EMUSIC-L Digest Volume 45, Issue 5 This issue's topics: STARS Box (2 messages) STARS Availability Your EMUSIC-L Digest moderator is Joe McMahon . You may subscribe to EMUSIC-L by sending mail to listserv@american.edu with the line "SUB EMUSIC-L your name" as the text. The EMUSIC-L archive is a service of SunSite (sunsite.unc.edu) at the University of North Carolina. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1992 12:52:36 MET From: Andrea TONI Subject: STARS Box --------------------------- -- This is post number 2 -- --------------------------- Hi, Are you not sick and tired to spend xxx $$$ to get some noises, to fight with OMNI on off POLY MIDI channel and so on ?? Isn't time to bring back your (semi-death) soldering tools ?? Well here I am with a very simple (and cheap) real-analog box that if you appreciate "heavily processed pain" can be lot of fun to build and play. I built this box in something like 1979 and enjoied extremely. The box is based on BC108B transistors (.. yes transistors .. don't laugh !! .. They sound great !!) used in very simple way as oscillators and RC filters. The all box can be resume as : LFO1 (T1/T2)-------->VCO1 (T3/T4)----------->FILTER1----- | | | | | R04 R12 R17 R54 | (Level) (Tone) | / S2 | | | Analog LFO2 (T6/T7)-------->VCO2 (T8/T9)----------->FILTER2---------->VCA (T14)==> OUT | | | | | | R23 | R31 R36 R38 | | (Level) (Tone) | / S1 | | | | | V | NOISE (T11/T12)---->VCA (T13)--------------->FILTER3----- | | R48 R50 (Level) (Tone) .. were T and R are the name of the respective components (T for Transistor and R for Resistor-potmeter), and S are micro switches. The circuit is very simple but here there are some notes : The f of LFO1 is 2-20Hz The f of LFO1 is 1-20Hz The f of VCO1 is 50-10000 Hz The f of VCO2 is 50-10000 Hz S1 and S2 are 2 way switches used to include/exclude the noise gen (S1) and to include/exclude the VCO2 (S2) The Filter is a very simple tone control Low-High with just one pot. Once the box is "up and running" try to feed the output in one of this new beautiful DSP processors (some 512 ms delay + chorus/flanger with high feedback ratio + deep reverb hall 60 + a pitch shifter with -+2 micro tune and 70 mS of pre-delay ... or something like that !!) No need to say that the Potmeters have to be of good quality (Bourne completely seal) and that the critical RC (oscillators and filter) need to be of good quality as well (R 1% and C 5%-10% at least). I'm trying to rebuild the box with this new good components but the one I did in 1979 was a very student-prototype and it was still not bad (Or maybe I was just not trained enough to "good noises" !!). The kind of sound you can get out of it are the typical old fashion analog whistles (a la Tim Blake .. old Gong .. o Simon House old Hakwind .. wow !! but Please do not expect the box to sound like an EMS !!!!!) If you have problems, suggestions, just need help please let me know ... (How about keeping one of the two LFO's down to 0.1-10 Hz or to change one of the VCO to 20-20000 Hz .. or to add resonance to the filters ?? ). I really would like to exchange ideas and diagrams of this kind with anybody !! .. Building simple analog hardware is a lot of fun !!! [Andrea's .GIF files will be posted as separate issues of the Digest. -JM] Ciao, ------------------------------------------------ENV---ENV---ENV---------------- Andrea TONI (andrea@sihp03.si.estec.esa.nl) | | | Planetary and Space VCO-->VCF-->VCA--> DUCATI 900SS Science Division (SI) | | | ------------------------------------------------LFO---LFO---LFO---------------- ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1992 09:41:50 -0500 From: "(Joseph D. McMahon)" Subject: Re: Stars Box Andrea TONI writes: > > Hi, > Since I receive several request here it is on EMUSIC-L@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU > the info file I posted in r.m.s (rec.music.synth). > I'm sorry about the missing gif's .. but I have been warned not to send via > mail big uuencoded files ! > ENJOY !!! > Andrea, I'll put the uuencoded and unencoded versions up on the EMUSIC-L ftp site (castrovalva.gsfc.nasa.gov) later today (after noon EST, for those in other time zones). --- Joe M. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1992 16:54:00 -0500 From: "(Joseph D. McMahon)" Subject: STARS Availability Andrea Toni's STARS schematic and parts list are now available for FTP from castrovalva.gsfc.nasa.gov in the /STARS directory. If you can transfer binary files OK, get the .gif files. Otherwise, get the .uu (uuencoded) files. The drawings are a little blurry. I will see if I can find some spare time to redo them as a MacDraw file. I believe I should be able to convert that to a GIF as well. --- Joe M. ------------------------------ End of the EMUSIC-L Digest ******************************