VCO or VCF

[Don Tillman]

   From: "Tony Allgood" <oakley at enterprise.net>
   Date: Sat, 2 Aug 1997 23:04:42 +0100

   Reading some of the notes in the archive, it seems to me that some people
   think that its the VCF that determines the overall sound of the instrument.
   Do the oscillators actually make a difference? 

I think it's pretty clear that folks who claim that oscillators make
little difference have experience limited to extremely generic
oscillators.

Jeeze, we just finished discussing a dozen profoundly different ways
to implement sync alone!

						  One person said a 
   squarewave is a squarewave whatever the VCO design. Surely, this is
   not true. Slew rate and HF performance of the semis will have an
   effect, won't they? 

More importantly, the way the curve enters and leaves the flat section
makes a marked difference in the sound.  Some do it more gracefully
than others.

(Hmmm, a control to set the phase of the square wave relative to
another output would be a cool feature.)

   I will agree that VCF types really make a difference, but for my next
   project, I'm going to be working on oscillator waveforms. I am going to use
   a 3340 running at a very high frequency driving a Walsh generator
    bank. 

There ya go!

  -- Don