Reimagining my VCO’s

So I guess it’s no surprise That before I go on tour next I decided to rebuild my synthesizer to be more reliable and at the same time just make it overall more performance friendly.

The filters are down, pcb/panels are turning up to share in a few days and I shared the kicad if you didn’t want it stupidly big performance kosmo size. Lfo’s and tuning modules are also pretty much done.

Now it’s the oscillators turn. These I thought would be a challenge but It’s actually turning out quite good. And reasonably simple.

The main issue I have is tuning, I needed to weigh up between having no tuning knob, and a tuning knob that is too sensitive, and I think I’ve found the solution I have been looking for, thanks to setting up a reference voltage which I can tap into on every volt (a volt being an octave ofcourse), a reasonably common addition in some octave circuits but rather new to me!

So i have it set up so I have 1 knob that from left to right is exactly an octave. Then a preset potentiometer inside the module so i can set the center of the potentiometer to the note C.

Then I have an octave switch with 5 octaves, so if I wanted, I could get to any useable note with the oscillator panel alone.

Not only this but with a built in tuning display, so if I accidentally knock the tuning knob I can pull it back in tune relatively quickly using the display as an aid.

It will have square/triangle/ramp ( the cem3340’s 3 waves, sorry sine lovers! It’s just 10 more components too many!!!)

A voltage input, fm input, cv, sync, pwm

After getting this down this week I’m Gunna concentrate on the oscillator banks which will form the basis for the bass synth.

This will be a module with portamento and vibrato going into a bank of 4 (or 6 if I can fit it in) cut down oscillators, which then go to a built in mixer.

When I have the above sorted (before tour so within the month!) I’ll make sure to share it all and also opportunities to buy pcb/panel sets.

As well as this I need to squeeze in time for designing the envelope generators! And vca banks.

Not only that but the drums!!!! Aaaaah. Luckily the modules I have in the live setup are rather solid, except the snare is temperamental. Which I have a pretty good idea for!!! Hopefully I’ll be able to squeeze in getting it built but it’s an 808 style snare and a linn drum snare all in 1 module. (As I merge both together at points in songs), cvability probably won’t be humingous on the first modules cus of it getting complicated quick. But who knows where it will go.