The Modern Implement Company

Controllers for Electroniums

INTRODUCTION:
Two questions...

Why is this here?

The block diagrams were presented to Grant Richter in order to clarify ideas that I was discussing with him. I was flattered (and a bit skittish) when Grant asked for permission to publish them here. When I saw my hackneyed schemes on a web page, I confess to a bit of embarrassment. Grant professes that my concoctions are meritorious in their way. He's a 'big-tent' theorist.

Nevertheless, I would be plain foolish to demur from the de facto encouragement of Grant's efforts on my behalf and I'm too fat and homely to play the coquette convincingly anyway. Grant has asked that I augment the pictures with commentary text and it would be ungracious to decline.

But I offer one honest disclaimer: The block diagrams, like all my documentation, were drawn as insurance against my own creeping senility and designed for an audience of one; me. They were intended as components of repair manuals for myself and not really as expositions of my design naivete'. - I'm not sure that my smartass commentary will SUBTRACT from the confusion! But we'll see...

Do your designs 'work'?

No... they play.

At work- I make my living as designer of 'wares' (soft to firm to hard) for business applications. In terms of design, this realm rewards- cowardice (unless you count the courage it takes to brazenly pilfer a competitors design) conventionality (you don't want to disorient your customers.. or your marketing dept.) and economy (when it breaks they'll have to buy another one) My designs for Modern Implement are a deliberate tonic for this pallid ethic.

They are not designed for 'production' in any way. I will purposely devise circuitous, rococo Rube Goldberg-style kluges just to see what they do and use them (and their quirks) just because I already built them. It is a design-ANTI-philosophy constructed of caprice and Ars Gratia Artis. If I apply one rule, it is simply that the module do something that amuses me.

I normally work 'in-vivo', on a proto-board with the output of the circuit connected to my trusty , amazingly tolerant Arp 2600 so that I can immediately hear the result of each tweak. After a good many years the process has become very intuitive, improvisational and wellÉ. Downright fun! IÕve been accused (at least the accuser considered it an accusation) of doing 'barely more than circuit-bending'.

That's a fair cop and no insult to me. As an antidote for the Harrison Bergeron world of commercial design, it works GREAT! As a footnote: In general I stick to CV modules. They have gargantuan tolerances and are much less fussy than audio modules. I can be less careful and just wail. It's like singing acapella . It's harder to tell a grace note from an error.

The FPBCVG is really a just a big patch that has been integrated and optimized in one module. The basic premise is a sample and hold triggered by a very complex train of pulses. The triggering pulse train is produced by recursive stages of sample/hold, each of which are brought out on the panel.

Thus , the outputs get more complex from left to right on the panel. The output waveform is designed to model by wife's earring decision process in the last 10 minutes before leaving Mabuse Manor for a theoretical soiree'.

Goldberg Function Generator

(And Variants)

A Goldberg function is what comes out of a shift-register when you use it wrong. Stick a couple of independent irregular pulse trains into the clock and data inputs of a CD4015 and translate the output with DAC. For extra fun, wire a switch (or a flip-flop) that arbitrarily swaps the inputs. The panel pictured here is of revision 1.

The block diagram for this revision is labeled 'Original Goldberg Function Generator Block diagram'. The 2-part block diagram is of the latest (and final -I don't like to backtrack) revision.

The essential addition was a switching matrix that allows either of the shift registers to access any combination of the internal (or external) pulse trains. In the Goldberg matrix diagram, sharp-eyed logic jockeys will notice that the user is not restricted from several combinations that will 'flood' the shift-registers and lock the output into a static state. I like to give the user enough rope to hang myself.

Melodee Maker

The Melodee Maker design is another example of a CV module that encapsulates a patch that I use routinely.

It starts with a sample and hold in which both pitch and time intervals can be independently randomized. Sine wave tremolo is added is summed in; again, with variably randomized frequency and amplitude. In the final stage a low audio frequency signal (again, with variably randomized frequency and amplitude) is summed-in to the final signal.

The whole shebang is optimized for pitch control (but other applications are available, of course) and it earns it's rack space well with odd meandering melody lines with a nice quasi-vocal quality.

The Melodee Maker also served as a chance to get some practice using the LM137000 OTA's . The design also requires gobs of independent random CV sources. I developed a very compact block that yields 4 completely independent sample/hold CV's from a single common noise source.

It is based on the deliciously elegant 'psycho LFO' by Ken Stone. If you've never visited Mr. Stone's Catgirl synth site, do yourself a favor and search the web with the keywords: Ken Stone Catgirl synth. You'll be glad you did!

Mrs. Sputterworks

Mrs. Sputterworks is a very idiosyncratic design. It's one of those designs that I'm fairly convinced that only I would find useful (much less worth the effort of building).

