<div dir="ltr">The Moog Polymoog was a dual VCO rank TOS system using a pair of TOGs but with an interesting twist: one TOG was offset from the other by a semitone (per US patent 4,145,943 and 4,228,717). In other words when you pressed a key with both ranks engaged, you were hearing one TOG at its nth divider output plus the other TOG as its n+1th divider output. The master oscillators were offset so that n and n+1 divider pairs produced the (approximate) same pitches. Because the TOG can't produce equal 12th root of 2 temperaments at all its dividers, this offset resulted in dissimilar scaling offsets per semitone with both ranks engaged. With pitch modulation, it produced a richer string ensemble chorus effect and deviated the waveshapes of each rank. The cent difference of ranks when a key was depressed was not uniform between keys, the largest being ~3.3 cents. This gave the Polymoog an organic sound quality and probably prevented dividers from syncing up.<div><br></div><div>Before he joined Moog Music in 1972, Dave Luce had partnered with Melville Clark Jr to design a TOS polyphonic keyboard. I haven't yet read the patent descriptions (US 4,365,533 and 3,969,968) but from the circuit blocks it looks pretty convoluted (the description text runs 20-40 pages long). At Moog, Luce was tasked with designing the Polymoog; when Clark learned of this he made angry infringement noises so Luce was forced to design a Polymoog without infringing his work with Clark. The Clark/Luce patents were granted close to the Polymoog era, probably by Clark to establish prior art in case of legal conflict. No matter, nothing was ever seen of the Clark/Luce polyphonic system nor was there any infringement case ever filed.</div><div><br></div><div>The Polymoog did have one ace that the Clark system did not: the custom IC under each key of the Polymoog which drastically reduced the size (and cost) of a fully polyphonic synthesizer.<br><div><br></div><div>MC</div></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Thu, Jan 2, 2025 at 10:25 AM Roman Sowa via Synth-diy <<a href="mailto:synth-diy@synth-diy.org">synth-diy@synth-diy.org</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-style:solid;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">The thresholds in 40106, which define oscillator stability, are not even <br>
specified with regards to temperature or long term drift or any other <br>
drift. They may differ a lot from part to part, and nobody cares, <br>
because it's not the intention of 40106 to be a timing device. Its <br>
operation relies on Vgs voltages and who knows what else, and that <br>
voltage greatly depends on temperature.<br>
<br>
Sure it's nice simple oscillator, like many others, but not all of them <br>
would be my first choice for tuning source. But for a drone, why not. <br>
Last year I've made a board which contains 24 such oscillators, voltage <br>
controlled, for a drone. And it's less than 1 inch squared.<br>
<br>
Roman<br>
<br>
<br>
W dniu 2024-12-30 o 19:49, David G Dixon pisze:<br>
> A CD40106 oscillator is just a schmitt trigger, a cap, and a resistor. <br>
> Presuming the supplied voltages are well regulated and the caps are of <br>
> decent quality, then why should one expect anything other than perfect <br>
> stability? If I were looking for fixed-frequency square-wave <br>
> oscillators, that would also be my first choice, cuz it's so simple, and <br>
> one can fit all 12 oscillators onto a board that's about 4 inches <br>
> squared, even with through-hole components.<br>
> <br>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------<br>
> *From:* Synth-diy [mailto:<a href="mailto:synth-diy-bounces@synth-diy.org" target="_blank">synth-diy-bounces@synth-diy.org</a>] *On Behalf Of <br>
> *Roman via Synth-diy<br>
> *Sent:* Monday, December 30, 2024 12:01 AM<br>
> *Cc:* synth-diy@synth-diy org<br>
> *Subject:* Re: [sdiy] Interesting article on top octave generators.<br>
> <br>
> Not only from the 70's. There's this one guy who makes combo organ <br>
> eurorack module the hard way, with TOG, dividers and discrete circuitry <br>
> all the way down from there. He uses 12 tunable oscillators. And what is <br>
> most surprising, he uses 2 hex Schmit hex inverter chips for that <br>
> without any problems of stability.<br>
> <br>
> <br>
> Roman<br>
> <br>
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