Mobenthey/Ciat-Lonbarde (synthmall) thread

[Jonny]

@CharlieGilb

I am able to get it so both light up at 5-7 cm (per the instructions) but from there, the response just seems to be all over the place

The knob below the two white jacks is for adjusting the ‘crossover’ point in the air where moving closer sounds the second tone and fades the first. I’d play with that some more. Mine is at around 1 or 2 o’clock. Also, is there anything near it on your desk?

Mine has a long decay but I haven’t messed with the trimmer at all. Not sure exactly what it does after reading the pb page.

[corpusjonsey]

The Deerhorn on PB can be sensitive to wires and metallic objects around and underneath it. Maybe try in an interference free spot? You shouldn’t need to mess with the trimmer. Just the knob that adjusts the crossover height.

[nunull]

Hey lines! I‘ve been lurking for some time now. I‘ve just started with electronics and got interested in CL and the paper circuits. I‘ve decided I would try and build a rollz-5 with the original paper circuits. Now, my understanding of electronics is not very good and I saw smoke when fiddling with the rolls, so I have some questions.

Yesterday I soldered a 6-roll. First thing I noticed was the polarity of the 1uF electrolytic capacitor is swapped compared to the other paper circuits. I tested the circuit without the cap first and saw some pulses on the scope, I then tested with the cap, oriented like in the other papers, saw no difference on the scope, so soldered the cap in.

At that point I got excited and thought it might be possible to trigger some eurorack modules with the paper circuit, so I hooked the paper circuit up to a patch cable by clipping the batteries ground and one of the „+“ nodes to the sleeve and tip of the cable, respectively.

First, I patched to my Basimilus Iteritas Alter‘s trigger input, which did not trigger. I then tried patching this trough the buffered multiple on my Intellijel palette case. The LED indicator of the buf mult input flashed lightly green, indicating a small positive voltage. Then some smoke came from the paper circuit. I am not sure what part it was, as I quickly removed the battery connection, but I suspect one of the transistors.

• I have used BC547A in the build, whereas Peter used BC547B in the original paper circuits. Could this be the problem? What is the difference between A and B exactly? I‘ve read the transistors have a different gain, but I don‘t understand what the gain of a transistor refers to.
• What does the single electrolytic capacitor accomplish? Is the orientation wrong on the 6 roll paper or did I mount it wrong?
• Can the rollz 5 pulses even trigger eurorack like that?

Lastly, I‘d like to better understand the pulses of the rollz-5. If someone could point me to some resources, that would be great!

Apologies for the lengthy post!

Cheers, Timm

[jlmitch5]

Not sure why the magic smoke appeared. For positive pulses for triggering external gear, make one of your nodes an orange node (it just involves soldering one of the caps to the other side of the transistor than normal), it’s in this thread somewhere, I believe @crucFX shared an image with the mod

[crucFX]

I really wish Peter would re-upload the Rollz-5 pages - the decoupling cap is incorrectly placed in the original 6 roll.

The single electrolytic on each roll - as powered by themselves - is a decoupling cap - or power conditioning.
If you string all rollz together - you really only need one in place - but it doesnt hurt to have them all there.

The difference between A’s and B’s for your NPN’s is completely negligible in this circuit.

So - Cross Nodes on a 6-Roll (and all other Rollz) will produce negative spikes ( -6.2V to +0.7V) but will sometimes ramp up into a small positive - which could have been what you seen being indicated as Positive.

To produce Positive spikes - (+0.05V to +7.3V) - you will need to DC couple one of the transistors collectors.
This is easily done by re-routing one of the outputs and adding in a 10k resistor.

lol fixed it. forgot the resistor.

****Please Note
This ONLY affects the RED Node - all other crosses will still produce Negative Spikes - Patch these nodes to one another and to other Rollz Cross Nodes for fun chaotic patterns.

The RED Node - This Positive Pulse Output may be sent into standard Modular - They will work for Triggers, and CV.

