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:

Moog Vs Sony

During the console-swap we did some tests with the Moog modular as a sound source. Here is a sequence going through the Sony Oxford EQ. Sweet

and here is a Sequential Drumtraks being routed via the Sony insert points, with the Moog as an external FX. Snappy

Mixed Feelings

Speaking of mixing, half way through the monumental task of mixing our (John Foxx & The Maths) Live in the Studio album, the Mackie DXB digital console decided to die! So I have had a very busy few weeks here at Benge Central, running round and sorting things out. I decided to replace the DXB with a lovely little Sony DMX R100 digital desk, which I have always lusted after but could never really afford. Now however they can be picked up for less than a tenth of the original price, and I lucked out and found a pristine one with all the right interface cards in place. So i swapped this:

for this:

The really cool thing was that the Sony fits into my console frame perfectly, so Big Al and me had a sleepover and did the switcheroo at the weekend:

So its goodbye to the DXB, you've been a good friend

Arp Close

Me and Big Al have been in the studio the past few days, fixing up the Studer 900 console. I set up a patch on the ARP 2500 to send to the desk so we could check the channels, so this sequence has been playing constantly for the last 3 days doing Al's head in

Moogle

Heres a patch me and Big Al made, it's a random voltage source going into a S&H then into a quantizer so the notes are decided by God / The Supreme Random Being

Non-Newtonian Monsters

Big Al told me about this phenomenon. Phenominal

Turn it Down a Wee Bit

OK, Yah

Me and Big Al were messing about on the Doepfer today. The patch was based around the osc, analog delay and filter modules. It started trying to speak! We found that by adjusting the delay and filter settings we could make it sound more 'posh'

Speaking Serge

I finally fixed the Serge Modular power supply and got it home and set it up again. See this post for more. Big Al helped me with it, I had to get a new transformer, which is the big magnetic thing that makes power supplies so heavy. It weighs a ton! Luckily it only cost £15. I made a matching box to put the entire supply in so that it can be away from the main synth because it was interfering with the spring reverb units. I will take some pictures of the whole system again when its totally finished. I still want to make a Benge Delay panel for it!

This is a self-contained patch and has no external effects or sequencing or editing. Its in mono because I didn't have two banana to phono converters. There are two VCOs being played by the sequencer, going through an analog shift register so that VCO 2 has a sequence 3 steps behind the first. The rhythms are all filtered and phased noise, taking different triggers from the sequencers

One of the Serge's charms is that there is no writing on the panels and some of the very old modules have no known documentation. They also have various functions depending on the patching, and the upshot is that I don't know how many of the modules are supposed to work. Thats why I enjoy experimenting with it, because it is a journey into foreign territory every time

The Wires

The past few days have been all about wires, jack plugs, edacs, caps, soldering, wires, etc, etc. My fingers hurt. Big Al has been on edac duty, JeanGa is recapping the Soundcraft and I've been making the tea [ok I did wire up 48 plugs, which took 15 hours]. Here's a picture I took of Al in between bantams

Big Al's Neve DSP-1

Alan found some pictures he took of the Neve DSP-1 console he helped build in the early 80s. The DSP1 was the first ever digital mixer, there's more about it in this post. If you look at the picture of the monitor you can see a bit how the software side of the console worked; you could define each channel's functions, and the functions of the hardware pots and buttons with total abandon, effectively creating a giant digital FX processor. Amazing!

I could previously find very few pictures of the Neve DSP on the googlenet. I scanned these myself just now from Big Al's real non-digital 30 year old photographs

Sequencer Sequence

Here is a short video of a big patch on the modulars me and Al set up. The idea was to try and use as many analog sequencers as possible, but we only managed 4 in the end. Once set off everything plays together. So there's a melodic line on the Moog 3C coming from the Dotcom Q960 clone, which is being transposed occasionally by a Dotcom Q119 sequencer. We sent trigger pulses from the Q963 trigger buss out to an envelope for the bass drum, others for the clap and hh [from the amazing Formant cymbal / hi-hat module]. A drone was set up on the Roland 100M and also an 8 step drone sequence using the 100M sequencer triggered from the Q960. The ARP 2500 was used for a percussive, slightly melodic 10 step sequence, again locked to the main clock. The whole lot went through the Studer 902 console and some delay and phaser pedals and Telefunken spring reverb

Visitors and Friends

Well another year is nearly over, so here is a little gallery of visitors and friends who have been around in 2009. For example, below is a picture of Big Al doing his thing. There are a few people missing of course but that's because the iPhone ran out of power that day or something. Hope to see you all again soon!!