[BetaTester]

I dont have a shed, but if I did I would almost certainly have lots of interesting things with lights on which make beeping noises that make music of some sort.

[Will N]

That is pretty much exactly what I've been making, right down to the lights, beeps and sort-of music.

Except no shed, which means my bedroom is full of junk, tools and milions of tiny bits of wire cut-off.

Its only on a breadboard at the mo and I'm not finished adding bits but one day soon it will be housed in its own glorious casing with go faster stripes. I might even make it pink.

There's a pic attached, its basically a dub siren circuit with knobs so far for: volume, pitch, LFO rate, LFO amplitude. There's switches/buttons for: LFO waveform (triangle and a kind of mix between triangle and square), rate doubler, trigger and sync LFO to trigger. Its also got the obligatory flashing LED which tells you how fast the LFO's going. Oh and its powered by a wind up charger so it kind of feels like an electronic air raid siren, the aim is to get the speed at which you turn the handle to modulate the different parameters but I haven't quite figured out how to do that yet (I've always wanted hand-crank controls for a synth, I reckon its an overlooked interface).

In terms of sound, its pretty cheap and dirty but Its my first project of this kind so that's allowed.. plus it means you can make gabba with it which is always a bonus

Attached File(s)

•  25th Feb.jpg (131.59K)
  Number of downloads: 9
•  Photo 37.jpg (99.4K)
  Number of downloads: 5

[BetaTester]

I love it. Brilliant! Cant wait to hear what she sounds like. What will you call it? The Frightingale Modulator?

[Will N]

Long before its manifestation in reality it was dubbed The Nightingale Betterizer, but you may be onto something there with the Frightingale Modulator...

[JimmyT]

Thats awesome!

So this crank handle idea, would this be along the lines of - the faster you wind, the quicker the lfo rate builds up, and when you stop winding, it gradually slows down again? Of course you would have to be able to control the rates, so you could tune it up for maximum satifaction!

Attatching the crank to a rotary encoder would be simple enough, then it would be up to you to figure out what to do with the data. There must be a way of doing this on the nord modular, perhaps with some of the logic modules? You could suss out the most effective signal chain etc whatever you want to happen, then go about replicating it in hardware.

I was messin about with the demo software of the nord modular G2 a couple weeks ago, creating a sort of four way crossfader thingy. I managed to get a basic version working, but without owning the actual unit I couldnt be bothered to take it any further. I will have a think about your idea though, if I can come up with anything usefull I'll post it up here . . .


Here's the link to the G2 demo, it uses your pc soundcard for the sounds, rather than its own dedicated hardware as on the proper version, but still fine for experimenting:-

http://www.clavia.se...ar_G2&osdwn=osw

[JimmyT]

I've just made a patch on the g2 demo, re:- the crankhandle, but I can't attach it onto this post, i guess u can only upload pics or somethin. do you guys have a files area, for uploading whatever we want?

It works by taking a press of any key on the keyboard as a piece of binary information, i.e on / off, which is fed directly into an envelope follower, where you can tune up the max rates of increase / decrease speed. This in turn is connected to a signal multiplier, so you can set the maximum attainable lfo speed, which is connected to the modulation input for the speed of the lfo, which is then connected to the amp and pitch of the oscilators, and the frequency of the filter. As you repeatedly press the key, the siren will speed up. When you stop pressing, it will gradually slow down. You can tune it up however you want.

I have used the keyboard gate as the input because it is similar to the effect of a rotary encoder sending +1 increments as it turns. As you know, the faster it turns, the more +1's will be sent, which is effectively what you are doing as you press the keys.

Unfortunately the demo doesnt have midi inputs, so you will have to click the on screen kb with your mouse!

Quite an amusing patch though, would be nice if I could share it on here. . .

Attached File(s)

•  Crankhandle.png (252.32K)
  Number of downloads: 8

[Will N]

Sweet mate, nice one!

Yeah, I reckon that's the way to go eventually: prototype on nord modular/reaktor/maxmsp, then write code for a microprocessor, then have a rotary encoder feed the processor along with some pots for a few parameters and maybe some buttons (retrigger cycle or something). I'd like to have a proper look at that patch you've made man, I'm on a mac though can nord go on mac?

To be honest though that's all a whole new project in itself, whereas for this thing it doesn't warrant that much complexity/control. I've been playing around trying to squeeze a workable control voltage from the output of the wind-up charger, but the way the circuit is set up at the moment its not easy to get it to work in a way that's at all satisfying, whereas what might work better is if I turned the handle into a kind of 360 degree pot, and used that to do the jobs of the current pots. I'd have a strip of resistive material make a circle, then have the handle pull a conductor round the circle. You could make it form different waveforms (of resistance vs time) depending on whether the circle was complete and where you placed the non-moving conductor on the strip (for instance having the fixed conductor on the break point of an uncomplete circle would make a saw tooth wave, then completing the circle by connecting end to end would make a triangle wave).

EDIT: Just downloaded g2 demo for mac. nice.

[JimmyT]

Will,

I have attached the patch as a .zip, try making some adjustments to tune it up, but be careful with some controls, they send it mad! To have the effect of turning the handle, just hammer away on any keyboard note on the "virtual keyboard". The critical module is the "envelope follower", which in this case kind of mimics a flywheel. In hardware, could this be done with some kind of capacitor or the like?

Attached File(s)

•  1 crank handle.zip (1.33K)
  Number of downloads: 5

[Davidr]

I've been making Dr Freakenstein Fuzz - a full-on electric chair controller/fuzzbox. Extreme fuzz, with built-in sync modulation LFO, and an assistant 'Igor' - a footcontrolled pressure pad to tweak parameters, plus a knife-switch to crank the whole thing into life. (See thumbnail attachment)

At this link there's an audioclip. Also there check out the KIL Switch by Rainger FX here- a triggered sync'ed-up lo-pass filter (with lots of Q). Covered in pulsating orange LEDs. Lots of metalwork. Destruction of dining room table.

Attached File(s)

•  Dr Freakenstein Fuzz thumbnail.jpg (59.11K)
  Number of downloads: 2