Showing posts with label 8-bit. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 8-bit. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 01, 2014

WMD Geiger Counter Eurorack In-Depth Overview

This WMD video appeared on YouTube yesterday.
It gives a nice overview of the WMD Geigercounter Eurorack module.
The Geigercounter is  wavetable distortion/ bit depth and sample rate reducer...

WMD Geigercounter Eurorack module
" The WMD Geiger Counter is hundreds of entirely new face melting sounds.
A high gain modern preamp drives an 8 bit computer, creating sounds which range from nice (tubey overdrive, lofi aliasing, hot gated leads) to total madness (impossible amounts of gain, multiple octave foldover, harsh digital data errors, and piercing sculpted noise)."

Features:
- High Gain Modern Preamp
- Preamp Attenuator
- Direct Input
- Dramatic Tone Control with Disable
- Sample Rate from 260Hz to 200kHz
- 1 to 8 Bit Depth with Mask mode
- 252 Wave Table Modulator
- CV of Sample Rate
- CV of Bit Depth
- CV of Wave Table
- Always saves settings
- Top Quality Components
- Anodized and epoxy screen printed
- Standard 10pin Eurorack Cable
- 10 HP

Video:
WMD - Geiger Counter In-Depth Overview

" Alex takes us throught the features and functions of the WMD Geiger Counter Eurorack Module."

Uploaded by William Mathewson (of WMD)

Monday, January 14, 2013

Doepfer Sound Sampler (1984)

Doepfer 8-bit Sound Sampler
On a random search on the internet for rare Doepfer products i came across this module in an old Matrixsynth post:
This Doepfer Sound Sampler module (8 bit voltage controlled sampler with interface and sampling software for Commodore 64) was made by Doepfer in 1984.

Sound Sampler book 
by Dieter Doepfer and 
Cristian Assall
The Doepfer CV/Gate controlled modular Sound Sampler system was available as a kit between 1984 and 1990.
The complete system was also described in detail in the book written by Dieter Doepfer and Cristian Assall called "Sound Sampler" (published by Elektor ISBN 3-921608-44-9) in 1988.
This book was dedicated to building an 8-bit modular sampler that could be edited with a Commodore 64 home-computer.
All schematics are in the book, with all PCB designs and front-panels for all modules: input, memory/sampling card (with CV/Gate), loopcard, C-64 interface and compressor/expander.

Picture via Gearslutz
Every sampler module had its own memory.
There was software available that could handle sampling, FM synthesis, Wavetable synthesis, Fourier synthesis and Waveshaping synthesis.
The C64 could be used only to modify the sampling memory (sampled sound or sound generated by software synthesis like FM or Fourier), up to 8 sampling voices.

Most of the PCB board was covered by the memory chips that were pretty expensive at the time.
The picture below shows a 6-Voice system, the Input/Interface module is left, then 6 times the Memory-Card, each with a HS-VCO to get the pitch and a Curtis filter.
Apart from the sampler was a CV/Gate controlled stand-alone unit (not on the pictures)

Later Doepfer added another extension card, the so-called CCU (computer control unit). 
With this unit it was possible to define loops with free adjustable start and end position (the software helped to find zero-transitions for a glitch-free loop), and the unit could now be fully controlled by the computer (also pitch via high-speed DCOs). 
Also an expander/compressor was available but the improvement of this addition was very small from Dieter's own point of view.

6 x Memorycard, 6 x VCO,
6x Curtis filter
Around 300 kits were sold, partly because around the same time (1984-1988) Ensoniq released their Mirage sampler that was cheaper (and easier to use) than the Doepfer sampler.

Dieter: "To some extend this was also the beginning of the Eurorack standard (instead of Doepfers/DD Systems earlier Formant sized modules) as the front panels already had the same dimensions and mounting positions as the A-100 that started in 1995."

This module was the precursor of the A-112 that was released more than a decade later, but in the A-112 one small chip contains twice the memory of the 16 large chips of the old sampler.

Special thanks to Dieter Doepfer for all additional info

Monday, September 24, 2012

Doepfer USB/CV/Gate/MIDI Converters Update

A little bit more info (by Dieter himself) on two upcoming Doepfer modules popped up in the Yahoo Doepfer Usergroup today.

It said that the A-192-2 Dual CV/Gate-to-MIDI/USB Interface is in the starting blocks and will be included with the next (fall 2012) production series.
Module A-192-2 contains two independent CV/Gate-to-Midi/USB interfaces.
Another product that almost reached the production stage is the A-190-5 four voice polyphonic Midi to CV/Gate interface that will probably be included in the last production series in 2012.

The A-190-5 will have 12 CV and 4 Gate outputs, and different modes (e.g. unisono, four-fold monophonic, different four voice polyphonic modes)
The hardware of the A-190-5 module is ready and Christian is working on the firmware.
Though it was planned to use 12 bit DA converters Doepfer thinks about 8 bit converters to reduce the price a bit.
"12 bit converters don't seem to have any advantage because the module only converts 7 bit midi data into CV (no software LFOs or software envelopes or software glide) and in this case 12 bit DACs
are wasted money because the last 5 bits are not used.", according to Dieter.

The estimated price for the A-192-2 is approximately 130 Euro, expect to pay around 300 Euro for the A-190-5.
Price and release date are still without obligation

Find the latest updates on new Doepfer modules HERE

Saturday, February 25, 2012

Random Videos: HOX808

I really like the recent uploads from YouTube user HOX808 from Berlin, Germany.
Focussing on modular analog synths and with their minimalistic approach these video's are simply amazing.
I posted 2 video's below, but be sure to also check out the older uploads by this user.

The first video is a minimal drum sequence, made with only the Doepfer A-160 and 2 A-161 Sequencer/Dividers, TipTop 808 Bassdrum, Snare and Hats drum modules, a touch of (TB-)303, a few samples and some kind of delay.
Quite impressive with these minimum resources.
This does bring back an old wish of me for Doepfer to produce some drum-modules that sound (at least) as good as this though...

Video 1: The Thin Rebirth
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XivBQxgERPg
-no description available

The second video also mainly seems to be about drums, but if you look a bit further, you notice that these are not drum-modules, but six (!) Doepfer A-112 8-Bit samplers in a row, and it looks/ sounds like the same TipTop drum-module were used.
Very original again, but what happened with the knobs?

Video 2: 6 x Doepfer A-112 8 Bit Sampler

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJErS9T04HQ
" 6 x Doepfer A-112 8 Bit Sampler and Tiptop Audio BD SD,Flame Echometer, MFB STEP 64."

Uploaded by HOX808