wait and listen.....NAMM

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Kevin Lightner
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Post by Kevin Lightner » Sun Jan 14, 2007 1:49 pm

That Wikipedia definition of PLLs is pretty good.
Thanks.

One thing though- PLLs are like octave dividers in one sense: they only work monophonically. Feed them a chord or complex signal and they get all messed up trying to lock to the signal.
Then again, feeding a noise source into one of these new pedals might result in some wild stuff too.
That's the fun of synthesis. :)

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Post by OysterRock » Sun Jan 14, 2007 2:02 pm

Why would this new pedal have a PLL? I don't see anything about frequency tracking. It says that the VCO is modulated by the audio input, which to me means that the envelope modulates the frequency and/or FM amount.

From the leaked description: "Inside the FreqBox is a Voltage Controlled Oscillator (VCO) which is modulated by the sound source input—an Audio Modulated VCO!"

That doesn't mean frequency tracking to me or else they would explicitly say that. Am I missing something here?

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Kevin Lightner
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Post by Kevin Lightner » Sun Jan 14, 2007 4:13 pm

Like I said, I don't know what's inside.
These are all just guesses.

However, I've modulated VCOs with external signals and while interesting, they wouldn't be my idea of what to build into a dedicated box.

Possibly it's a VCO thats hard-sync'd to an external signal.
That might be more interesting.

But I really don't know what they're doing.
I haven't even listened to the demo.

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Post by Nick Montoya » Sun Jan 14, 2007 7:04 pm

I think you may be right Kevin.... I bet the sync switch hard syncs the input with the Osc.. Thats what the demo sounds like to me.. It sounds like a multitrack recording being run through the 107... Un-synced I bet it just goes whacky pitch-wise... :shock:

In 72 hours I will have a full briefing and I'm SO excited.. NAMM here we come :)

- Nick
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OysterRock
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Post by OysterRock » Sun Jan 14, 2007 7:31 pm

Kevin Lightner wrote: Possibly it's a VCO thats hard-sync'd to an external signal.
That might be more interesting.
If that is what is going on or not, that's a good idea. I may have to experiment with this a bit :)

I guess we'll get the full specs an NAMM!

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MC
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Post by MC » Sun Jan 14, 2007 7:50 pm

We're not only missing the ADSR, we're missing the VCA.

Then you'd have the components to make a modular synth.

eric coleridge
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Post by eric coleridge » Sun Jan 14, 2007 8:11 pm

OysterRock wrote:
Kevin Lightner wrote: Possibly it's a VCO thats hard-sync'd to an external signal.
That might be more interesting.
If that is what is going on or not, that's a good idea. I may have to experiment with this a bit :)
I've never seen an oscillator that can sync to an irregular external audio signal. Does anyone know if there are there precedents for this on any existing VCOs?

I was wondering if there may be some internal clock (apart from the main VCO) that provides the sync signal.

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Post by OysterRock » Sun Jan 14, 2007 8:20 pm

MC wrote:We're not only missing the ADSR, we're missing the VCA.

Then you'd have the components to make a modular synth.
Can't the ring mod be used as a VCA? I think you can plug a dummy plug into the carrier in to disable it, then supply a control voltage to the MIX input.

Also, the new pedal must have a VCA or else the oscillators would be always coming through the output. If the 107 has an envelope input, you might be able to use it as a VCA.

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Post by OysterRock » Sun Jan 14, 2007 8:26 pm

eric coleridge wrote:
I've never seen an oscillator that can sync to an irregular external audio signal. Does anyone know if there are there precedents for this on any existing VCOs?
The PLL creates a square wave that tracks (somewhat) to the input frequency. It would not track very well so you could not use it for pitch-to-CV, but it would track well enough that you could get some interesting results if an oscillator was hard or soft synced to it. I don't know if that's what the 107 does, but its an interesting concept none the less.
I was wondering if there may be some internal clock (apart from the main VCO) that provides the sync signal.
Thats what I was thinking. This internal signal would also be used to FM the main oscillator.

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Post by eric coleridge » Mon Jan 15, 2007 4:35 am

I think it's kind of interesting how it's turned out that many of the Moogerfoogers provide basic functions that were left off the original MiniMoog:

101 has an Env Foll
102 Ring Mod

CP 251 has S+H, Lag, and a dedicated LFO

and now with the 107, there's Osc Sync.

I guess it;s not a mind blowing coincidence; but sometimes I wonder if Bob Moog considered this when he conceived them. They definitely look like little MiniMoog supplements.

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Post by godzilla » Mon Jan 15, 2007 4:39 am

i wonder if they were trying to come up with a pitch-cv circut (in response to all our wishes of one) but then stumbled across whatever this ends up being and thought that it is cooler anyway?

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Post by eric coleridge » Mon Jan 15, 2007 4:52 am

OysterRock wrote:
MC wrote:We're not only missing the ADSR, we're missing the VCA.

Then you'd have the components to make a modular synth.
Also, the new pedal must have a VCA or else the oscillators would be always coming through the output. If the 107 has an envelope input, you might be able to use it as a VCA.

It would be pretty cool if there is a normalized Oscillator output jack on the back panel, so that you could send the oscillator signal to the MF101 for filtering and then return the processed signal through the 107's input jack (or some other send and return abilty). With a CV jack for Mix, this would accomplish the task of a VCA.

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Post by godzilla » Mon Jan 15, 2007 5:01 am

yeah that would awesome!

it's nice to see a more "synth" type pedal again rather than the more "effect" type ones that we've had for the past few (not that i don't love my delay to bits! but yeah it certainly evens it up now) but yeah combining the RM filter and this new pedal with a 251 would give you a pretty impressive synth with an intense amount of modulation possibilities

so how many of these freqboxes does everyone think they'll be getting?

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Post by MC » Mon Jan 15, 2007 9:44 am

OysterRock wrote:
MC wrote:We're not only missing the ADSR, we're missing the VCA.

Then you'd have the components to make a modular synth.
Can't the ring mod be used as a VCA? I think you can plug a dummy plug into the carrier in to disable it, then supply a control voltage to the MIX input.
That thought occurred to me as I was writing that post.

The answer is: yes and no. The ring mod can function as a VCA but a real VCA will have far greater attenuation. Translated: if you use a ring mod as a VCA and you attempt to turn it off, you'll still hear audio bleedthrough.

I had a PAiA synth that used a ring mod for a VCA, and it never completely shut off the audio. Don Buchla tried to design a ring mod that could double as a VCA - he gave that up too.

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Post by OysterRock » Mon Jan 15, 2007 10:51 am

MC wrote: The answer is: yes and no. The ring mod can function as a VCA but a real VCA will have far greater attenuation. Translated: if you use a ring mod as a VCA and you attempt to turn it off, you'll still hear audio bleedthrough.
Yeah, I messed around with the 102 a bit after that post. It works OK for tremelo-type effects, but could never be used as a proper synthesizer VCA.

Again, we'll just have to wait for NAMM!

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