Koshdukai's Music(al) Reason(ing)

Imagine you're doing this incredible stereo multi-tap echo combinator patch, where you really need to allow the user to select a list of Left/Right ratio combinations. As an example, let's assume we need a list of ratios like this one here: Left/Right 1/1 4/3 3/4 3/2 2/3 2/1 1/2 3/1 1/3 4/1 1/4 1/OFF OFF/1 hmmm... so, to be able to go through such a list with a combinator rotary, you really need a "device" that enables you to Randomly Access an Array of CV values or states, don't you? Well, thanks to Thor and the way the Step Sequencer has been implemented, we can have such a thing. So... let's build it! Just add to your combinator (the one needing that list of CV values selectable through a rotary) a Thor device and initialize it (this is where my set of "null" patches usually comes in handy, where there's a "null" patch for each device, to quickly start with "everything off" kind'of patch, not quite achiev...

It would be really cool if we could change Thor Buttons state through CV triggering, wouldn't it ? Ya know, if you need to toggle the on/off state of some CV out to be used on, let's say, a bank of 16 devices that react differently to the state of that CV ? We can already toggle the state momentarily through a specified Note or through automation of those 2 buttons in Thor, or the 4 buttons in the Combinator, but a simple scalable solution for CV triggering a CV state would nice. Well, since there's no way in Thor to send "CV in1 -> Button1" so a gate signal in CV 1 input would flip the state of Button 1, we have to come up with the next elegant solution available, using Thor's Step Sequencer :) Fortunately, there's a "Gate In (Trig)" CV input at the back of Thor's Step Sequencer, so here's our CV input that will trigger the CV state toggle. To achieve the toggle action, we need to set the Run mode to Step, so for each CV trigger, we g...

Just added this little CV tool in the free download section (on the right): "K's Basics - Random access to a CV values list" It's basically a way to access through CV indexing, a list of 3x32 "cells" of CV values (well, one of the list is within the Note range of CV values, but this example is enough to demo the concept). So, if you're ever in need of generating a specific sequence of CV values controlled by another CV source, this is one way to do it :) It's like having random or sequential access (in whatever direction you want) to a specific custom list of CV or note values, by using a CV controlled "cursor" (just connect the CV "cursor" source to the Rotary 1 CV input and tweak the Combinator modulation programmer Min/Max values to your needs). This device was enough for something I was testing, but I'm sure it can be optimized with some thought and more time. It won't work well in a real-time fast switching situation,...

Sorry, but I only have time to show what's possible to do with some of the available rack devices, to show the CV values, like I mentioned in my previous post. It also shows one possible version of the CV Scope, using the CV Delay and CV2Audio2CV :) As soon as I have the time, I'll explain in detail how to achieve each of those unusual device uses. It's quite simple, as many will quickly figure out. Some of you may already use something similar to do your CV debugging, like I do.

A "CV Delay" is quite easy to do once you have a way to convert CV to Audio and Audio to CV (you can use the CV2Audio2CV for that). A simple way to achieve this with up to 4 independent CV signals, is to use Thor's Audio outputs connected to 4 DDL-1's and back again through Thor's Audio inputs: (click to zoom) So, to test all 4 CV delayed signals, I'll use BV512's CV inputs to graphically show what's going on: (click to zoom) Now, let's check the front and see if the CV Delay is working... (click to zoom) ...and there you have it, a working 4x CV Delay:) Next post I'll talk about some of the devices and the way I usually use them for CV display (more like CV debugging, really). I'll talk about the use of the DDL-1, MClass Equalizer, RV7000, BV512, Thor and PEQ-2 as possible CV debugging tools. After that, the obvious way to do a rudimentary CV Scope using a stack of 4 CV Delay units :) ...as you can guess from the above pictures, it's ...

I guess it's common knowledge that Thor is much more than a very powerful synth :) Besides being a very powerful versatile multi-filter+effects device, it's also a very capable CV machine, capable of very cool and useful CV processing and generation. I have many basic patches at hand that I use as basic building blocks to build more complex combinators. Some I've already mentioned here, but many others I keep to myself because there are already equivalent devices made by others before me, or some are so basic (although useful) that I think it would be kind of weird to mention them here. Recent events lead me to change this idea a bit. I'm beginning to realize that what some may consider as basic knowledge, it may be news to others, so why not make some quick posts about it ? So, this post will quickly show a very useful use of Thor's modulation matrix and input'n'outputs at the back. This little patch deals with CV to Audio and Audio to CV: (click to zoom) S...