Comments on trimmers and circuit design

[John P]

Saul Stokes wrote:
> 
> A few weeks ago I built a ring modulator from a Serge schem. Once again I
> came across something that always seems to boggle me about the goal of the
> circuit designer. It's weird that so much effort is put into a mathmatical
> solution instead of a musical solution.  What I'm trying to say is that
> for the most part, many of the trimmer pots within many of the circuits
> I've build have just as interesting or more interesting sound control than
> some of the front panel pots.  Take this Serge ring modulator for example.
> 3 of the trimmers have such a profound control over the waveshape that I
> couldn't imaging not sending them to pots on the front panel.  The actual
> schem shows that the final panel has no pots, only two jacks in and two
> jacks out. What's happening here is that the trimmers are only there to
> find the correct solution to the circuit, not aid in sound design.  This
> is too bad. This isn't the first time I've came across this. I would say
> 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.
> 
> saul stokes


Mmmm... sounds like an old schematic - all the Serge ring mod's I know
about have 2 knobs: one for carrier level, one for 'mode' (12 o'clock =
VCA, full-on = ring modulation plus a little extra distortion).  This,
in addition to signal in, carrier in, VC mode, output.

- John P.