Listening to the clock output there seems to be a little bit of audio bleed from the rest of the circuit. Also the ‘on’ voltage changes a little from step to step, as well as the timing being a little bit sloppy (though much improved over the Wiard Wogglebug!)

Maybe such minor discrepancies are being amplified by the Tempi, which I assume would be timing the intervals between each gate pulse to calculate its own internal clock in order to do the multiplication. Would be useful to know how other clock multipliers respond to the WB clock.

Not that I’ve found unfortunately. It would be a fairly simple circuit to reverse engineer for someone, I’d think.

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Interesting bit on the Control File: the only text on the board (except for the header labels and a handwritten serial, mine is 45) is “@whimsicalraps

Must’ve been a collab! @Galapagoose

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I just looked at my Control File. Whimsical Raps in the board and 92 scrawled by hand in Sharpie barely visible. It’s a passive simple switch network.

The manual says “Special Gratitude To: Make Noise Co., Whimsical Raps, and Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe.” https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2OR9lO-IXPpUWJmUERXOEgzbkU/view

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I gave the video I was drawing from a closer look, and think I see a couple things:

  1. The clock tempo from Wogglebug that is driving Tempi and subsequently Rene is fairly quick, which I think masks the jitter. In my own patch, I was running Wogglebug a fair bit slower, and the timing differences were more pronounced.
  2. Clocking Echophon Tempo both directly from Wogglebug and from Tempi with Wogglebug as master makes the jitter very obvious, even at high clock rates. There’s a lot of pitch warble as Echophon apparently tries to adjust its tempo continually.

So, as everyone said, maybe don’t use Wogglebug as an internal clock unless you want that jitter. It’s a shame that you can’t clock Wogglebug from something more solid and then take advantage of that jitter while still being basically tempo-locked at a macro level, but, it is the instrument it is. Thanks all!

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Regarding the DIY Control File, I decided against keeping it. The seller was kind enough to refund my money but didn’t want the unit shipped back. I thought I’d offer it here to anyone who would be interested in fixing it or have any other interest?

With all due respect to the seller that just looks like… subpar soldering. Probably a bad joint in the offending jack. (I think the faceplate is nice, though.)

Agreed. Seller never used it from what I gather and I have no idea who built it.

Can anyone tell me if the Dynamic gate output on the 0-Ctrl works similarly with Optomix and/or Maths in that if patched to strike/ctrl of the former or Ch 1/4 input of the latter the gates will react similarly to the 0Coasts gate input?

They should work as you’d expect :slight_smile: I’ve often patched the dynamic gate to a Maths input or directly to the CV input on Natural Gate, while using the dynamic envelope output for something else (wavefolder, FM depth, etc.)

If you patch to a trigger input on Maths instead, it isn’t fully dynamic but will only trigger when the strength is above the trigger threshold, which can also be useful.

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ah i thought there would of been a PCB for it. Cheers

Right thanks. I guess I just got confused by their extolling the Gate input on the 0Coast as something unlike what is found in their other modules.

I’ve just been watching the Tony Rolando ContinuuCon talk again and found the part about the dynamics section particularly interesting too.

I typed the section out as it’s provoked some questions for me and figure it might be interesting for other people reading through this thread too:

“The Buchla instrument shipped with two stage envelopes, which were quite a bit simpler than the four stage envelopes that the Moog instruments shipped with. And my theory behind that, is that it kinda all ties down to the dynamics sections. The Buchla used an element called a vactrol, which is a light dependent resistor that’s mashed up against an LED, and it’s a very gorgeous sounding component, it is very low distortion, it’s wonderful - except that it’s also very slow. And what happens if you patch an ADSR into a low pass gate - that’s the circuit that Buchla used for controlling amplitude that utilised that vactrol element - it basically slurs the whole thing into something that looks like two stages anyhow. So it’s almost like you’re spending the money to put a four stage envelope in an instrument that really cant make use of it. On the other hand, on the East Coast, Bob Moog had developed a transistor based VCA that was very fast and because it was very fast, it was able to respond to the very sharp edges and all four stages of the ADSR envelope.
The really interesting thing to me here, is that the Buchla instrument was designed to be played with sequencers, while on the East Coast the Moog instrument had a black and white organ style keyboard in front of it. It was asking to be played in a way that had sustaining notes and for creating sustaining notes, the ADSR is just infinitely more useful. And so the combination of that fast VCA and the four stage envelope and the keyboard made it a much more humanly played instrument. Where as on the West Coast, the use of the two stage envelope and the really slow gain control element and the sequential controllers made the Buchla instrument more prone to being programmed - machine music essentially.”

