Filter Spacing

Tips and techniques for Minimoog Analog Synthesizers
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Mr. Incredible
Posts: 50
Joined: Tue Sep 12, 2006 11:10 am

Filter Spacing

Post by Mr. Incredible » Mon Oct 23, 2006 3:12 pm

I'm now also a prowd owner of a Minimoog Voyager - got it about two weeks ago and it even surpasses my expectations!
Anyway, when I was tired of tweaking and editing a couple of sounds, I decided to browse through some of the presets.
I was having fun with one of the leads when I noticed a weird thing - the panning seemed to be going from left to right in a rhythmic way. Listening to the Voyager with headphones, this was kinda annoying, so I started to check where it originated.
Since it seemed to be going on in every sound I dialed up, I already suspected that there could be something wrong in the circuit somewhere :o
But fortunately I finally found that osc 3 was routed to the stereo panning in the edit menu. Great, case dismissed :)

Anyway, while I was tracing down the source of the weird panning, I first suspected that the filter spacing had anything to do with it. This was not the case, though, since it was the osc 3 panning, as I already wrote. But I noticed that the filter spacing knob only seemed to affect the right audio channel, but not the left one (in the double LP mode, of course). Like I said, I was using headphones, so this felt kinda strange.

When the spacing knob is centered, so is the sound in the headphones. Turning the knob clockwise brightens the sound of the right channel. Turning it anti-clockwise cuts the higher frequencies of the right channel, but the left channel is always unaffected.

Is the filter spacing supposed to behave like this, or is it just my unit?

And for something completely different: the wooden cabinet ot the performer edition - is this cherry wood or walnut?

Any clarification greatly appreciated!

Dom

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GregAE
Posts: 1590
Joined: Mon Jul 21, 2003 8:44 pm
Location: In the studio, of course

Re: Filter Spacing

Post by GregAE » Mon Oct 23, 2006 8:07 pm

Mr. Incredible wrote:
When the spacing knob is centered, so is the sound in the headphones. Turning the knob clockwise brightens the sound of the right channel. Turning it anti-clockwise cuts the higher frequencies of the right channel, but the left channel is always unaffected.

Is the filter spacing supposed to behave like this, or is it just my unit?

And for something completely different: the wooden cabinet ot the performer edition - is this cherry wood or walnut?
The Filter Spacing control offsets the cutoff of just one filter, not both, so it's behaving as it should. When the Filter Mode is set to LP/LP, the Spacing control can be used to create a stereo effect (if you are running stereo outputs). When the Filter Mode is set to HP/LP (creating a bandpass filter), the Spacing control adjusts the width of the passband, from very broad to skinny. The Spacing control can also be modulated from a number of sources, giving further sonic flexibility.

Regarding the Performer cabinet, I believe the wood is a custom stained ash.

- Greg

Mr. Incredible
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Joined: Tue Sep 12, 2006 11:10 am

Post by Mr. Incredible » Mon Oct 23, 2006 8:39 pm

Ok, great. Thank you for the clarification.

Dom

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GregAE
Posts: 1590
Joined: Mon Jul 21, 2003 8:44 pm
Location: In the studio, of course

Post by GregAE » Tue Oct 24, 2006 1:30 am

Mr. Incredible wrote:Ok, great. Thank you for the clarification.

Dom
Dom,

Happy to help. For more info on the Voyager Filters, take a look at the article "Filtration Nation" on SquareWave:

http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/Squarewave/



- Greg

Purusha
Posts: 86
Joined: Tue Aug 05, 2003 4:37 pm

Post by Purusha » Tue Oct 24, 2006 7:19 pm

I struggled with the panning thing for a while. My issue was though that: the panning wasn't even on left and right. One of them (right I think) always ended up generating a louder signal) when tied to that default mod source.

I just knocked out the mod source and I'm much happier.

I've also started using in mono mode too. I'm not convinced that the stereo filter system is really all that useful.
Voyager Performer, Minitaur
Cubase 8.5, Ableton 9, various hardware sequencers
OSX El Capitan on MacPro (cylinder) and MacBookPro.

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