(Rick writes:) I decided to make a new modular system for myself, which would be a playable system for using with my Yamaha WX7 wind controller and to experiment and demonstrate the fricko modules. This rig is for conventional note playing: melody, bass, riffs, worms and so on.
Here is a pic of the most recent version going into 2023, which includes some ugly ducklings and protypes. The text below will be updated to explain.
Hardware Concept
The ? is where the fricko waveshapers, combiners and resonators go.
The “articulation” section features fricko modules like Blat and Clean.
And in a little more detail:
Finally, lets see a more complete plan, showing
- two of the new 2023 5×5 CV Distributor modules to act as mixer/mults to construct the pitch CV and the envelope CV;
- two of the new 2023 Switcheroo modules to select (fast!) the waveshaper (from 5) and the VFC (from 5), without repatching.
Accoustic Concept
The fricko modules are really designed for this kind of thing: wind and string players have very definite expectations about what an instrument needs to provide (expectations that don’t naturally enter the heads of piano/drum/sequence/automata performers as big deals):
- “organic” tones, such as where the 1st harmonic (fundamental) is not dominant, which have cyclical spectra and harmonic variations evoking the physical constants of instrument bodies:
- direct shaping of the notes (breath-controlled dynamics, tremelos and articulation, with velocity-sensitive attack variations of tone, and noise shaping):
- “singing” which is that the instrument resonances etc provide a different set of responses and tones to those of the initial note start
- fricko Clean, Roland delayed vibrato
- micro-adjustment of pitch, often affecting tone as well (violins)
- I have an electronic multiband EQ for this.
- systematic variation of tone over the playable range, including
- discrete change at a point (woodwind register changes):
- fricko Splice
- gradual change over a range (within a woodwind register):
- fricko Blip!, Splice and Prism combiners, Vox H, ProPulse (used with resonators in parallel to other waveshapes) Sharpen, Doepfer Morph Controller
- per note in repeated patterns (valve instruments, guitar strings)
- fricko Bass, Roland S&H
- sweet spots and wolf tones:
- fricko Vox H (custom high Q values)
- discrete change at a point (woodwind register changes):
- plus, at some stage, an extra performance parameter for the often-ignored feature peculiar to each kind of physical instrument family that skilled players use: things like
- for wind players, embouchure and sinus/mouth shape, mouth and throat noises, alternate fingerings and mouthpiece choice;
- for brass players, mutes, growls and fluttertongues;
- for bowed string players, mutes, and bow contact position;
- for plucked string players, plucking position (PW), open strings, finger damping, and the plectrum hardness;
- for organists, Leslies;
- for electric guitar, effects pedals, wah wah;
- I have a little Mooer pedal unit for this.
Case and Frames
For the case, I tried several things, and ended up with an ABS 12U mixing case (SWAMP Industries) that allowed selectable slanting. My gigging days are over, and I only need something tough enough to be put in a car by me, though not necessarily tough enough to be smashed around by a roadie.
I couldn’t use a skiff, because some of my modules (both fricko and other people’s modules) are too deep to fit: frankly, skiffs are pretty DIY-intolerant. The case allows over 80mm deep modules even over the busboards and power supplies. The case lid is also deep enough to close it with a patch intact.
The 3U rack frames come from Clicks n Clacks in Germany.
The bottom panel provides a rest for the wind controller, and also hooks for patch cables. They also help protect the bottom power regulator board.
Power Supply
The design is three-level:
- an external AC-to-DC rack unit,
- feeding multiple internal regulators for Eurorack levels,
- feeding three busboards and various other non-Eurorack devices.
The power supply must support at least 40 modules of say 35mA each, plus the Octext MIDI converter (say 300mA) plus the wind controller (say 100mA), so 2uA absolute minimum. (Furthermore, The Octex MIDI board needs 10.6+3.3V: 12V is not enough to get full scale: so 14V is needed for that.)
The power supply caused lots of headaches, because I wanted to utilize a nice rack-mounted power supply (a 1U module with a massive heat sink from an ABC broadcasting sale which I had professionally renovated) with three toroids, providing +/-13 to 14V and +8V. I had it professionally renovated: sits in its own 1U rack.
But many regulators have a “voltage drop” of up to 3.3V. This has two ramifications: first it means 14V is not enough to regulate further to get a good 12V: you need over 15V coming in; and also this up-to-3.3V drop must be dissapated as heat, so you need enough heat sinks and thick enough copper to handle the heat.
Instead, I made my own regulator boards for “Low Drop Out” (LDO) regulators, which can have a much smaller dropout, and consequently generate less heat.
This second level of regulation allows up to 5 regulators, with quite short copper traces. They have LEDs to indicate correct voltage and over voltage, transient suppression, a pair of local Eurorack headers and clip tabs to connect to the busboards.
The connection to the main power unit use a PowerOn connector, which locks in place.
The busboards are from Click n Clack and provide 14 headers, with LED monitoring. They have 5V regulators that can be switched out by a jumper: I decided to not use them, so that there would be less current through the LDO 12V regulators. Instead, one of the LDO boards has a dedicated +5V regulator. Ony a couple of modules use +5V.
