[sdiy] AS3397 what is it?

[Benjamin Tremblay]

I had a Six Trak and I know much about the 3394. This seems to be a very different beast.

I have the CEM 3396 notes up and I am still scratching my head. 

What exactly do I need to supply? One waveform for fundamental pitch? And another waveform with some relationship to the first for waveshaping? 
I’m thinking the 2nd waveform has to “decorate” the waveshaper with pulses in phase with first waveform but only limited slices of that square wave.

Yes I agree the amount of work needed to feed this thing seems like a lot unless you’re in love with a classic Oberheim sound. It’s totally doable with some cheap mcu with lots of gpio and me struggling with waveform math which is way above my paygrade.

So the Juno is an analog wave-shaping circuit processing control signals coming off some mid-80s industrial microcontroller. I love that sound.

Benjamin 


> On Jan 17, 2025, at 7:52 PM, Adam (synthDIY) <synthdiy at adambaby.com> wrote:
> 
> Get six, then you can build one of these....
> 
> 
> <akai_ax60_jan86pg1415key.jpeg>
> 
> 
>> On 18 Jan 2025, at 09:21, Benjamin Tremblay via Synth-diy <synth-diy at synth-diy.org> wrote:
>> 
>> Hello,
>> I’m intrigued by what the AS3397 chip appears to be. But exactly what does it do? Reading old threads about it and the CEM3396 leave me scratching my head.
>> 
>> It’s a what… Wave-shaper that takes a computer-generated square wave and gives it personality? 
>> 
>> What are the correct inputs? I’m assuming it has traditional voicing like a vcf/vca stage and a mixer. 
>> 
>> Do I need to code up one or more computer waves to send into it, and what is the relationship between the input and the output? 
>> 
>> Thanks,
>> Benjamin 
>> 
>> Benjamin Tremblay
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