Monday, August 27, 2007

Sad news

I just read about the passing of Daniel Hansson, co-founder of Elektron and designer of the SidStation, MachineDrum, and MonoMachine. He apparently died as a result of a car accident. He was only 33.

It's very odd, I was just thinking about making a post about my MachineDrum, which is an incredible piece of gear and one of my favorite items, prior to reading this.

My condolences go out to everyone @ Elektron and of course, Daniel's family.

I think a session with the MachineDrum tonight is required in memorial.

Sunday, August 26, 2007

Dual Cyclotron Video Demo

The camera will still all setup this morning, so I thought I'd churn out a quick demo for the Dual Cyclotron.

Turned out to be not so quick; it's slightly longer than the Model 24 demo.

There is a correction necessary. During the video I mention that we're listing to the sine wave output of the Dalek Modulator...it was actually the square wave. :p



Enjoy.

Saturday, August 25, 2007

DalekAcapella

This patch came from a few tweaks to the final patch I did in the Model 24 video demo.

The Model 24 Stepped output is modulating the frequency of the Dalek Modulator's carrier oscillator. It turns out there is some cross-talk between the Carrier and Modulator oscillators if one of them is in High freq mode and the other is in Low; that's what's causing the vibrato that you hear. This vibrato frequency from the Modulator is being modulated in turn by the Dual Cyclotron.

The output of the Dalek is going through the Frequensteiner, which is being modulated by the MIN output of the Vulcan Modulator, making little filter sweeps.

The main VCA is being opened by a Model 10 EG, which is being triggered by the eight note output of the Model 28 Tap Clock. The Time-Base of the Attack and Decay is being modulated by the Smooth output of the Model 24. The End-of-Cycle trigger output of the Model 10 is triggering the next random voltage value on the Model 24.

What I find particularly cool about this patch is that a lot of it's characteristics are due to "quirky" behavior of a few of the modules. Specifically, the cross-talk between the two oscillators in the Dalek (causing the vibrato) as well as the fact that the Model 10 does not re-trigger until the Attack and Decay cycles have finished. It's because of this that the Model 10 is not being re-triggered on every eighth note pulse that comes out of the Model 28 Tap Clock. This, combined with the modulated Time-Based of the Attack and Decay, makes it sound very natural, almost as if someone were singing; holding some notes longer than others.

:D



Enjoy.

Model 24 Heisenberg Generator Demo

I finally got around to making another video demo...hopefully it won't be as long until the next one.



Enjoy.

[update] I had to re-upload the video...the first video didn't have any audio...because I'm retarded and had it off in the export settings.

Saturday, August 11, 2007

TehSpooky

This is a patch I did last night while using the Plan B Model 24 in a traditional S+H configuration. The sample voltage was coming from the Dual Cyclotron and the clock was from the 8th note output of the Model 28 Tap Clock; this S+H voltage is controlling the pitch of the carrier on the Dalek Modulator (the modulator is a slower smoothed square wave...giving that tremolo effect). The 1/4 note output of the Model 28 is opening the master amplitude VCA, so in effect what you hear is two changes in pitch each time the VCA opens.

I think the Model 10 EG was used to sweep the filter too...I can't remember now that I took the patch apart :p

Enjoy.

Tuesday, August 07, 2007

Model 28 problem

When I got my Model 28, I noticed that the Select input didn't seem to be working correctly. At the time I figured the voltage I was putting into it wasn't the scale that it wanted and reminded myself to check it out later (I was trying to have fun after all, not debug stuff).

Well, it turns out there is something wrong with it. Peter posted to the yahoo group notifying us that the first 15 units shipped with a mis-programmed microprocessor which handles the switching of pulses based on the voltage in the Select input.

Basically those of us with these Model 28s have to send back the microprocessor for re-programming. Not a huge deal I guess. Hopefully I'll be able to still use the other functions of the Model 28 without it...but I'm kinda doubting that.

Click the link above to see the post on the Yahoo group.

Monday, August 06, 2007

correction

I just wanted to post a correction on what I said about the Doepfer A-105 SSM LP filter in my last post. It doesn't use a Curtis (CEM) chip, but rather the SSM2044 (you would have thought that obvious huh?).

Anyway, it was used in the early Prophets as well as in the Mono/Poly (one of my faves), it's just not a Curtis chip. I had thought the Sequential stuff had always used the CEM chips, but that apparently wasn't until later.

If you click the product link above, you'll get the full rundown.

In other, yet related, news, I believe this is my new favorite filter, at least for LP. I certainly like it's character for traditional LP sounds more than the FrequenSteiner. I'm going to reserve final judgment until I have some saw waves to run through them both, but so far the SSM wins for LP sounds (the FrequenSteiner still has some of the meanest BP and HP sounds I've heard).