Tuesday, 20 February 2018

Tiwanaku - Bolivia

This is a Pre-Columbian archaeological site in western Bolivia.
It was discovered in 1549 by Spanish conquistador Pedro Cieza de León.
It's near Lake Titicata.

 The Gate of the Sun. This megalithic solid stone arch is constructed from a single piece of stone. The weight is estimated to be 10 tons. The inscriptions found on the object are mysterious. They are believed to be either of astronomical and/or astrological significance.
The Gateway is 2.8 metres high and 3.8 metres wide. 
 


The lintel is carved with 48 squares surrounding a central figure. Each square represents a character in the form of winged effigy. There are 32 effigies with human faces and 16 with condors' heads. All look to the central motif: the figure of a man with his head surrounded by 24 linear rays that may represent rays of the sun.
Some historians and archaeologists believe that the central figure represents the “Sun God”, while others have linked it with the Inca god Viracocha.
(Wikipedia).

Most archieologists appear to date the site to around 300BC to AD 300.
The area around Tiwanaku may have been inhabited as early as 1500 BC.


                        Ponce Monolith.

Such statues perhaps represented the race of stone giants which first populated the world in pan-Andean mythology. Gold pins and traces of piant indicate they were once clothed in textiles and decorated with bright colours. The statue is 3.5 metres tall and dates to c. 300 CE.

 The figure holds a kero (qero) or tall beaker in one hand and a staff-like object, perhaps a sceptre or coca snuff tablet, in the other.

Another mega statue.



Kalasasaya, Tiwanaku. This walled compound of sandstone blocks creates a sacred space used for public and religious ceremonies. It measures 130 by 120 metres.   Standing in the precinct is the Ponce Monolith.

 It has stone heads protruding from the interior of its sandstone perimeter walls






Pumapunku.
Kantatallita is one of the most destroyed ruins of Tiwanaku, where we see huge blocks of cut stone in great geometric detail.


Kantatallita Lintel, Tiwanaku, Bolivia

For more travel postcards click here:

Sunday, 11 February 2018

Bindubba sequencer - NLC build notes

This is a wonderful sequencer.
I have one of these in Serge format and can't wait to test the eurorack version.

The colour code for the 4U panel : Blue are inputs. Red are outputs.
This sequencer has two sets of inputs, a CV out, inverted CV out, glide out and 16 gate outs.
There are also two direction inputs to control forward and backward motion, and two reset inputs
Its interesting to have two different clocks. These will form complex patterns.

Here are some pics of the unbuilt Euro panel and PCBs.
The euro version of this sequencer, is designed to be used with the Divide & Conquer clock divider module (Divide and Conquer - build notes), though any two clocks will drive it. It's better if they are random, or running at different speeds.
The Divide & Conq, is also good for modulating the direction.
Something like the Triple Sloths, is good for modulating the horizontal / vertical jumps

The gate outs are useful for triggering drums, envelopes, pinging filters,

Plug modules like The Hypster ( chaos module) into the Slew inputs

Some NLC words of wisdom
Is this a reference to the 1997 film Con Air???? .... Nicolas Cage acted as Cameron Poe, the burdened soldier who just wants to go home. 

I'm using 680 ohm resistors for the LEDs.

I like to install the ICs first.
They are the fiddly bits. CMOS chips used: 4081, 4029, 4052
My vactrols have very variable off resistances....0.9M to 1.2M
I'll probably need to experiment with the caps. i'll stick with the 470nF caps for now as marked on the PCB.




 Protection against plugging in the module backwards. We have all done this once.


Line up the pots .. don't solder yet.

Jacks.



Another one done. :-)


Links:
+ NLC Build notes& BOM
+ NLC wiki - description & usage of the Bin sequencer
+ Bindubba 1 & 3 sequencers with Kilpatrick Phenol
+ NLC blog (old)

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Saturday, 10 February 2018

Make Noise 0-Coast

More west coast I think.

A post shared by jono (@dj_jondent) on
Its a no brainer is you need something serge or buchla like in a small format.



A post shared by jono (@dj_jondent) on
Some initial patches with a Korg SQ-1


Sat arvo Jam - 10th Jan 2017

A great way to spend a Sat arvo with Paul (aka Cobramatic) ,
Messing around with some euro mainly today.   ....and a video synth and a the Makenoise 0-coast.

Paul showed me some great new modules .. two by Intellijel... the Rain maker & Plonk.
These are both digital.

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The Rainmaker.... it a deep complex digital sound processor that can create resonant sounds that go into the "pseudo physical modelling territory". loads of precets.
Its much more than just a delay.
It has 16 taps, each with has its own resonant filter (LP/BP/HP) and granular pitch shifter.
In addition to being able to save the type of filter at each step, you can set resonance & cutoff frequency.
They can even self oscillate . The pitch shifter has a range of +15 semitones to -16 semitones.





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Plonk.
You can probably view this as a drum module that specialises in making percussive sounds... natural and unnatural. I've never really been into digital, but i was impressed with this one. i´m absolutely in no doubt that the Plonk will pair VERY well with a Rings.
The Plonk definitely emits very realistic sounds of the mediums it tries to emulate but it's capable of some very alien sounds too!


It's not a samplier, it uses physical modelling. A microprocessor calculates the type of sound that is produced ...depending on the characteristics of the membrane (called the resonator) and the percussion device (the exciter). 

So its uses mathematical modelling.
Plonk offers several types of resonators: beam; marimba; drumhead; membrane; plate; and string.
There are 2 types of percussion devices: a mallet and a noise source.

There are 128 user preset slots with import/export via USB. These come filled with factory presets designed by Richard Devine and AAS.

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The video synth I tested yesterday ia the new Vidiot by LZX.
It arrived only Friday so I did the big unboxing yesterday.

Here are some quick videos to show you what we came up with in just one arvo.
Lots of variation. I think its a great synth and a good way to begin your journey if you are new to video synths.
Even if you have a big LZX system, I think this is still useful as its size makes it perfect for live gigs.



Tuesday, 6 February 2018

ARSEq - NLC - Build notes

These are my build notes for the ARSEq. It's a Nonlinearcircuits module in Eurorack format.
 ARSEq ( =Attack Release SEquencer). Its a hybrid sequencer and AR envelope generator.

The thing that makes this special and unique is that the envelope needs 2 clock signals to work.. one to start the attack and the next to start the release.
There are 4 clocked envelopes.


NLC words of wisdom.








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When installing the pots, you will need to decide how snappy you want the envelopes to be,
Andrew suggests the best setup is
100k pots for Attack and 1MA pots for Release.
The 100K pots are type B, linear taper.
jACKS , LEDs and pots.
The underside.
Nice one andrew



Notes:
+ NLC BOM & Build notes
+ NLC Blog notes

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You can find more NLC builds here.
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