Cross Nodes = Sandrodes = Brown Nodes = Androgynous Nodes = I/O = Negative Pulse Spike (applicable namely to Rollz-5 - as the term Sandrode/Androgynous Node is utilized on many Oval Instruments from Peter)

[corpusjonsey]

Hi and welcome!
Even though the current specs on the A vs B are different, it should still work fine.
It is not recommended to connect CL brown (rolls) nodes to other (non-CL) gear.
The rolls pulses are around 9-12v negative pulse. As said by @jlmitch5, a negative pulse ‘brown’ node can be modded to an ‘orange’ positive pulse.
The electrolytic positive should connect to the positive 9-12v rail (point of the obelisk is power input, then the diode in series to protect reverse polarity, then the electrolytic.). Looks like @crucFX describes this above.

[Glitcher]

My first Ciat-Lonbarde diy project. Lil Sidrassi inside a VHS case. Upholstery pins for touch nodes. This thread is very ‘inspiring to get wiring’

[crucFX]

20 chars of love it!

[jlmitch5]

So I’ve been noticing one strange thing w my rollz 5 mixer, only when I have the main stereo cable and both aux cables plugged in and going to my interface.

If I don’t have the switches of the sound generators going to one of the auxes I hear the ultrasound (or some sort of noise that sounds ultrasound like). As soon as I flip one of the switches to an aux the sound goes away. I thought it might be related to ground so I reflowed that point and it didn’t change it. Note with just 1 aux ts cable plugged in I don’t experience, just when all three output cables are connected?

Could it be that connecting nothing into the inverting summing amplifier is turning it into a microphone and picking up stray signals or something? Do I need to do like a 100k to ground or something on the inverting summing amp input?

It’s not a huge deal but if it rings a bell for someone I’ll take a look at how to fix it. Just has me stumped

[Coitmusic]

Could it be a ground loop? I’m not sure how you have the grounds connected but it is possible to have too many ground connections between devices that can pick up and transfer noise.
If I were checking, I’d also look at the electrolytic input caps. I’ve used them as audio input caps before myself but I don’t think that they’re generally considered suitable for audio.

[jlmitch5]

Is there a way to tell if you’ve made a ground loop w the multimeter?

[jlmitch5]

(The grounds are all connected on the same blob on my perfboard mixer (which is wired from behind the ground Jack), except for the TRS which is connected to the ground plane through its pads on the pcb

[crucFX]

Since I do not go out - I spent my new year continuing on the Rolz build.
Figured out a PCB case thing…

Will line up like this hopefully… lolol

[Coitmusic]

Correct me if I’m wrong, but it sounds like you have 3 separate shielded audio cables leaving the Rollz and going to the same interface. If it’s a ground loop the solution would be to unhook the ground from one end of all but one of the cables (or jacks).
I don’t fully understand how/why they happen, but they are notoriously hard to diagnose so I could be wrong. The part that sticks with me is that shield, 0v and ground are not necessarily the same thing in every circuit, especially when you start to interface them with one another as it’s the slight difference that can cause hum. The other one is to imagine or draw out the circuit and if there is a “loop” or circle of ground connections, then there is a potential for ground loop noise.

[hawksquill]

anyone want to help me truly love sidrax? i’ve had it for a year and primarily use it as a sort of modulation matrix for crosspatching with pb and coco (it’s great for this). i just can’t vibe with the barres though. i always seem to make stuff that sounds the same- call and response hoots, static blasts, trembling triangle sounds. certainly fine and not uninteresting, but for as rich as the instrument has the potential to be, i always end up in the same zones.

i know i’m not alone here, from talking to a few other sid/tet owners. just wondering if anyone has overcome an inability to connect with the gestural side of the organs, either by technique or processing.

