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<DIV>I think there are a lot of people that use Mike's way of calibrating VCOs.
this is the way I do it with one minor addition. </DIV>
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<DIV>The last time I did it I know I found using a divider made it much
easier to get the whole range for the VCO. I know why it made it easier. It's
because it is very hard to discern pitches which are more than 5 octaves apart.
I can't exactly remember how I used it though <ouch!>. I'm hoping someone
who has used this will chime in here.</DIV>
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<DIV>John B.</DIV>
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<DIV>In a message dated 6/25/2004 7:29:37 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
WeAreAs1@aol.com writes:</DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: blue 2px solid"><FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000 size=2>In a
message dated 6/25/04 6:49:01 PM, mark-romberg@utulsa.edu
writes:<BR><BR><< anyone know of a simple-ish frequency counter
circuit? beginning to <BR>realize im going to need one to tune
oscillators and things in the <BR>analog world as i dont have perfect pitch :/
>><BR><BR>Mark,<BR><BR>For tuning VCO's, a guitar tuner is much more
useful than a frequency <BR>counter. I prefer tuners that have an analog
(VU meter) readout, such as the BOSS <BR>TU-12H. You can easily pick one
up for about $40 to $50 on Ebay. A mechanical <BR>strobe tuner is good,
too, but kind of overkill for the app. I've been <BR>working
professionally on synths for over 25 years; my standards for musical
<BR>perfection are very high, and I would NEVER tune a VCO with a frequency
counter. It <BR>just doesn't work. I'm sure others might argue
otherwise. Let them.<BR><BR>Michael Bacich<BR><BR>BTW - the preferred
method for tuning a multi-oscillator synth is to tune <BR>just ONE oscillator
using the tuner. Get the scaling, octaves, hi-frequency <BR>tracking,
and offset as close as you can (according to the tuner), then tune all <BR>of
the other oscillators to that first oscillator. If you use the tuner on
all <BR>your VCO's, it may get close, but it will never be perfect (if you use
a <BR>frequency counter - good luck!). This applies especially to
monophonic synths <BR>such as the Minimoog. On polyphonic synths (the
few that have user-tunable VCO's <BR>and no auto-scaling [not the same thing
as auto-tuning!], such as the OBx, <BR>OBxa, Jupiter 8, and Jupiter 4), it's
OK to tune the first VCO of each voice to <BR>the tuner, but be sure to then
tune the second VCO of each voice to the first <BR>VCO of the same
voice. (the rules are different for synths that have <BR>auto-scaling,
such as the Prophet 5, Jupiter 6, OB8, etc. - most of those synths <BR>require
very little in the way of calibration)<BR></FONT></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV>
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