Voyager Mixer Question

Tips and techniques for Minimoog Analog Synthesizers
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bosonob
Posts: 29
Joined: Mon Dec 13, 2004 9:31 pm

Voyager Mixer Question

Post by bosonob » Wed Mar 09, 2005 4:01 pm

Greetings,

I am having trouble telling if the mixer is capable of distortion with the osc 1-3. I of course know that output to ext. input can create a world of distortion, but I can not really tell if setting 10 on mixer is distorting versus say 6 or 7. It just gets louder to my ears. I know the the Moog manual states that the mixer can provide "gentle" distortion. It must be very gentle indeed. Sometimes I want nastiness but selectively, say more Osc 1 distortion versus 2. With the feedback method (out to in ) you can't be selective. I heard that the model D can audibly distort using its mixer to full capacity.

Any thoughts?


Stefan

CasaRojo
Posts: 14
Joined: Sun Feb 06, 2005 11:58 pm

Post by CasaRojo » Sun Mar 13, 2005 10:09 pm

I'm buying a Peavey Delta Blues tube all amp just for my Voyager. It's the only tube amp I've seen with a 15" speaker. Good ol' analog overdrive but it will be on all osc's. That's ok with me though. The "best" audio I ever had with a Mini was with an old Shure Vocal Master PA cranked wide open! Play a note and there was this beautifully erie orange glow from the output tubes all around the back of the amp.... ahhh... the good old days. <G>
CasaRojo

LWG
Posts: 282
Joined: Tue May 25, 2004 1:27 am
Location: New Jersey

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Post by LWG » Thu Mar 17, 2005 1:43 am

Stefan,

The Vger manual states, "When the levels of the oscillators are set high,
the output from the mixer gently overdrives the filter section".
What the manual seems to suggest is that the overdrive you get on the instrument may come primarily from clipping in the filter stages.
Overdriven mixer/overdriven filter = two different animals. The mixer may indeed produce a bit of clipping (I haven't attached it to an O-scope) however, the mixer amps may not be calibrated for the level of signal saturation from each oscillator that your post (and others) refer to.
For now, the other way around for distortion on the instrument can be audio-rate mod, audio-triggered S&H, distortion by tuning the oscillators to the frequency components that make up a crunch tone (additive).
External methods would be getting separate signals from the oscillators in
the mod bus section of the VX, treating them thru ring mod, tubes, comparator (need attenuator), as well as modules similar to Serge's wave multiplier (or wave folder), then feeding these back into the external input.



Regards,



LWG

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