bleepology » acquisitions

Boys Will Make Noise

bdu — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 17:27:56 +0000

MakeNoise ModDemod is in the house. No time to play until the weekend, but you get pictures now.

The ModDemod is a dual passive ring modulator, in case you didn’t know…

Harvestman Malgorithm

bdu — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 20:13:29 +0000

Toss your bits and tickle your nyquist.

I hung out with the Harvestman last night in a bit of pre-NAMM socializing as he drove through the area on his way down to southern California, and I ended up taking home a Malgorithm.

Once again, no time to fire it up yet, but have some pictures:

Full flickr set here

New Arrivals – Quad AD and Heisenberg Generator

bdu — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 20:43:33 +0000

These bad boys just arrived as part of a trade for the Waldorf RackAttack. Not much time, but I’ll at least try to get them powered up and tested before I leave for NAMM on Wednesday. In the meantime, have some pretty pictures:

Full flickr set here

SN76477N

bdu — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 22:18:09 +0000

The SN76477N was a TI tone generator chip intended for video games, but, of course, found new life in modules like Blacet’s Dark Star Chaos.

Recently, it’s been used in a couple of Thomas Henry designs like the SN-Voice and the Super Controller.

BGMicro put up some stock of the chip for sale, and it’s relatively inexpensive, so I grabbed a couple. I already had one for my (as of yet unbuilt) SN-Voice, but needed another for a Super Controller board to go with it. They arrived quite fast, actually…

Note that these are the “thin body” versions of the chip, some older designs may require an adaptor if they were intended for use with the wide-body version. The Thomas Henry boards have footprints for both sizes.

Tiptop Audio Z3000

bdu — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 23:17:06 +0000

My Z3k arrived yesterday. I’m not going to be able to power it up anytime soon, but some module pr0n is still in order.

Overall, I’m impressed with the clean and dense nature of the board design, and the alpha pots feel great, as always.

Full flickr set here

State of the modular

bdu — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 00:14:08 +0000

I am, for the first time in many years, without a modular synthesizer. “What?” you say, “How did that happen?”

No, I’m not out of love with patch cables and space heaters, I’ve just decided for a re-org. When I first bought into eurorack, there were really only three purveyors of this crack: Doepfer, Analogue Systems, and Analogue Solutions. Doepfer didn’t have anywhere near the range of quality that they have now, and their bread-and-butter modules did not impress me. As a result, I ended up with a whole shed-load of Analogue Systems modules, as they were definitely a step up. As Doepfer expanded their product line, and other manufacturers got in the game, I acquired some of that as well, but the rig was primarily centered around the ASys modules, and all housed in 6u racks.

A few months ago I decided to refactor. Two of my three RS90s ought to go, I have two Plan B model 15s that I use far more often (I’ll keep one RS90 for it’s wide-sweeping tune knob). I’ll probably replace EGs with doepfer quad EGs, LFOs for Plan B elf LFOs etc. Basically, going for more functionality in smaller space to make room for the future.

Speaking of room, the reason I currently have no modular is that I have traded all but one of my 6u racks in for a monster case, and I’m waiting for the next shipment of them to arrive. Hopefully early in December I’ll be able to re-assemble my rig and play again, just in time for the winter break from school.

Good thing, too, as I have an STG/Soundlabs Wave Folder waiting to be abused, and a TipTop Audio Z3000 oscillator on the way.

Here’s the old system: