[Radikal] Spectron

CraZ

CraZ

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4 juli 2001
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De Radikal Technologies "Spectron". Het is voorlopig slechts een prototype.. wellicht dat er in Frankfurt wat meer informatie naar boven komt.

De Spectron kenmerkt zicht door een volledig moduleerbare filterbank, waarmee het spectrum van de oscillatoren direct bewerkt kan worden. Deze filterbank bestaat uit een tiental bandpass-filters.. die zowel met de ingebouwde stepsequencer.. als met de ADSR's laten aansturen cq. beinvloeden. (Hoe de triggering van deze envelopes precies in z'n werk gaat is nog even onduidelijk).

spectron.jpg

Of deze bak nu volledig analoog is, kan ik uit het persbericht niet opmaken.. maar volgens ontwerper Jörg Schaaf (jip.. die heeft bij Quasimidi rondgelopen) zit er "jede menge" analoge techniek in.

Inspiratie voor zijn Spectron heeft Jörg onder andere opgedaan bij de filterbank van Bob Moog.. maar hij droomde er altijd al van om die functionaliteit te combineren met de directe interface mogelijkheden van o.a. een stepsequencer.
 
Kan mooi apparaat zijn, maar waarom dat belachelijk ontwerp? Dat ziet er toch niet uit..

Nu krijg ik natuurlijk weer "ja maar dat is slechts uiterlijk, het gaat om het geluid.." over me heen... :D :D


Arv
 
Het doet me wel denken aan de aansturing van een CNC draaibank of zo. Of de robotarm in een autofabriek of zo.

Ach ja, duitsers en hun smaak. Waarom geen mooi blank gelakt metaal met mooie houten knoppen en een blauw LCD? Da's pas stoer. ;)
 
Hmmm...ik zag die foto van dat ding en ik moest denken aan lego :D
Anyhoe..zal best okeej klinken denk ik...ofzo :engel:
 
Ziet er wel interessant uit. Hij's compleet analoog en bijna geheel modulair. En alle instellingen zijn op te slaan! :)

Dat zegt althans de maker: real filmpje
 
de Spectron is ondertussen doorontwikkeld tot de Spectralis:

SpectralisPanel2red.png


apparaat ziet er wel interessant uit; jammer dat er over het synth gedeelte weinig gezegd wordt, maar qua sequencer best okee; lijkt erop alsof er een digitaal/analoge (step-)sequencercombinatie is gemaakt met features van o.a. een Drehbank, een Polymorph en de Electribes.

ik heb zelf al genoeg sequencers om deze niet meteen super boeiend te vinden maar toch weer een erg leuke ontwikkeling.

meer info:

Radikal Technologies Spectralis
 
spec_web_big.jpg

Vond hem zo mooi dat ik hem nog maar eens post. :D
 
jammer van die te verwachte prijs althans als die uberhaubt ooit op de markt komt dan....
 
Een verhaaltje van Joerg Schaaf, ex-Quasimidi:

Since visiting the SYNTHESIZER STUDIO BONN in the early nineties and hearing a moog filterbank for the first time, I had the dream a dynamical controlled fixed filterbank. The problem here is more the total number of control voltages that have to be updated very fast then the filterbank itself. I designed a gyrator based filterbank to get the best possible results out of inductorless filters. In a gyrator design, fast opamps are simulating the inductors. Behind each filter are two VCA's to move the spectral content in the stereo field or to route different mixes of the filterbank into other sections of the synthesizers. So, just for this filterbank we need 20 VCA's and 20 control voltages.
We are using a very new specialized multiple (40!) DA converter for all these control voltages. These control voltages are interpolated by a very fast floating point DSP. This gives us a control performance, which can't be compared with any former digital controlled analog synthesizers, where the control voltages were updated only every 10 ms and you always heard steps between the only 8 bit steps, most of the old synthesizers had. The spectralis works at the control side with 14 Bits!
And yes, the VCA's are not discrete - we are using SSM chips for that. SSM is still there and is still producing nice building blocks for analogue synthesizers.

The sequencer can not only create different voltage steps for every step of a sequence line - it can create independent envelopes for each step. This feature allow to create rhythmic spectral movements, that normally can be created only by a vocoder, where a rhythmical content is assigned to the analysis input. The difference is - not the input signal decides, at which position of your groove which frequency band is beating - the sequencer controls that. You can really dive into these rhythmic filter pattern parameters. Just inserting pink noise into the filterbank and modulating the frequency content with the filterbank will give you complete grooves. And if you just want to add more low frequencies to it, add at some positions a sine wave from one of the four DSP oscillators. This will give you a drumgroove, that can't be done with samples or other drum machines, because all these instruments are morphing from one sound into the other.

