Minitaur with CV's - close but no cigar

[nectarios]

Well all I can reply to that is :

E2 - G2 - A2 - G2 - D3 - C3 - D3 - E3 at 166 bmp

But don't try that on the Minitaur... you need a noise generator for the full effects

Erm...I think I'm too old for 166BPM...

[Portamental]

Allright, I finally decided to run a battery of tests with Din-Midi. I did not go very far.

I tried to control with : LP, Max49, PK-6.

Things seemed to be a bit better overall on midi, but the problem is that the glide section is frozen in an everlasting long glide. Turned the glide switch on and off, no response. Turned the glide knob all the way down to zero, no response.

Double, triple, quadruple checked everything, changed all the cables once, twice. All controllers are A-OK, but the Minitaur keeps on acting. A dozen+ power on-off on the Minitaur. No change.

Are there other long time undesirable effects? I don't know. Did no go all the way there. The Minitaur locked on glide is useless anyway.

[Portamental]

One last thing, the forever glide is full note range. If you press a lower key than the previous note, glide is down and vice-versa. But it is not governed by the note played. From low frequency to all the way up the note range or vice-versa.

[Portamental]

More tests, more flaky results.

The ever long glide may or may not be. I am pretty sure it was real, but later on, I had a very low LFO rate, both mod levels to zero, but mod section frozen fully on. I noticed also pressing two keys on the controller seems to un-freeze the mod section, for an instant.

Then something happened, I don't know what I did wrong, but the machine started to work right. Everything worked fine, testing every knob... yes... a couple minutes.. and then ..no.... no modulation whatsoever. Turn more knobs, frozen mod section again, fully on.

My head aches, got to lie lie down.

[Uturunku]

Hello all,

(Sorry for my English, I'm not native speaker
I have the same issues with my Minitaur which were described in the first topic -- MIX and MOD sections hang when I sequencing my Minitaur via only CV/Gate (no midi cable plugged). But it is working fine when I use only midi (no CV cables connected). It is very easy to reproduce these issues because they happen every time I'm usinc CV. Sometimes MIX section works but MOD section doesn't work and vice versa.
I use Elektron AnalogFour synth as CV sequencer and mini CV-keyboard.

How to reproduce:
1) Connect CV sequencer (or keyboard with CV-out) to minitaur. Don't connect midi-cable.
2) Turn on minitaur.
3) Run sequence or play notes on keyboard. (Sometimes happens, that there is no sound coming from minitaur on this step. Only reboot of minitaur helps.)
4) Rotate knobs of MIX section.
Possible result 1: Levels of VCO1 or VCO2 will work fine during approx. second and will freeze on one level. After that MIX knobs stop working.
5) If MIX section works good, try to rotate MOD section's knobs.
Possible result 2: MOD section doesn't work.
6) Play with another parameters, i.e. OSC waveform buttons -- sometimes it causes hangs of MIXor MOD sections.

I can record a video with demonstration if it is needed.

[Portamental]

Hi Uturunku... welcome to the group. Your english is very good.

Keep on testing, you will find other issues too. Next in line after the Mixer and Mod sections is the VCA group, particularly the sustain function, which locks either full on or full off... then there's Decay, Release, Glide....

Midi works better if you play notes and from the controller. Start turning knobs... things will happen too.

It took me three or four times (plug unplug) to get the Minitaur to play in Mono mode on the PK-6. Even if the Midi led reported normal activity, no sound was coming out.

What is this mini-cv keyboard that you are using? The Max 49 is a very beautiful controller, it has all the functions I would want from a controller, except for one thing... you can hardly play music on this thing, key action is way too stiff. It is mostly designed, I would say, for DJ's that are banging it around.

[Uturunku]

welcome to the group. Your english is very good.

Thanks!

What is this mini-cv keyboard that you are using?

I mean this small integrated keyboard on Elektron Analogfour front panel. It is very useful for programing sequences on Analogfour but it also works as a cv-controller for external devices.

[Portamental]

What an ordeal it has been, and not for me alone I am sure..

I have had the Minitaur for over two months now. Power on and off galore (hundreds). No music, no tunes were played except maybe for : "Scrambled Eggs".

Today, while I was simmering on my darkest thoughts, the winds of change started to blow my way. That was late afternoon.

A few more power on and off and on again. And then, music started to flow. I threw it all I got : Emo, Gentle Giant, PFM, Genesis, Gabriel, Dale Jacobs, Chick Corea, Vannelli, Mussorgsky, Bach, Beethoven, Copland to name only the famous, many lesser known as well. But hold on, this is a bass synthesizer, I ran out of notes on the high end leads. Perfect.

With only two patch cables carrying pitch and gate, I turned knobs frantically on the only patch I care about : the Panel. Two hours, no glitches observed. This must be the most stable Minitaur on the planet. Maybe not. Chances are there is at least another one.

Only thing missing I can think of is my endeared multi-trigger toggle function.

A bit of din-midi thrown in for good measure, no fault to report.

And then, guess what... icing on the cake, a little bass duo played from the 18 notes Taurus II pedal controller. Minor tuning issues. This must be analog heaven.

"There is no reason we should not be able to achieve 100% functionality with this little beast" the man said.

Today, I am a believer.

Stay tuned. News to be announced fairly soon I presume.

[stiiiiiiive]

Sooo.... it came back to life? Like that? For nothing?...

[Portamental]

Sooo.... it came back to life? Like that? For nothing?...

Nope, it did not.

