Expo convertors with tubes ?

[Don Tillman]

   Date: Sat, 11 Dec 99 07:38:12
   From: Scott Gravenhorst <chordman at flash.net>

   "Debby and Gene Stopp" <squarewave at jps.net> wrote:
   >May it be justifiable to "pollute" the pure-tube concept just
   >a bit in order to gain the synthesis advantages of wide-range tracking
   >oscillators?

   IMHO:  For the life of me, I don't get the purist thing at all.
   A circuit that makes a beautiful sound is a good circuit.  I
   don't understand why it would make a difference *what* you make
   it with.  A curious challenge, perhaps and that has it's merits,
   but why not use the entire pallete of parts to which we have access?

(Don gets philosophical again.  You either love this stuff or...)

Lots'a reasons.  Artists are always creating limitations for
themselves and seeing what they can pull off within those
limitations.  Say limiting yourself to watercolors, or shades of
blue, or the mixolydian mode, 13/8 time, JFETs, whatever.  

Limitations provide a catalyst for creativity, they set up a context
for the art to be approached and understood, they create a link to
other works with similiar limitations, they create a point of
excitement as the artist approaches the boundry of the limitation or
finds a way around it.  Heck, the limitation often provides a name for
the work: "Etude in A minor", "Biquad Filter".

   From: "Debby and Gene Stopp" <squarewave at jps.net>
   Date: Fri, 10 Dec 1999 23:19:20 -0800

   It looks like it's going to be tricky to get the VCO's to do the
   same thing as in traditional synthesizers. Wide-range voltage
   control of frequency with the stability to reliably produce musical
   intervals seems to be too important a function to abandon.

(Don goes back to engineering...)

Make the VCO a double VCO; the first VCO is tuned "normally" and
tracks well with the other modules, the second VCO is tuned to your
interval and is sync'd to the first.  

  -- Don