volt.contr.ideas

[Don Tillman]

   From: Martin Czech <martin.czech at itt-sc.de>
   Date: Wed, 5 Feb 1997 14:43:58 +0100 (MET)

   Some ideas about Voltage Control (VC).
[...]
   comments invited !

I should point out that all synths that use control voltages use
bipolar-transistor-based exponential converters in the VCOs, VCFs and
VCAs as well as other places.  Internally these guys run at roughly
0.018 volts per octave because of physics.  And for VCAs and VCFs the
signal level internally isn't going to be much larger than that.

Is this an issue?  Am I suggesting a 0.018 volt standard?  I don't
really think so.  Sure, it sounds goofy going from 10 volt signals to
millivolts and back again every step of the way, but it's not really
that bad.  

But one annoyance about synth control voltages is that they generally
are so much larger than regular audio signals running around the rest
of the world, and maybe it'd be better if they weren't.  

So maybe a 0.1 volt per octave standard would be reasonable.

  -- Don