The basic idea is to put in a single trigger pulse and output a pattern of pulses, 'in response'. The pattern does not repeat but the user can set parameters for overall duration, overall density, rate of change in density and 'type of change' (ie start dense and sputter out, or start sparse and get dense, like popcorn).

The design uses ramp generators to lift a band of variable density noise toward and away from the threshold of a very narrow window comparator.

During the 'construction' phase, my faithful old 2600 was not available so I rigged-up a little hi-Q resonant ÔknockerÕ circuit to give me audio feed back of the pattern of output pulses as I experimented. (this circuit is based on some experimental ideas published by the venerable Bernie Hutchins in Electronotes #111). With the addition of a degree of voltage controlled pitch, the circuit insinuated itself into the finished module.

The Wiggle Box

Wigglebox II

The wigglebox is a very early design (circa 1997). Essentially, 2 Joysticks.

Joystick 1 outputs CVs for each vector. Also, the vertical vector controls the speed of a triangle-wave LFO 'Z'. The horizontal vector controls the crossfade of a complex output between LFO 'Z' and a sample and hold CV triggered by a combination of 2 LFO's ('X' & 'Y') controlled by the other joystick.

Joystick 2 controls the speed of LFO's 'X' and 'Y'. These LFOs trigger the Sample/hold for the complex output and output their own triangle waves as well.

The wigglebox is implemented as a stand-alone unit as opposed to a racked module and I use it mainly as a controller for the S.N.O.

The Jackelope

Jackelope

The jackelope is the first device to come from a 'discussion in solder' between Grant and myself on alternate conceptions of an envelope generator. At it's core, the jackelope is 7 analog gates that open sequentially. The duration of the sweep of all 7 stages (time base) is CV controlled.

The proportional duration of each stage is set by a row of 7 sliders. The 7 gates have jacks as inputs to allow external signals in. They are DC coupled but the jackelope can be used as a '1 of 7' audio mixer. I normalled a scheme of 5 sub-audio function generators to the 7 stages: stage 1 to a ramp generator, stages 2 & 4 to an LFO, stage 3 to another ramp generator, stages 5 & 7 to another LFO, and stage 6 to a free-running LFO.

All of these sources except stage 6 are synced to start with the input gate. There is also an auxiliary output that sums various of these sources into complex functions according to the combinations of a 3-bit binary buss counting up to 8.

The name 'Jackelope' (a mythical creature from way out west with the body of a jackrabbit and the horns of an antelope) alludes to this gadget's hermaphrodite aspects. It's neither an envelope nor a sequencer but still some of both.

For my part, I don't care what conventions of nomenclature apply to it. I just know that it squirts evolving patterns of complex CV's that far outstrip the capabilities of my original concept. Like it's namesake, this critter can raise dust all the way to the horizon!

Envelooper Riff #2

Riff 2 The design brainstorm about alternate envelopes has left me short on names, which is why this module got little more than a number for a moniker.

This device uses a conventional ADSR but sums in a patterned (or un-pattered) 'wiggly bit' during the sustain and release phases. I won't discuss the ADSR component because that is very commonplace now. But the device that makes the wiggly bit during the 'S' & 'R' of the ADSR is a my old standby shift register.

The gimmick with this device is that a pattern of pulses is created by a VC clock controlled by the attack and decay phases of the envelope. This pattern is fed into the data input of the shift register and then the input is 'locked' into a cycle mode and the resultant looping pattern is summed with the sustain and release phases of the envelope.

I also implemented a 'wild' mode in which the shift register is never locked into a circular register and the varying clock patterns are simply summed with the ADSR out put .

A Small Nuclear Orchestra

SNO

This luggable agglomeration of modular mischief was dubbed Small Nuclear Orchestra by Grant Richter.

It currently contains:

Wiard: Borg Filter, Sequantizer, Omni Filter, Envelator and Mini-Wave
Blacet: DarkStar Chaos, Klangwerk
Doepfer: A-110 (VCO)
Paia: 9700 seies dual VCO and midi to CV converter including a midi clock.
Serge: Quad VCA An 8-channel line mixer And a pear-tree mounted partridge
(!) all of the above are modified to some degree or another.

A few were re-packaged to get them shoehorned into tight corners. Some were drastically modified to suit my application needs. There are home brew modules integrated too: Noise source, 2 VC-clocks, 2 Schmitt-triggers, 2, sample/holds, A VC-frequency divider, A triggered sequential binary frequency divider, variously curved attenuators and a cable tester

All of this is packed like a Tokyo commuter train in an 8U SKB case. My back still allows me to carry it to the car.

Hey! Hey! Sahib!!!

Most revered prospective customer! you want buy this nice oscillatomocope???? Huh? Hmmmm????

As you can see, It is of the finest quality, very sensitive! it can tell.you your fate!

I would not part with such treasure but my brother needs a hair transplant!