Comments on trimmers and circuit design

[[22Hz] Productions]

On Wed, 9 Jul 1997, Saul Stokes wrote:

> A few weeks ago I built a ring modulator from a Serge schem. Once again I

	Can I have that schem? =) 

> that 15 of the 100 or so pots on my first modular were suppose to be just
> trimmers. I'm sure a lot of you have found the same thing and I've read
> about musicians who open up their synths to tweek the trimmers. Is this
> just a matter of personal taste?  I'm interested if some designers use
> trimmers as sound designing tools when they hear how interesting they are. 

	I certainly do, when possible. I'm not blessed with a large 
amount of gear that has useful trimmers.. I always crack my synths open 
within 2 hours of owning them and tweak the trims to my tastes though; 
bender range to max, max range on the PWM, VCF cutoff, etc. I have 
brought the Snappy trimpot on my 606 to the panel, with a switch to 
remove the white noise from the toms at will.. That I consider a 
necessary addition to anyone's 606. =) I think for the most part that the 
people on this list will almost 100% agree with you (us) and use trimmers 
all the time, but that the rest of the synth-using world is much more 
conservative with them. Any answer you get here will not accurately 
reflect the actual opinion of the world. I just tell myself to go with 
what works and that pushing things beyond their limits is how discoveries 
are made, and then I take out the soldering iron.  =)

	Jason