The design then is two of these LDO boards feeding three busboards, for a total of 14×3 + 2×2 = 46 headers. The MIDI converter does not use a Eurorack header, it takes a standard DC plug @14V. There is a plug installed to supply the wind controller. I am using the LME2940-12 and LME2900-12 LDOs which are not as good with noise performance compaired to modern regulators, but still at half as noisy as the LM7812 and LM7912ss: they provide 3A and 1A respectively.
Improvement: should use L-shaped header females: sticks up a little.
I also have made some modules with an on-off marine switch and a voltmeter. These should allow me to turn on each bus indepentdently (less inruch current??) and let me check how stiff the regulators are. After I am sure that everything is well behaved, I may remove one or two.
I also bought a Joranalogue Test module, which is convenient for shoing the current draws of a module, but I am not installing it permanently in this system.
Wind Controller
The Yamaha WX7 was their high-end wind-controller back in the day, and very nice key feeling. The WX7 provides KCV, Pitch Bend, Velocity, Breath Control and Gate over MIDI, with a 7 octave range.
I like it a lot, but it has had the following issues:
- The attack is a little wimpy. This was one reason for the Blat module, which provides some velocity-sensitive tongueing. (Earlier I had made my own SynthEdit VSTs to provide better articulation, a good way to protoype.)
- The pitch bend is only really good for bends from below, not guitar-style bends up. This is like reed instruments, but it does change the kinds of lines that can be performed. It is a shame the thumb-wheel is the same channel: I don’t use it at all.
- You can get some vibrato from breath and the pitch bend, but not a big operatic one. An auto-LFO with delay is a solution; I may put in an expression pedal for vibrato too.
- The BT7 power/MIDI box that the WX7 comes with had a design flaw in the regulator, which blew. (IIRC I fixed it by replacing the regulator 7808 with a 7809, which is what the M5232L requires and what you get if there are 6 batteries installed. IIRC the WX* have their own 7805s in the main unit.)
- Finally, the big problem was that almost every sound module I connected it too sounded horrible! The dynamics of notes-when-started was fine, but the homogeneity of tone on neighboring notes coupled with the poor attack dynamics made it sound like a synth with an ADSR stuck on slight attack and slight decay: like a kid’s transistor organ through an farty envelope-wah. Now I bet if I had some digital physical modelling sound module, it would have been better (there was too much latency for comfortable playing when using soft synths).
When I hear wind controllers on YouTube, I am struck by how often they just end up using fairly static tones with little VCF dynamics (“disconnect the ADSR” is the first advise): all that potential unused. This was a motivation for the various fricko modules that allow tone variations between notes, and which provide more subtle VC modulations to give organic variations on the same recognizable tone.
MIDI to CV
The MIDI to CV converter needed to cope with the full range of the wind controller: 7 octaves. The WX7 provides KCV, Pitch Bend, Velocity, Breath Control and Gate over MIDI, so the converter needed to support those.
This rules out many converters, and I have ended up going with the Octex unit. It has no panel, so made up my own panel for it; the Octex PCB has little tabs you can snap off to make it fit in the Eurorack opening. The panel is translucent which lets though some LED light from the Octex board: useful for confirming that the MIDI side is operating OK: Blinkenlichten!
The panel has two MIDI In sockets, with a switch to select, to allow a keyboard as well.
Ramifications: Because the Octex board provides the outputs separately, the system will need to provide mixers and modules to create a good CV for the VCO (KCV, Pitch Bend, Vibrato, Portamento) and to create articulation CVs (Gate, Velocity, Breath Control): these drive fricko articulation modules Blat and Clean, and an ADSR EG through a Velocitizer.
Many modules need these primary CVs, so we will need buffered mults for VCO CV, Gate and Articulation CV.
WindBox1: January 2023
Tier 4 (Top): Basic Monosynth Audio
Mostly assembled 3rd party products.
- Behringer 150: Vibrato LFO with delay, S&H, Noise, RM
- LFO
- Active mults, Mixer
- Elby oscillioscope
- LPGs, VCAs
- Behringer 305: ParaEQ/stereo mixer/phones/A440
Tier 3: VCFs
Mostly 3rd party DIY kits, some with hacks by me. The filters shown are 2044, Moog ladder, OTA, Tom Evans dual, Moog Rogue. I have other VCFs too, so I will play and find the best mix of filters.
Tier 2: fricko waveshapers and spectrum
My fricko modules, including some prototypes and ugly ducklings.
- fricko waveshaping modules: Blip!, Rasp, Shell, ProPulse
- fricko dynamics modules: Blat, Clean,Tame,
- fricko combiners and resonators/shapers: Splice, Vox H, Tilt, Prism
- fricko prototype modules: Klatt, Triggered Lag, Crumpet, Sharpen, etc
Tier 1 (Bottom): CV Control & Misc
Mostly 3rd party DIY kits.
- CV Attenuators
- Slew limiter (portamento)
- MIDI to CV converter. Panel by fricko.
- Buffered mults
- ADSR + Velocitizer combo
- 2x VCO
Its alive…
DIY Modules: fricko, Frequency Central, Synthrotek, Midimuso, Barton,Elby
Assembled: Doepfer, Behringer, Tabaak, Analog Systems, Yamaha, Elby
Freak Out! 