This is Part 10 of a series that started with Part 1. Once you have an electrical signal that represents a sound, you can process it into music with such modules as filters and VCAs. But where does that sound come from in the first place?…
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We're coming up to the end of the first quarter of 2018, and I'm happy to note that based on the current projection, it looks like the company will actually have a profit this quarter - probably about $10. ( Edit: Well, not quite. The quarter…
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This is Part 9 of a series that started with Part 1. Although the Moog ladder and basic two-pole state-variable designs cover very many synthesizer VCFs, there are still a number of other kinds worth mentioning. In this, probably the las…
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You can understand most op amp circuits with just three simple rules. If, through negative feedback, the op amp can bring its inputs to equal voltage, then it will do so. Otherwise, it will drive its output near whichever power supply voltage co…
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This is Part 8 in a series that started with Part 1. Voltage-controlled filters (VCFs), as I've said before, are critically important in modular synthesis because more than any other type of module, they define the sound of a synthesizer voi…
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There's a recurring thread that comes up again and again in SDIY fora, where someone asks how to "mod" an existing device that is not voltage-controlled to give it a CV input. Sometimes this question is asked in relation to a specific product, in…
[Read more]I saw in my Web hosting logs that someone visited this site and spent a significant amount of time using the site search and guessing URLs in an unsuccessful attempt to discover the RSS feed URL - which was linked on every single page, but at the…
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This is Part 7 in a series that started with Part 1. Last installment I talked about VCAs, which are important in analog synthesis because of their versatility. This time around I'm going to discuss a type of module with a more narrow focus…
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Orid Oru, "The Universes of Forever": a world not much different from many others, whose most notable feature is a huge inland ocean connected to the outer waters that surround the world only through a small channel in the northwest. The western…
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This is Part 6 in a series that started with Part 1. When people think of their favourite modules, the humble VCA (Voltage Controlled Amplifier) is seldom at the top of the list. But among experienced modular users it's understood that even…
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If you've been following North Coast for a long time, you may remember the live video streams I did back in 2016. This week I spent some time getting the software and hardware set up to do that again, which pretty much meant starting over from…
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This is Part 5 in a series that started with Part 1. Back in Part 3 of the "intro to modular" series I said it would cost about US$1000 to US$2000 to get started in modular synthesis, and I said that although there are ways to economize,…
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