[Portamental]

Now that the Minitaur freezing issues have been fixed, that would make the Minitaur usable with CV's ?. Well the answer to that is : close but no cigar.

The Minitaur hybrid architecture is a departure from old school in a number of ways. Limitations apply.

- Without the editor, which I don't have, my favorite synthesizer feature : single/multi trigger is not accessible. I am stuck in legato mode.

- The MT is able to process external sounds, but the dummy plug trick to open the gate does not work. In order to process exrtenal sound, you have to press down key (when connected midi) or apply a valid positive voltage. That requires external hardware ressources.

- There is no bus voltage residing inside the MT. Gone too is the trick of instantaneous transpose when pressing a key. Sequencing the Minitaur and transposing the sequence on the fly is not possible.


- What were they thinking when deciding to limit the pitch and filter CV inputs in the 0-5v ranges. Phattys, Voyager and (most) vintage Moog have a range of -5v to +5v on these inputs.

That means than an external LFO (from the CP-251 for example) will have the negative part of it's cycle equalled to 0 volts when modulating either pitch or filter. That also means that lowering the pitch with negative voltage (CV transpose) will not work either.

So why a filter CV input if it can't do the job of modulating the filter. I have a word for that : .... I guess you can come up with one of your own too.

Now if you are keen on following manufacturers recommendation in order to not damage your precious equipment, this excerpt from the V2 addendum will not re-assure you.



In the Midi world, some limitations exist too : no Din-Midi out (or merge). CV-to-Midi as described in V2 is for USB users only. I could have used that on Din-Midi but no!

Does the Minitaur belong in all analog studio. The more it goes, the answer is shaping as a NO!.

It does sound pretty good though.

[Amos]

- Without the editor, which I don't have, my favorite synthesizer feature : single/multi trigger is not accessible. I am stuck in legato mode.

- The MT is able to process external sounds, but the dummy plug trick to open the gate does not work. In order to process exrtenal sound, you have to press down key (when connected midi) or apply a valid positive voltage. That requires external hardware ressources.

- There is no bus voltage residing inside the MT. Gone too is the trick of instantaneous transpose when pressing a key. Sequencing the Minitaur and transposing the sequence on the fly is not possible.

I'll fix all these mentioned items (provide panel-accessible ways to do them) in the next big Minitaur update...

[Portamental]

^ Ahh the multi-trigger setting from the panel... I want that so badly... I hope you can implement it just the way I suggested. I have come up with a number of easy to implement features for the Minitaur. I guess should post them if I want them done at some point, and anything old school

Meanwhile, now that it is working right, the Minitaur is finally growing on me. Today's setup started with a five oscillator bass station. It sounded HUGE. I had no problem getting 2+ octaves in tune of the deepest bass imaginable from the high end of the OS keyboard, with the Minitaur cut off wide open and minimal envelopes, used as external input. OS low pass and envelopes were in control.

Then I added a delay. Too muddy with all that bass. So I started to give the lead to the OS by raising Oscillators settings, some all the way. I needed to add a control pedal to fine tune the high pitched sounds. From there it sounded soooooo good. Raising the feedback, the high pitched sounds were lost by the delay. The Minitaur was resonating very deeply and the highs from the Voyager acquired some kind of etheral quality I had never heard before. I could play something like 8 octaves in tune. Somehow, pitch was not totally in synch in medium frequencies but the bass and highs were in synch. I came up with a little song tailored for the repeats of the deep bass. I should record those things, they only come once in a while.

All analog setup, just as I wanted. I do regret the input voltage limitations on the Minitaur but it is getting closer to the place I envisonned it.

[Portamental]

That was a nice session (just above). On cv's, the Minitaur has been solid ever since 2.0.4. And a few times as well on din-midi, I think. I did use it with the PK-6 a couple of times and there was nothing wrong to report.

But just now, I wanted to put it on multi-trigger mode, so i brought a midi-controller (BCR 2000) to program the required CC to do the job... inserted the din-midi cable, while still hooked with patch cables. Mod section froze on me at full amount. Removed din-midi, off and on : mod section frozen at no amount. Off and on again (no midi) : everything is fine.

After another try, I succeeded plugging din-midi, but the single-multi trigger CC did not work and I could not put the Minitaur into multi-trigger.

So it is not as rock-steady as I thought it has become. Small bug still lingering on. Minitaur does not like to be midi plugged while it is on. Needs more trouble-shooting. Not tonight... too tired.

All the while, that raises the thought of how the Minitaur will detect a change of note (assuming it has been set in multi-trigger mode) if a gate signal is not sent while playing legato style (which is indeed the case) on a CV keyboard. That could mean that multi-trigger mode will only work on midi.

Huuummm honeymoon is over, shivers have returned.

Amos, when are you back from Spain?

[Portamental]

Playing some more Minitaur today.

When either working on CVs or din-midi and not messing around plugging midi cable when Minitaur is on, everything is fine and so I am.

Plugging anything into the Minitaur patch cable or expression pedal or else while it is on, it gets into all sorts of strange behaviour : mod section freezes, pitch is off by a mile. Best avoided. The behaviour of the controller (when midi) is to be taken onto account too.

So if that is that, that's what it is.

Thinking more about the multi-trigger and CV's, if no gate signal is sent from the controller or cv keyboard (and that's what happens with the MAX 49), I am afraid multi-trigger will not work with the MAX in CV mode.

Single/Multi-trigger works fine though with the MAX 49 and a programmed button sending CC 73.

This thing really sound good.