So this raises the question — would pairing Make Noise’s Contour with Optomix and not Dynamix essentially be a waste of the virtues of choosing the four stage envelope in the first place? Does anyone here have Contour and Optomix or another vactrol based low pass gate?

@hermbot I’ve been watching your YouTube videos and really enjoyed the Make Noise Low Pass Gate comparison — condiment rating system included — have you used Contour with any of them?

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Glad you like the videos!

I have never owned a Contour. For a long time if I needed an ADSR I would just patch it up in Maths, and somewhat recently I re-bought an Intellijel Dual ADSR. (I love that module… that and the STO are the only modules I’ve sold and then bought again, I think.)

I don’t think think that combining the Contour with a vactrol-based LPG is bad, per se. Given the wide range of vactrol response times it may not matter. Also, unless you’re building a tiny suitcase system I imagine there will also be VCAs around for use with it.

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I have used the Contour with the Intellijel 1U LPG - I don’t fully agree that it just gets slewed into two stages, but I do agree that the utility of a 4-stage envelope really depends on if you’re playing from a keyboard vs a sequencer.

I think Tony was speaking more towards the overall design philosophy of where the instrument naturally leads you. But since we are in the modular world it’s nice to have an envelope that can serve both functions depending on your needs of the moment :slight_smile:

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I enjoyed Contour with LPGs as well. Keeping a low sustain level for a while after the initial pluckier attack is pretty neat IMHO.

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Copied from the Make Noise - Users Group on Facebook.

Here’s a mostly-complete Make Noise timeline from @walker:

  • modDemod
  • Format Jumbler
  • QMMG
  • Wiard Wogglebug

not sure about the exact order of the next four:

  • modDemix
  • Pressure Points/BRAINS
  • MATHS
  • René

then:

  • Optomix
  • Phonogene
  • DPO
  • Echophon
  • Function
  • MMG
  • MATHS (2nd version)
  • STO
  • Teleplexer
  • Erbe-Verb
  • Rosie
  • modDemix (2nd version)
  • Mysteron
  • Richter Wogglebug
  • RxMx
  • FXDf
  • tELHARMONIC
  • LxD
  • Optomix (2nd version)
  • TEMPI
  • 0-Coast
  • Morphagene
  • Contour
  • Dynamix
  • Synth for Two Coasts
  • QMMG (reissue)
  • René (2nd version)
  • QPAS
  • X-PAN
  • Mimeophon
  • XOH
  • 0-CTRL
  • Strega
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There was also their DIN power unit early on which I think was available through a few suppliers.

I believe there were two versions of the MMG in quick succession distinguishable by the LED colour. And then there the Phonogenes that were sold with Tom Erbe’s updated firmware.

To add to prototypes there were the CTRL-SEQ stuff.

Also the glossy and matte panelled René/Pressure Points, and Phonogenes with Rian knobs vs units with blue Rogan knobs vs unit with white Rogan knobs.

and not to forget Make Noise’s seminal Multiple

Then I have owned 41% of Make Noise’s catalog.

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I also forgot Analog Memory and CV Bus.

I didn’t include firmware updates in the list because I don’t remember all the release dates (the Phonogene one was summer 2013 and at this point most early units also have it).

If I included minor production differences like LED and knob colors, or unreleased prototypes (most of which were never even announced) then the list would be three times as long.

My educated guess is the Mult was released in late 2014. Before that we wired mults by hand for systems on blank aluminum plates.

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