Cwejman, Doepfer, Erica, MakeNoise, Mutable instruments, TipTop Audio, Analogue Solutions, and much more! The world’s most popular format.
Be sure to look into MANUFACTURER SUB-FORA as well..
CV control of frequency, gate, accent, slide, env-mod, decay, and cut-off
switches for waveform selection (square and sawtooth), external/internal oscillator mix
VCA and VCF outputs
Eurorack standard format (3U height)
18hp
~1.75in depth (45mm)
+/-12V current draw 10mA
5V current draw: 50mA
10” Euro power cable (16 pin to 10 pin connector)
Black anodized aluminum knobs with a diamond knurl pattern and two set screws (with slot heads and flat points)
A .063” (1.6mm) highly durable satin aluminum Metalphoto panel with a black print
You're definitely right, Ben! I may or may not just be looking for an excuse to have some custom knobs made. The poll results are bringing me back down to earth.
Silver would make sense, too!
Last edited by csdarrell on Tue May 03, 2016 6:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.
I've got access to a lathe and considered doing them by hand and having them anodized locally (Portland), but that was a fleeting, scary, stupid, stupid thought.
milkshake wrote:Why not make it slide automaticly when you play legato, just like the real thing?
How would it know where the slide is in the 1v/oct signal?
Simple: Put a very small delay (could be just 1 capacitor, but I'm not an electrical circuit designer. Anyway its all in the TB-303 schematic.) between the gate and the slide circuitry. Gate on means slide is on, but with a very small delay. Gate stay's on results in slide. Gate off means slide is off, so the 1V/Oct signal jumps to the next voltage level.
Shall I ... blablabla ... to thee.
The more you pay for something, the less likely you are to critise it.
I built a Pacemaker / X0x heart earlier this year and can say it does a fantastic job at capturing the core of the 303 sound. It will slide when receiving a gate signal into the slide input in the right way. The behaviour of the envelope and decay will tweak the grove in the correct way. When I was building it up I had the thought that I would be excited to match it with a 303 capable sequencer to really see what it can do, but when I hooked it up I was surprised with the sound and behaviour and realisation that that isn't necessary. The filter is linked to the envelope in the right way, as is the decay. It's a strange little thing because you think of it as an oscillator in the rack but if you only connect to the output and change the pitch knob you'll get very little out of it. It needs a gate to set off the chain reaction of the oscillator interacting with the filter, which interacts with the envelope, which interacts with the decay..etc... all in the 303 way.
The square wave is to my ears perfectly hollow in the 303 way. -Something that isn't easy to mimic. There is a switch to toggle between square and saw or both. You might think that hearing both would be an instant non-303 sound because that wasn't an option on the original, but it isn't. Again because of the interplay between oscillator filter it sounds like 303 but nicely different.
The input for external sound is cool and maybe a description of its behaviour is helpful to also explain the internal oscillator sound. You can imagine if you connected an external sound into a 303 that was stopped that maybe you would hear a slightly filtered sound that isn't 303 in any way, -you'd only get that sound when the 303 is running, bouncing off rhythms in a rubbery way. This is exactly the case too where you won't get much feeding an external sound into the x0x heart unless you also connect a pulsing gate or trigger into the x0x heart gate input. -Same with the internal oscillator.
If you connect the x0x Heart up to a Turing machine for note values and connect one of the pulses from the Turing machine pulses expander (or to the pulse output of the new Turing Machine -no expander needed) to the xox gate input, you'll be surprised at how much 303 sound you get with just that. -and that's before you connect any pulse or gate signals into the slide or accent even.
I'm nervous to put this vid here as I'm worried people will judge the X0x Heart sound based solely on my design decisions I took when I built it. The prebuilt X0x modules WILL sound better than this. This x0x heart is not calibrated quite right at all. When I built it, I put it in the rack to test and it's been too much fun to pull out to finish the calibration procedure (3-5 months on even). I assume the prebuilt modules will be calibrated for you.
I want to post it though to demo what you get with just the random voltages for notes out of a Turing Machine, and a pulse from a Turing Machine into the gate.
Starts out with both square / saw wave form output at the same time, later I switch to square and saw back and forth ..etc. Fairly early I plug an envelope from a PEG into the cutoff control and never take it out. The ability to have modular-accurate control of a 303 filter/oscillator cutoff, is too much fun.
Opnotic thanks for all the input and the vid!
What parameters are "not calibrated" on your unit?
If u want to calibrate and do another sequence , I would concider duplicating with osc/vcf303 + metro. And then we would have a pretty good A/B demo for folks ?
Turboblast wrote:Opnotic thanks for all the input and the vid!
What parameters are "not calibrated" on your unit?
If u want to calibrate and do another sequence , I would concider duplicating with osc/vcf303 + metro. And then we would have a pretty good A/B demo for folks ?
When building the pacemaker there are a couple choices you can make that impact the output. On mine, I misjudged what was recommended in the build regarding volume intensity of the VCA output. Everything in that vid was just the VCF ..lol. My VCA output clips in the first few millemeters above minimum, so I rarely use the VCA output at all. As for note tracking, I've been feeding it 2+ volts via precision adder to keep it above sub-bass. At the same time I've enjoyed the sub base I can get out of it too so I haven't been too motivated. -And I've never bothered to see what is causing 2volts positive on the Cutoff,Env,Decay inputs. (Yes, inputs). If you plug a jack light into the cutoff input, it glows. lol. Not enough to cause harm so far to anything I connect to it, but it's interesting. Oh, and the thing sounds better if you connect a jack light too (really). So mine is really this hodgepodge of 'character' that I enjoy. My only regret is that it's not a module that can represent a proper x0x heart. I do feel like I built it well though. The soldering is top notch..etc. So it should be able to keep kicking for me until I decide to tackle those build issues.
coolshirtdotjpg wrote:Diy kits would be a nice stretch goal.
Good suggestion! I think we'll offer them on some level if not as a stretch goal. I'll look into it.
Another possibility is having a separate panel available for sale that is laser engraved/cut wood. Does this appeal to anyone? There are pretty obvious downsides to wood - but it might be worth the look for some. It'd be slightly like Bastl Instrument panels http://www.bastl-instruments.com/ (the ones that have the labeling directly engraved rather than printed). And the wood would be different, of course.
coolshirtdotjpg wrote:Diy kits would be a nice stretch goal.
Yes, definitely.
I'd be ALLL in for a full kit.
The 8 Steps:
(1) Figure out what it is you always wish you could do with your rig, that you currently can't.
(2) Figure out your maximum available budget.
(3) Look at and research all of the modular toys out there that will make Step#1 happen.
(4) Add an additional 25% to your Step#2 total.
(5) Buy the item(s) found during Step#3, repeating Step#4 as often as needed while completing the Step#5 buying process.
(6) Install newly purchased gear.
(7) Wiggle.
(8) Return to Step#1.
The poll results are bringing me back down to earth.
