Re: Putney

[S V G <vsyevolod@yahoo.com>]

     Alex,

     This sounds remarkably close to the effect I used to get with the 
Serge Modular Smooth and
Stepped Generator (if I read you correctly).  Something like a random 
sample and hold that sounds
like an ever evolving pattern.  The small fluctuations in the analog 
circuitry would hold the
pattern steady for a while and then inexplicably alter them a little.  Ah, 
the beauty of analog
gear...  I like your description of it as a barber pole type illusion.

     BTW, is this the same Alex Stahl who attended Evergreen in the late 
70's?

          SVG



One loopish technique that I learned on the Putney and still think 
about when thinking about ways to extending digital audio loop 
techniques, is the stairstep LFO 'sequencer' effect. You take two 
subsonic sawtooth waves and set the shape of one so it is an 
ascending ramp and the other descending. You combine both of these 
waves and modulate the pitch of an oscillator and/or a filter with 
both of them. Then you tweak the amplitudes (the knob layout makes 
this all really easy to do) so that the rising wave going in one 
direction exactly cancels the slope of the other ramp.

You end up with a cyclic sequence of voltage steps, and there are 
infinite fine-tuning possibilities. It is practically impossible to 
set one analog LFO to say, exactly five times as fast and five times 
lower amplitude than the other. If you could you would get a simple 
five-note arpeggio. Instead, you get into various "barber pole" 
illusions as the steps sort of slide around and create larger 
patterns. I am giving up on describing this verbally at this point, 
but it is a very simple yet deep technique from the school of 
combining slightly different-length cycles. A lot of this kind of 
VCS3 synth-looping can be heard on Dark Side of the Moon.

-Alex S.



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