Later you can also use any MIDI controller to move forward and backward inside this sequence. This will create morphing sounds and really unusual effects, you don't expect from an analogue synth.
All these sequencer features can't be produced with an analogue step-sequencer like a MOOG sequencer.
And don't to forget - the sequencer can really control everything. The amount of FM modulations, the changing of an oscillator waveform, the resonance amount of the ladder filter - really everything. Up to 32 parameters at a time. With a resolution up to 96th notes and a tempo with up to 960 BPM.
But - I know. There still is the price point. After the musicmesse 2003 in Frankfurt I decided to do a complete redesign, because the complexity of this analog engine costs a lot of money and so we have to add some other cool content, to make the price more reasonable. The spectralis is the result of this effort. We added the 48 voice DSP engine, which is not finished yet but which will benefit from the experiences we made with the DSP oscillators.
The opportunity to add your own sample content via smart media cards helps people to understand, why this synth/groovebox is a little bit more expensive then the Roland gear. But the real reason for the price is this analog beast. Adding some DSP voices is not the price point. But it will help us to sell this instrument also to people, who would never spend 2500 bucks for a analogue machine.

The 24 dB filter is still a transistor ladder but the multimode filter is not - like on all the other analog synthesizers. Not all these old boxes were discrete built and I am sure, that you will find opamps in every box, that is sold as a discrete design nowadays. There is nothing bad about using opamps. We are not in the 70's anymore, where the most reliable opamp was a noisy and slow 741.

We also decided to exchange the analog oscillators with DSP based. The decision was made after we get it to run without any aliasing (we presented that at the NAMM - really no aliasing at all). The DSP based solution gives us a lot of advantages. For example real FM synthesis with individual envelopes is not a problem, temperature stability not a topic and we have the opportunity to add new oscillator features in later firmware upgrades.
The DSP has not less then 6 Audio 24 BIT, 192 KHz DA converters from BurrBrown only for the oscillator outputs. You can route different Oscilator mixes to each of those outputs. 3 of these outputs are routed into the 24 db Filter, Multimode Filter and the filterbank for offering different signals for each filter and the three additional outputs are just for modulating the frequencies of the 24dB Lowpass and the multimode filter. Maybe you are wondering, why three and not two - that is just to have linear and exponential FM at the 24dB filter.

over de sequencer:

First of all - yes - it is grid based. But the grid has a resolution of 96th notes - not 16th. You can change the resolution during your session and can reach different portions of your groove by switching pages.

And sure, there is a groove quantisation. Sorry for not mention that.
Further you can control the length of a note in 96th steps. You can just add some trioles by setting the grid to 24 notes or 48th notes.

Adding some nonlinearity to the oscillators is not such a big problem. If you want a little drifting in tune just use one sequencer line as a free endless running sequence, set it to random and set the resolution to 1 bar. Activate glide for this sequence and just assign this sequence to the LIN FM input of this oscillator. The drifting is fully controllable in this case. You can just remove the shifting temporarily by muting the steps, you already defined.

Then add a second of these sequence lines and set it to another sequence length then the first and control the waveform control pot that morphs from sine over triangle, sawtooth to Pulse.

Add a second oscillator and do the same steps for the second one with another two sequencer lines and set their length also to different length.

Do you like that? Then just set the sequencer lines to 4th notes resolution and set the sequencer lines to act as multiple stage envelopes. Every note will then run the sequence one time - resulting in a very cool subtile transition for each note. Each time different because you set the envelopes to random play.

Do you need an additional bassline? Then just route the third oscillator independently into the multimode-filter and control the VCA envelope of this voice by routing the VCA envelope to the Multimode output VCA. With an additional sequencer line just control the cutoff frequency and add some glide steps to the note sequencer line.

Some groove? Just enough sequencer lines available for adding one of this filterbank grooves to this setup. Just inserting some noise as I mentioned before will do that job.

Then select the drumgrid sequencer and add some cool electronic percussion sounds from the DSP engine.
When it still is not enough control the transpose function with an additional sequencer line that is set to 4 bars and let your sequence automaticly beeing transposed.

Create about 8 of these patterns and select them on the fly. Mute and Unmute different tracks, mix different sequencer lines of different patterns together to a new pattern, you never even thought about.

That is, what a spectralis session will look like.

Its not only about sound - it's also about fun. I love music machines. Also the polymorph was fun - but the spectralis goes some steps further.

Aldus Joerg.
 
Origineel geplaatst door Yoozer
The opportunity to add your own sample content via smart media cards
Zie meer...
Iets wat mijn Machinedrum mist :(
 
zijn er mensen op het forum die er een hebben? Ben benieuwd naar wat gebruikerservaringen. Met name of het hoge prijskaartje wel gerechtvaardigd is.
 
Volgende keer zal ik weer eens met mijn ogen kijken ipv met mijn neus... :) thankx.
 
edit; die thread kende ik al en er staat eigenlijk weinig in qua gebruikerservaringen. Een boel geneuzel over specs, os upgrades etc en hoe cool het wel niet is, maar nauwlijks gebruikerservaringen. Misschien moet ik m'n vraag dan toch maar laten staan hier :)

@Saskija: Nog bedankt voor de tip... :z ;)
 
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