2 glitches and trick for making LFO slower?

Tips and techniques for Minimoog Analog Synthesizers
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brianfores
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2 glitches and trick for making LFO slower?

Post by brianfores » Fri Sep 15, 2006 8:13 pm

Hi all

These two glitches have been longstanding on my voyager, but I'm just asking again, hoping something has changed with time.

1. When I throw the 3 KB Contact switch to off for drones - while it does go down an octave as it's supposed to - it's slightly sharp. This sucks for live playing, if i suddenly need to go to drone mode, I have to quickly retune. Come to think of it, Osc 2 and 3 have to be slightly past dead center to be in tune with Osc. 1.

2. I really like to use On/Ext, turn off all the oscs and process other instruments through the voyagers magnificent filters, BUT - either decay or sustain, can't remember which one - has to be set all the way to the left (or all the way to zero), if not, a slow decay begins. I realized this during recording, when the guitar or piano, whatever, kept getting quieter and quieter. I sent my voyager all the way to the factory, they said nothing was wrong. Only after I got back from them did I get a note from moog saying that the decay, I believe, had to be set all the way down for this to work.

I'm wondering if newer voyagers exhibit this "feature" or glitch depending on how you look at it, or if ANYONE other than me has this problem. If you want to test it, just set it to on/external w/an osc on. If the signal gets fainter in 5-10 minutes, then you share my "feature."

Finally, somwhere, maybe on the first voyager forum, there was a post on how to make the LFO go slower than it's slowest rate. Not sure if you can do this with the VX, etc., but this trick was strickly with the v's mod busses. If anyone could enlighten me, it would be most appreciated.

Many thanks! brian

corkyburger
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Post by corkyburger » Sat Sep 16, 2006 4:46 am

Yeah I think I have got a similar problem with the decay. I often patch my Theremin through the Voyagers input and yes the volume gets quieter and quieter.

Very annoying.

S

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till
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Re: 2 glitches and trick for making LFO slower?

Post by till » Sat Sep 16, 2006 3:21 pm

brianfores wrote:When I throw the 3 KB Contact switch to off for drones - while it does go down an octave as it's supposed to - it's slightly sharp. This sucks for live playing, if i suddenly need to go to drone mode, I have to quickly retune. Come to think of it, Osc 2 and 3 have to be slightly past dead center to be in tune with Osc. 1.
Sounds like you Voyger needs to be calibrated by a Moog tech.
brianfores wrote:Finally, somwhere, maybe on the first voyager forum, there was a post on how to make the LFO go slower than it's slowest rate. Not sure if you can do this with the VX, etc., but this trick was strickly with the v's mod busses. If anyone could enlighten me, it would be most appreciated.
Just feed the LFO RATE socket up to -2,5 V (or so) for lower rates then the ones available by the frontpanel knob. You may use some self made footswitch with a single 1.5 V battery to do so.
keep on turning these Moog knobs

Prodigy * minimoog '79 * Voyager * MF102 * MF103 * MF104z * MP201 * Taurus 3 * Minitaur * Sub Phatty * MF105 * Minimoog 2017+ MUSE * One 16 (sold)

Moogulator
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Post by Moogulator » Sat Sep 16, 2006 4:15 pm

I wonder if there is a way to speed the LFO up..
is it digitally generated or analog (I did not yet see the schemos)?.. so maybe it's easy, but.. since it is all memorized there will be a lot of incompatibelity with other moogs then.. of course.. but.. who cares about presets? ;)

brianfores
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Post by brianfores » Sat Sep 16, 2006 8:05 pm

Hey corky burger, re:

"Yeah I think I have got a similar problem with the decay. I often patch my Theremin through the Voyagers input and yes the volume gets quieter and quieter."

Just try turning the decay on the volume envelop to zero.

Regarding slowing the lfo down, that's a cool idea, but this trick, you didn't need anything external. Thanks though!

s16016wb
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Post by s16016wb » Tue Sep 19, 2006 8:35 am

Slowing down the LFO... I think this was the article with that technique:

http://www.moogmusic.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=376

OysterRock
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Re: 2 glitches and trick for making LFO slower?

Post by OysterRock » Fri Sep 22, 2006 12:07 pm

brianfores wrote: 1. When I throw the 3 KB Contact switch to off for drones - while it does go down an octave as it's supposed to - it's slightly sharp. This sucks for live playing, if i suddenly need to go to drone mode, I have to quickly retune. Come to think of it, Osc 2 and 3 have to be slightly past dead center to be in tune with Osc. 1.
Same thing happens with mine, its sharp. Anyone else experience this or do both of us just need a tune up? Mine stays in tune fine in every other way, so it seems a bit silly to get a tune up just for this.

brianfores
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hey oysterock

Post by brianfores » Mon Sep 25, 2006 8:32 pm

hey,

I spoke with amos at the factory about Osc 3 going sharp in drone mode. Apparently, it has to do with the resister that controls that circuit, it's something like +/- a certian number (forget what, maybe five), percent - so there's no real guarantee that it'll be perfectly in tune. Also, he said it's a seperate thing from tuning, so tuning won't fix that. It might be a matter of manually replacing the resister in question with one that has a smaller +/- range. I'm not perfect on all the details there, but that's basically the gist of it.

He did offer two workarounds:
1. Create patches with the drone in tune.
2. Create a patch with the drone in tune, but off, so a two-osc patch, and then, throw on the drone when you need it - it'll be in tune. Not perfect, but something.

I'd love to get my voyager tuned, but the drone issue, i think i can live with for now.

Regards, brian

OysterRock
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Re: hey oysterock

Post by OysterRock » Mon Sep 25, 2006 9:59 pm

brianfores wrote: I spoke with amos at the factory about Osc 3 going sharp in drone mode. Apparently, it has to do with the resister that controls that circuit, it's something like +/- a certian number (forget what, maybe five), percent
Amos must be talking about the tolerance of the resistor. Resistor tolerance is basically the range in which the resistor's value is likely to actually be as opposed to what it SAYS the value is. I wonder if Moog would be willing to tell us which resistor it is.

It doesn't really bother me, though, as I don't really switch to drone while I'm playing. But it would be nice to fix.

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