Serge With Words

Braken

Isolation No2

This is the second part of my ISOLATION SESSIONS in which I set up a self-playing patch on a synthesiser and just let it play on its own for a while

Here is a 12 minute video of a vintage Serge Modular from the early 1970s. Nothing else!

You can put this on in the background while you are doing your self-isolating, it might help pass the time?

Serger 2

Serger

I had the Spring Reverb tanks replaced on the Serge! So heres a little ditty to celebrate

Mod Can Dance

Messing with the Modcan, along with the Serge. First I patched a wave shaped VCO on the Serge Paperface, using the Serge sequencer too. Then it goes over to the Modcan where the clock from the Serge triggers bass drum, snare and percussion sounds. Dance!

New Timbral

Here is a fascinating little documentary featuring Serge Tcherepnin, the legendary synth designer about whom very little known due to his reluctancy to be interviewed over the years. Happily this trend seems to be changing as there have been a few videos recently featuring him (for example this one). As a synthesiser guru he is right up there with Bob Moog and Don Buchla. Anyway, this mini-doc about his New Timbral VCO features one of my Serge videos - neato!

Serger

A sine wave is sent to the Serge N-COM module, which produces a sequence of ‘staircased’ notes

The Programmer/Sequencer is being used to change the fundamental pitch of the sine wave

The rest of the patch is decorative (Serge delay and reverb modules and VCAs)

Aberesque

A Serge Modular patch - self playing! With a Roland TR505 added in too

The Long Wall

I had a go at rearranging the long wall of modulars today - trying to get them set up in the best way to make use of the space. The modulars involved are the Polyfusion, the Emu, the ARP2500, the Formant, the Paia and the Serge. So then I decided to get all the sequencers going together and test it out:

Works On Paper

Here is a new Benge album, part six of the Forms series of "one-synth" albums

This time I used an early 1970s Serge Modular system, one of the so called "paper face" models. Please go to the bandcamp page for full informations

Sergeness

Emu & Serge for Xmas

A Christmas patch on the Emu and Serge modulars. This was not an easy sequence to set up due to the extremely quirky nature of the early Emu digital logic implementation, but I wanted to test the step sequencer which is capable of generating 32 control voltages if you set it up correctly. There is very little info out there on these modules, and what I could find (the 1978 Emu Systems Catalog, and a more detailed manual called the Emu Modular Synthesiser Operation Manual Retrospective) only had some fairly oblique references to the patch required. Suffice it to say that it took me about 3 days to work it out and plenty of phone calls to Big Al (who knows a lot about early digital logic). It goes something like this: take a clock source and patch it out to the 8 Position Address Generator taking the 'Carry' output trigger (which happens at the end of the 8th step) and mult it out to the 3 clock inputs of a Triple Latch which needs to act as a ring counter. So use the 3 'Q' outputs to feed into the next Data input of each latch with Q3 feeding back into Data 1 to make it cycle. That gives you 3 steps. The clever bit is making the 4th step which means taking the 3 '-Q' outputs and multing them together to generate a clock on every 4th cycle (whenever an "all zero" state occurs). Patch the 4 outputs of the Voltage Source Unit into the 4 ins of the Analog Switch and use the newly created 4 stage ring counter to step through them. PHEW! The rest of this patch uses the Serge to generate some percussive sounds including the Wilson Analog Delay and Spring Reverbs. Its a live single-take jam-up

An Arabesque

Heres a Serge Modular patch. It uses the Analog Shift Registers to create arabesque-like patterns from the sequencers CV output (which is a control voltage delay = pure). Theres also an audio delay via the Wilson Analog Delay module (= crunchy). That's a nice combo I think

Benge Bells

Completely self-playing patch on the Serge. It uses the Analog Shift Register to modify the sequence as it goes. OK I do adapt it a bit by hand but you get the point

Shifting Serge

Just got the mighty Serge back from Keith, who did a TON of work on it - its needed some love considering I have never had anything fixed on it since I put it all together - some of those panels I got 15 years ago or more! Doesn't time fly when your having fun..

This patch uses the Analog Shift Register to delay a sequencer pattern by 2 steps before going to a 2nd oscillator. They both go into the Wilson Analog Delay which is being VC'd by the sequencer too

Divisions

Big Al came down this weekend and we ended up playing on the Serge Modular because it was looking at us in a weird way. He showed me how you could use the clock divider module to split an oscillator into 7 harmonically related tones and this got me thinking. I put the 7 outputs into 7 VCAs and used 7 LFOs to modulate them and 3 steps of the sequencer to slowly change the pitch of the master oscillator. Then I put it through an Ibanez digital delay and layered up 3 passes - here is the result:

Strange Drum Machine

In this post I showed you my modded DR55 drum machine. Well Kieth added another input to trigger the hi-hat which for some reason we had forgotten about so now all 4 sounds have trigger ins (bass drum, snare, hh and a nice 'dock!' sound). Here it is in action, this time with the mighty Serge:



The four drum machine sounds are being triggered by the Serge sequencer except for the bass drum which is getting a divided pulse from the main clock. Therefore when I am playing with the sequencer outputs the main clock is still triggering the bass drum. The output is split into two streams, one going to some phasers in series, the other to the Wilson Analog Delay module, which is being modulated by one of the sequencer outputs. By the way, the sequencer is outputting voltages to trigger the DR55 inputs, and these have varying effects on each drum sound depending on the voltage level as set by the sequencer knobs. What a strange drum machine this creates! Here is a patch diagram:

Serge Flows

The Serge Modular is a very curious device - not least because it's modules are not really 'modular'. Each panel contains a different array of pre-chosen modules which are specified when purchasing a system. Therefore when buying second hand panels it is always the case that someone else has planned which modules are put together, and they have invariably been smoking pot. I have been looking for the highly elusive "Wilson Analog Delay" module for many years but they are extremely rare and the only ones I have seen have been in panels with other modules I have not wanted for one reason or another. Or they have been too overpriced for me to consider. Well luckily I managed to find a UK seller on ebay with a panel at the right price, and what is more the module combination on this panel is fantastic - I now have the remaining modules that I have been looking for to complete my Serge system - including a Wave Multiplier, Envelope Detector, Pulse Divider, N-Comp, Wilson Delay, and two mixers. Yahoo!

Serge Transpose

Serge Vs Buchla

Heres a little vid of the Serge Modular and Buchla 100 playing together. Its a pretty basic and similar patch that I made on each system using VCOs, VCFs and sequencers, both triggered from one master clock. The pic below is called Modular Cubism by Pixelasso