Analog Sequencer Poll

[gstopp at fibermux.com]

>
>>      How about a row of trigger switches, so you can select 1/16 notes
>>      like on a TR-606 in write mode? Just for grins, probably easy to
>>      do...
>
>I was thinking about a row of buttons across the bottom that you could 
>trigger each stage with.  This'd be handy for tuning and calibrating each 
>stage without having to do tons of loops.  Or are you talking about 
>something different?
>

Yeah talkin about something different - the row of buttons to select 
rows are what are sometimes called "direct set" buttons, which cause 
the sequencer to jump to the selected column for tuning etc. If you 
make these buttons touch-switches, then you's have something like a 
Serge touch-keyboard. Hey....!?!?!?!? I have a schematic from an old 
Polyphony for such a thing, hmmmmm....

Note that the Moog 960 has direct set, as does the Roland System 700, 
but the Roland 100 does not.

The thing I was talkin about is a row of toggle switches that select 
whether or not a trigger is output for the whole row, when a step is 
selected. If you trigger a snare hit for example from this, you can 
place them on the beat or between beats or whatever within the 
sixteenth-note measure. On = hit, off = rest.

I found a schematic in one of the later issues of Electronotes for a 
precision clock generator by Thomas Henry. It is totally geared for 
use as a sequencer clock - it has features like the start pulse will 
start a complete clock cycle on the edge of the start command, and the 
stop command will cut off the clock only when the current clock cycle 
is finished, things like that. Seems like something like this would be 
most appreciated by the musician. Unfortuately it is base around a 
CEM3340, but it looks like another expo VCO can be swapped in pretty 
easily. One thing interesting about this design is that the VCO runs 
much faster than the step rate and gets divided down for the counting, 
so that it runs up where the most precise exponential response is. 
Unfortunately this means that there is no PWM feature.

Also if you read the Emu catalog's description of their clock VCO, 
you'll see that they have thought of all kinds of things like if you 
set the clock to 1 second clock cycle and you PWM the gate width at 10 
times per second, you will still get only one clock per cycle (some 
kind of flip-flop in the PWM circuit I would guess).

Anyway just some more food for thought... 

- Gene
     gstopp at fibermux.com