OK, seems a lot of people here are interested in ribbon controllers.
Attached is some text concerning one of the coolest modificatiosn and uses
of a Moog ribbon controller I have ever seen. If you seach in the text,
you will find links to some cool photos. If the links are not good, I have
the photos for anyone interested. i thought they were too large to post to
the list.
Here is the text of some e-mail I shared with the creator:
---------------------
> > From: T.J. <orbitaldecay@...>
> > If you do the Mini as I did, I connected the pitch CV out to the
> > Keyboard CV in, a 6- prong plug under the Mini ,this way the glide
> > circuitry worked. It also involved shorting the kbd V-trig. The pitch
> > bend CV out went through a 10k attenuator to the VCO in . You could run
> > the velocity CV out through an attenuator to either the VCF or VCA in.
> > A cool effect the Mini never had.
>
> Very Cool. Thanks for sharing. Tell us more about your "controller" and
> your panel artwork.
> Larry Hendry
OK,sure.
It is a modified Moog 1150 Ribbon controller I made into a
synthesizer/guitar.
Allot of work went into this. The body was carefully carved from "Red
Honduran mahogany",
with the 1150 attached as a neck with 6 bolts going through a metal
plate in back of the body.
There is another piece of wood attached to the top end plate of the 1150
as a head stock. Most of
the black anodized finish of the 1150 was removed, and the aluminum was
polished and lacquered. The
side inlays of formica wood was replaced with real wood venire strips.
The body was routed from the
front to allow room for the components in the "sickle" shaped aluminum
panel. And the panel on the 1150
was modified with a new aluminum one.There is a 15-pin connector that is
cabled to a separate interface
box which has all the 1/4" ins and outs to connect it to a slightly
modified Minimoog.
That covers the cosmetics of the unit. Here's another pic:
http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Frontrow/4877/pic4.jpg The new electronics aren't very complex ,as the 1150 on its own is a
great controller.
It's really just a bunch of extra switches and pots.I'll start with the
modified
1150 panel. Here is a close up:
http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Frontrow/4877/pic2.jpg The first thing I had to do was invert the ribbon ,since it was
backwards
from a guitar point of view.A simple
DPDT with the poles criss-crossed would make it go either way ,thus the
invert switch. I removed the original
components from the 1150 circuit card, a power switch ,range switch, and
aux
slider. Then ran wires from the pads,
and terminated all the remaining wires to a 15-pin connector.The circuit
card
was then positioned about 8" higher
in the housing,to give room for the new panel. (The extruded aluminum
housing
has slots the entire length to hold
the circuit card.) From the 15-pin quick disconnect I wired the rest of
the
unit. The next four switches have two-
colored LED's next to them,Green for on,Red for off. The range switch I
left
the same as original, 3 1/2 octave,
and about 8 octave.The decay switch is wired in conjunction with a pot
on the
body, then routed out to the left hand controller
jack on the Mini.The two remaining
switches T-1 and T-2 are the s-trig out from the metallic trace on the
1150
split. T-1 was for the modified Mini,
and routed out to the Mini S-trig in.T-2 was for an extra Moog and
routed a
little different. In the on position
it functioned normal, sending a trigger from the trace. But in the off
position it is routed to the green momentary
N.O.switch on the top of the panel, it would then only trigger if the
green
button was held down. A switch in the
lower panel selected either ground or the trace. The black button is for
modulation,
a N.C switch that is routed through a pot on the body, another selector
switch, and
finally to the modified Mini via an unused terminal on the 6-prong power
jack.There
is a shortened ribbon pitch bender below the two momentary switches. It
has a trimmer
for voltage offset on the interface box, then routes to a rewired glide
jack on the Mini,
which when the plug is inserted, would disconnect the Mini pitch wheel.
Here's a close up of part of the lower panel:
http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Frontrow/4877/pic3.jpg The lower panel has 4 pots, 6 switches, and the 15-pin jack. I used the
small A&B "mod pots",
since space was critical. The knobs have calibrations on them with a
pointer on the panel for
reference. The top pot is labeled "filter" and is just a variable
voltage that routes to the Mini
VCF in. The next pot "decay" is wired per the Moog spec. for an external
foot switch/pedal to the
L.H.controller.Next is a "modulation" pot ,same as the on the L.H. Mini.
A switch "Mod/Mom"selects either
the pot itself or the momentary switch through the pot. Last pot is
labeled "volume" and again is
just a variable voltage that routes to the Mini VCA in. The switch
"quan/slide" is for a circuit I haven't
made yet.I wanted a quantizer to round off voltages to the nearest 1/12
volt to give the ribbon
virtual frets.A switch "T-2" selects the source for the green momentary
trigger button, either the trace
or ground. The two switches "aux-VCO/VCF" aren't connected to anything,
as originally the aux was going
to be a joystick, but space didn't allow even the smallest unit, hence
the cut down ribbon. (I'm still
working on this one.) The last switch way down the bottom is a power
switch. Wired as the original on the
1150 and just turns power off to the circuit card.
http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Frontrow/4877/pic1.jpg Wow, just allot of fluff really. But it looks so cool, and is allot of
fun to play. It works best as
a synth bass, with the right index finger triggering by touching the
trace, going back and forth over
it, you can get a good pluka-pluka sound. Stopping on the trace for
sustained sounds. The right thumb
works the momentarys for added effects. It's difficult to find notes, so
I made markers on the neck insert
at the C's, F's, and G's and smaller ones on the other whole notes.(This
only works in the 3 1/2 octave
mode).Like playing a violin I guess, you have to use your ears.
Terry Furber