#643

Checking the obvious first: is the power ribbon polarity correct at both the module and your power supply?

If it were me, I’d remove the panel and the clouds board and take a close look at everything for the possibility of debris or a smoked component. If you want to post detailed pics of the boards we could help you with the “where’s waldo” but hopefully any smoke is limited to fuses around the power input.

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#644

Here you go.
Polarity ofc is correct.

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image3264×2448 1.63 MB

#645

Hmm JF has polyfuses so if there is a short on the board then your PSU should not be shutting off.

There is some junk around U3 (upper right) and C15 (upper far right).

I’d say try with a new ribbon. I’ve had bad ones before. If possible take all of the other modules off your PSU to rule out overloads, etc. Which PSU do you have?

#646

Will have someone take measures as i ve no such tools.
The psu is mmi usb far away from what it can load but i will try it with a friends one too

#647

I’ve had similar troubles cause by bad power ribbons before. Try swapping out the cable by testing it with one that you know works.

#648

The board looks totally fine. The easiest check to see if JF is the problem is to measure the voltage on both sides of the polyfuses (the blue parts PF1 and PF2 immediately next to the power header.

They should measure +/-12V on the header, and very slightly less than that on the other side. If that’s not the case, turn off the power & remove the header, then measure the series resistance of those parts. They should be under 3ohms resistance. Send me an email if these are correct but the issue persists service@whimsicalraps.com.

#649

“Just Checking” here. I see a listing of a Just Friends V2 (Gold Clouds) in my area. Would this be upgradable to V4 as well, or in any way different way different (power spec or something) from current last retail versions? I’d like to be sure before I buy it to go with my TeleType.

#650

The V2 (gold clouds) is the (most recent) hardware revision, if you want to flash it with the 4.0 software it’ll work fine.

2 Likes
#651

Unsure as to where is best to post this, so mods, please feel free to relocate it as you see fit.

I’m trying to hook up my JF with my crow via i2c, but am having little luck. I have tried two cables, with both of my JFs, and only once or twice did it briefly connect in the M4L devices. On those occasions, the ‘connect’ boxes were ticked upon loading the device without my having to press anything, and I was able to send midi info. These happy moments only lasted for around 20 seconds before the connection was lost.

Am I looking at faulty cables, perhaps?

Cheers!

EDIT: problem solved by restarting the DAW. Who knows! :man_shrugging:

EDIT: classic preemptive solution post. I unplugged i2c to re-rack the units and it’s no longer communicating midi again, no matter what workaround I try. Can anyone give me an idea of how fiddly this is generally, if all is working as it should be? I’ve followed the M4L patch setup guidelines, but as mentioned above, if I engage the toggle the 6 lights on JF do not blink. The only successes I’ve had have automatically connected to the device.

Thanks!

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#652

hey hey, sorry to hear about the troubles!

with the latest JF software, the lights don’t blink — i’ll update the manual / device info today. you should just be able to start playing. the cases where you described seeing the check box are good — this means you are connecting successfully.

the dropped connection trouble is concerning, though. is your JF on the latest firmware? what else is on your i2c bus?

#653

hey:) no worries, not your fault, and thanks for the reply!

ah, okay, that’s reassuring to know that the lights aren’t meant to blink on the latest JF update, which is the one i am running.

so yeah, i’m running the latest version for JF, and there is nothing else on my i2c bus. i still suspect it may be the cables, as i made them myself and i’m a total donkey with electronics.

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#654

In case this helps, I had a similar experience but my problem was that I had the Druid application open at the same time.

2 Likes
#655

thanks for the reply, much appreciated. i’m actually not running druid, but it’s good to know about that if i use it in the future!

#656

Always ending up with the same kind of tone with Jf that i love so much about it and made me revisit. But i am having a hard time besides bass and this plucky belly sine things to get usable sounds in a similar vein. It feels silly always having it sound like this.

What about classical patch sharing, anyone knows how to do, lets say harp-like sounds?

Also my plan of clouds instead of filter (3S) does kinda work obut i still feel Jf needs a proper filter with the traveling 3S does in Formant. Oh well… modular.

Anybody came up with ideas for quick switching of voices on/off besides this primitive (yet fun) way? I think a kind of voice/tone wheel that accepts cv would be cool

(My issues were psu related btw)

Hoping for a norns earthsea with midi soon.
Any recomendation to create gate variation patterns from just one norns gate?

IMG_1009

#657

Yeah expanding your signal flow with more VCAs and / or a filter will open up a lot of possibilities. For more physical modeling synthesis, i.e. a harp, you’ll definitely want to employ envelopes and VCAs in the modulation path, not just to control the overall volume.

For example, say you are in sound/cycle mode with intone full CW and listening to only the identity output and want a changing harmonic structure over time to emulate harp being plucked. First you could take the 6n output and send it to a modulation destination (Ramp, Filter Cutoff, etc) through a VCA with a short, sharp AD envelope, which can pronounce the initial attack of a string. Then you could take the 2n or 3n output and send it to another modulation (FM, Curve, Filter Cutoff, etc), but run this waveform through a separate VCA with a more gradual AD envelope to allow the harmonic structure to change the the course of the decaying note.

Of course you can also send these various outputs through static attenuators to modulation points for various static timbral variations, or just send envelopes to the ramp and curve inputs.

8 Likes
#658

Cool stuff thanks, the last aspect is a useful promising thought.
I do have a vca/lpg (in the clip) and anotehr lpg + simple AD envelope. Will try to follow your suggestions.
Plucky strikes and sparkles nearing physical modeling is indeed what i am after

#659

Definitely check out these (and other) synth secrets articles if you haven’t yet:
https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/synthesizing-plucked-strings
https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/synthesizing-percussion

1 Like
#660

if you haven’t tried plume mode, i’d start there. it adds a lpg envelope to each voice and the timbre / decay length are set by the RUN voltage. to get into plume mode, insert a cable into RUN and set JF to sound/sustain.

from the manual:
At zero volts, PLUME responds similarly to the classic VTL5C3 vactrol with fast attack and moderate decay. Negative voltages slow these rates into sustained waves, while positive input transitions to microsound blips ideal for rapid-burst triggering

12 Likes
#661

No triggers sadly, just a cv gate from norns and double the gate + AD from Envelope follower. Super minimalistic. Can i even use plume with gates, didnt manage yet.

I will see if meadowphysics for norns does midi out and if it could use the gate as trigger out, i suppose i would need gate delays or sth to make it poly-rythmic

Is there some primitive physics way of creating gate delays after a mult? Like uhm salt and magnets and peanutbutter…something experimental?

#662

it should! :smiley: I put that feature in for this use case.

edit: if it doesn’t… it should and i’ll rectify that.

1 Like