[wheelersounds]

My main gripe with it is similar – that the volume is based on the change in barre pressure. While this allows for a huge range of certain gestures, the thing I can never coax from it alone is a “pad” type sound; something sustained for longer than it takes for me to press and release the barre.
Additionally, because the Sid is such a unique and fairly open universe, I get stuck in my habits and then dissatisfied with them (this is applicable to many areas of my life). Any way to break that loop is helpful (including asking for other opinions and ideas!). I’ll try the instrument in different contexts, with different roles in different tracks. Or I’ll see if I can make it sound like another instrument, say a violin or a voice. FWIW my Sid rarely lives without some sort of effect on it. I have a multi-funtion reverb (empress) and crazy looper (count to 5) that I use to help with texture. I’ll use the reverb (usually 90% wet) with a slow attack and long decay to try and extend the envelope. The CT5 also helps because it has a couple excellent Grain Loop functions, so I can capture a small blip of sound and turn it into a texture. Basically, anything to help me extend/alter the envelopes and timbres is helpful – even an EQ pedal.
Something that’s always blown my mind about my Sid is handing it to other people. I have “stolen” techniques from people by just handing them the instrument and telling them to go nuts, then observing their patching and playing styles. I get rather impatient with my patching so watching someone explore with curiosity and ignorance leads me down new pathways with the instrument. I know that’s particularly tough right now but maybe we can all share some videos demonstrating techniques?
Sometimes I’ll use a rubber ball on the end of a toothpick, or hold the end of a dowel to a barre and bow the dowel… sort of like “prepared” Sidrax. That has varying degrees of effectiveness but sometimes it really works. I’ve been hesitant to sprinkle rice or ball bearings on it, out of fear that some would get stuck inside. The piezos in the barres will “pass” audio-rate vibration as well, so you could probably put a small speaker (with a big magnet) onto a barre and get some wild AM stuff.
I’ve loved using the Landscape touch pads – they make some specifically for banana now and they’re sturdy and lovely. Something I want to do soon is “hack” an audio cable so that I can use the Red nodes as touch points to the audio cable itself, bypassing the barre controllers.

[Jonny]

I find that the expressive nature of the barres lends itself nicely to use with loopers (coco included, of course). I guess it really depends on where you’re trying to go with it, but I find that it can be tuned carefully and played harmonically. Here are a few clips, which maybe will spur some patch ideas/conversation? I put these into a soundcloud playlist to reduce the server load:

1. Sidrax modulated by coco and (you can hear the grey outputs from quantussy here). I think there was some modulation sent to the blues of quantussy petals.
2. Sidrax self modulating
3. Sidrax played into Norns using the great Compass script by @Olivier

Another idea I tried: tune sidrax and then turn the master pitch all the way up to put things into the ultrasound range. Record your playing into the cocoquantus on the highest loop speed and then once done, lower the rate so that it becomes audible. You could probably also play this into the ultrasound filters on plumbutter somehow, but I haven’t tried that yet.

If you want to abandon the barres, you could also use the red outputs (even stacked) into the cocoquantus and modulate the levels using the quantussy to generate drones with envelopes.

To me, the base sound of the sidrax is comparable to a woodwind like a bassoon or oboe. Adding even a tiny bit of chaos brings out complexity in tone. The barres are a limitation just as a player will run out of air eventually.

Oh and I haven’t even started touch patching with exposed banana jacks! Looking forward to doing that with touch and steel wool.

[rmro]

Blow on the bars to make a pad sound. Also I use a stereo to mono cable to capture both press and release sounds.

[Zeke_B]

Does this imply that stereo to stereo cables wouldn’t capture the release? I currently use a TRS to 1/4” mono cable with my Tetrax and I’ve found that removing my finger from a bar generates as loud an envelope as pressing. Which is frustrating when I’m wanting a pad sound…

[Jonny]

You’ll get a press/release gesture translated to left and right sides of the stereo field. To get a pad, I would try pressing slowly and releasing pressure slowly as well.