX 1 mixer and some old Roland 100m modules.
Apologies for the neck cramps.Couldn't work out how to rotate the video.
I love Roland gear, new and old.
I'm using Aria gear TR-8 drum & a MX 1 mixer and some old Roland 100m modules.
Apologies for the neck cramps.Couldn't work out how to rotate the video.
Wednesday, 3 January 2018
Hyve Touch Synthesizer - Tonnetz keyboard
I'm exploring the Hyve's upper keyboard. This is not your familiar black/white piano.
Apart from it not having any moving parts, it's arranged in a lattice structure.
This is a network representing tonal space "first described by the mathematician Leonhard Euler in 1739.Various visual representations of the Tonnetz can be used to show traditional harmonic relationships in European classical music".
It's all about chords and harmonies. Each note is harmonically related to its adjacent notes.
Straight up is a perfect 5th (a interval spanning 7 semitones), up to the right is a major 3rd (a interval of 4 semitones), and up to the left is a minor 3rd (interval of 3 semitones).
So the way it's arranged is if you play any note in a straight line from top to bottom, or bottom to top, it will play in perfect 5ths.
If you play notes going up to the right you will have a augmented pattern (it will go up or down in Major 3rds).
And playing notes to the left will have a diminished pattern (Minor thirds).
This layout of neighbouring fifths and thirds also makes it easy to form major and minor seventh, ninth, 11th and 13th chords.
It seems that all the most important scales — major, minor, chromatic, whole‑tone, diminished, blues, etc — have logical and distinctive patterns that basically climb rightwards and up.
============================================================
How it forms chords is really interesting.
I'm starting by looking at how it groups the Major Triads.
These are the most common chords and are built by adding the third and fifth notes in the scale above a starting note (root). For example, in C major, the triad built on C contains:
G Major: G B D
---------------------------------------
Minor Triads
In C minor, the triad on C is built the same way:
C Minor Triad : C Ef G
C-sharp Minor Triad : C# E G#
D Minor Triad : D F A
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As discussed earlier, this layout of neighbouring fifths and thirds also makes it easy to form major and minor seventh, ninth, 11th and 13th chords.
First the 7th & 9th chords.
The C Major 7th Chord is C E G B
The C Major 9th chord is C E G B D
--------------------------------------------------------
The C major 11th chord is C E G B D F
---------------------------------------
The C major 13th chord (drawn in light green) is C E G B D F A
===========================================================
The minor chords now.
Below are just random examples.
The G-minor 7th chord interval is: G A# D F (G Bf D F)
The E-minor 9th chord interval is: E F# G B D
The C minor 13 chord contains C, E♭ , G, B♭, D, F and A♭ (C D# G A# D F G#) as on the diagram below:
Apart from it not having any moving parts, it's arranged in a lattice structure.
This is a network representing tonal space "first described by the mathematician Leonhard Euler in 1739.Various visual representations of the Tonnetz can be used to show traditional harmonic relationships in European classical music".
It's all about chords and harmonies. Each note is harmonically related to its adjacent notes.
Straight up is a perfect 5th (a interval spanning 7 semitones), up to the right is a major 3rd (a interval of 4 semitones), and up to the left is a minor 3rd (interval of 3 semitones).
If you play notes going up to the right you will have a augmented pattern (it will go up or down in Major 3rds).
And playing notes to the left will have a diminished pattern (Minor thirds).
This layout of neighbouring fifths and thirds also makes it easy to form major and minor seventh, ninth, 11th and 13th chords.
It seems that all the most important scales — major, minor, chromatic, whole‑tone, diminished, blues, etc — have logical and distinctive patterns that basically climb rightwards and up.
How it forms chords is really interesting.
I'm starting by looking at how it groups the Major Triads.
These are the most common chords and are built by adding the third and fifth notes in the scale above a starting note (root). For example, in C major, the triad built on C contains:
- C (the root)
- E (the third note above C; often called just "the third")
- G (the fifth note above C; often called just "the fifth")
C major: C E G
F Major : F A C---------------------------------------
Minor Triads
In C minor, the triad on C is built the same way:
- C (the root)
- E♭ (the third note above C; often called just "the third")
- G (the fifth note above C; often called just "the fifth")
C Minor Triad : C Ef G
As discussed earlier, this layout of neighbouring fifths and thirds also makes it easy to form major and minor seventh, ninth, 11th and 13th chords.
First the 7th & 9th chords.
The C Major 7th Chord is C E G B
The C Major 9th chord is C E G B D
--------------------------------------------------------
The C major 11th chord is C E G B D F
---------------------------------------
The C major 13th chord (drawn in light green) is C E G B D F A
===========================================================
The minor chords now.
Below are just random examples.
The G-minor 7th chord interval is: G A# D F (G Bf D F)
The E-minor 9th chord interval is: E F# G B D
The C minor 13 chord contains C, E♭ , G, B♭, D, F and A♭ (C D# G A# D F G#) as on the diagram below:
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