Not that i ever got to play with one, but there’s a feature from Erica’s Pico System III i love: preset cards. You can buy blank PCBs that reproduce the layout of the system, and solder wires to connect inputs to outputs.
I’d love to see the concept in a bigger DIY system. My thinking is as follows, so let me know if i get any of this wrong:
Those presets would be a great way to prepare a live performance set in advance, hardwiring some of the important parts
While gold fingers are normally made with actual gold, PCB prototyping fab houses can make them with tin for much cheaper, and it offers an acceptable level of reliability and longevity
Edge connectors that take such cards are standardized, cheap, and easy to integrate to a pcb or diy circuit
When making a big kosmo case rather than a tiny eurorack skiff, no reason you can’t run a data bus in the back of the case, in addition to the power bus
Most DIY module builders standardize on switched jacks for everything for simplicity, but often do not make use of the ability to have a default signal path
The main reason this isn’t done much is that it’s hard to retrofit a system to do this after the fact, and that it makes it hard to shuffle modules around
Would doing something similar be as feasible as i think it is in a DIY system? Is there any interesting prior art in the diy spheres?
Once I get started on a bigger system, i’d like to pursue something like this.
For Kosmo (or any other modular), you basically freeze the configuration of your system and it isn’t modular anymore…
If you can live with that, I don’t see any technical reason you can’t do it, except the maximum number of pins of edge connectors, but then you can switch to other (more expensive…) types of connectors.
Well, it’s only frozen assuming you solder wires directly to the data bus without some kind of connector, and that the preset cards must be permanent, isn’t it?
Assuming the most budget-conscious choice, it seems the most common pitch for those cards is 3.96mm, making a 20×2 configuration fit comfortably on a PCB smaller than 100mm×100mm, the magic number to get deals on PCBs. 40 channels seem plenty if you focus only on high impact I/O
building a couple of these right now , seems like once everything is patched in it will do what you are aiming for just push buttons instead of changing cards . plus you get attenuation and
normal / inverted out puts .
I meant, you freeze the list of modules in your modular, not its patching.
If you replace a module, all your cards becomes “obsolete” (well, unless you replace the module with another close enough and only use the “same” I/Os).
Sam’s VCOs have some sort of data buss port on the back I haven’t looked at the circuit diagram to see what’s connected where though. I have mine taped up so I don’t accidentally fry it as it uses the same connector as the power
Oh yeah matrices are nice for that! But one thing i also envision is routing as much boilerplate as possible in the back. (Well, that would be possible with a diy matrix too)
I feel that a great disadvantage of live/video modular performances is how hard it is to understand what the performer is doing. By simplifying the exposed layout as much as possible, it would be easier to notice the effect of high impact patchcables and controls.
I am working toward having modules patched in and using a control " station " with midi keyboard and joysticks and other control voltage type modules in it . to minimize digging through cables to get to knobs or change patches while playing and hopefully with the matrices and Ethernet patch panels to and from the different cases this will work .
I saw Keith onstage in 1972/3 in Newcastle and he seemed to get really stabby with those knives, but mainly with the Hammond. I also recall he ran into the aisles and mimed tommy gunning with his ribbon controller while the Moog would provide sound effects. We loved it.
This is related to the commercial popularity of semi-modular analogue synths. The term of art for what you suggest here, I think is ‘normalling’ (or normaling). The basic idea is that the synth (such as the Moog Mother-32 or its cheaper clone the Behringer Crave) is set up to produce sound via the oscillator, LFO, filter, envelope generator and voltage-controlled amplifier, and you can tweak these using the switches and knobs. But you also have a patchboard allowing you, for example, to patch the noise generator to the filter cut-off or resonance, or the LFO to the amplifier. In short, you get a fully playable instrument and you never need to use a patch cord, but you can patch it as much as you like. Moreover, if you like the filter, you can feed it from an external sound source and then use the mixer to produce a combination, as if both the mixer and the filter were independent modules.
Incidentally, I do love the idea of precoded cards or whatever that could reconfigure a modular synth. The basic idea is that the card reroutes the signals, saving you the bother of mucking around with patch cables during a performance.
It’s been over 50 years since musicians started to take synthesizers seriously enough to take them on tour with all the jolts and faults that can occur in transit. In that time the state of the art has moved emphatically towards digital electronics, which is more robust, less expensive, and much less bulky. So if you want a magic bullet for synth configuration, history seems to suggest that digital computers are the best medium.
I think most of us wouldn’t be on this forum if we didn’t want analog synths instead of or in addition to digital. Or at least, speaking for myself, subtractive/waveshaping synths with intuitive hardware knob per function interfaces. In principle one could do that with digital electronics, or with digitally controlled analog electronics, but it would be hard, and in practice other synthesis models and menu driven interfaces predominate. They certainly are a magic bullet for some people’s needs but not for everyone’s.
@devicex mentioned the Looking Glass and it reminded me of the ARP 2500 which used matrix switches instead of patch cords. That could be implemented digitally. But that only takes care of connectivity — and semimodular normalization only addresses connectivity too; if you want your preset cards to handle knob settings as well, that’s a whole other thing. A few input attenuators could be replaced by digitally controlled attenuator modules, but other knobs within circuits would be very hard to handle gracefully with any sort of storage scheme I can think of.
I’m all about using the right tool for the job for sure.
Frankly, i have so many good sounds at my disposal on the computer, with perfect recall of all parameters, i’m looking for something else with hardware. Definitely not menu diving or complex modal interactions. But I have also no objections about using microcontrollers either.
I feel that with a good physical layout it should be easy to get the knobs and sliders in proper position to make that style of partial preset work, but it’s necessary to minimize modal states to make it work smoothly - which I feel would be my preference for a performance instrument. Mode toggles can often be expressed as additional jacks instead. Anything that keeps the mental overhead under check is good.
I think it’s a really cool idea! It is also extremely hard to realize! You would be very limited in the available modules that support this system, at least for quite some time. And if you want to go as far as being able to recall knob settings you would need to add a microcontroller and (expensive) motorized pots/faders to every module! This will explode the complexity of the modules immensely which will be especially difficult for diy… I feel it’s too ambitious, but don’t let me stop you, it would be an awesome project!
Key knob settings can be the basis of a preset. It’s worth remembering or now being aware of Antenes a/k/a Lori Napoleon performs on a modular converted from a telephone switchboard featured in I Dream Of Wires documentary which has the ingenious use of pots on plugs to allow her modular to have pots. It might make sense at least on her modular to have those key knobs in preset cards if additional modification was allowed on the design.
