> Until my ship comes in and I can afford a new tkb, or in the more
> unlikely event that someone decides to sell a used one, can anyone
> offer suggestions as to how can I control my serge animal panel?
I've found Serge's CV and gate inputs quite easy to control
externally with standard gear, all you need is to get whatever you
use into a banana.
I started with a kenton pro solo and often use a Roland MC202 for
live gigs since it's so portable, has a sequencer and a voice I can
send through my Serge panel. I'd think anything with standard gate
and 1v/oct would work fine.
>
>
> I'm wondering if anyone else out there uses a keyboard controller, or
> midi to cv unit with their serge. Any ground issues, or
> incompatibility? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
I have some adaptors on a single space because I have a custom system
with extra room because of the extra wide external carrier freq
shifter, so my ground issues are taken care of though I have not had
any trouble I can remember with home made cables for CV with the tip
of a mini or phono connected to a banana. If you don't have that and
you do have a ground problem it should be very easy to make a scratch
built panel or box with the ground jack Serge I'm sure provides
somewhere on your system and some jacks
What would certainly be more of a challenge is something non-standard
in proportion to how non-standard it is. Like for example a Korg
MS-20 would have Hz/v and their odd vintage trigger so that won't be
plug and play.
> I think Doepfer and Synthesizers.com both sell CV Keyboards but I'm
> more of
> a sequencer type musician.
A point worth noting is every currently made regular keyboard on the
market that outputs a CV and gate is really a MIDI keyboard mechanism
with a MIDI to CV converter attached inside the case. No manufacturer
has made a standard key CV gate keyboard since the early 1980s. I'm
saying "standard key" because I'm not talking about a touch plate
system like the TKB or Buchla 222e. So my point is there really is
nothing special in the keyboard itself that you can't do with any
MIDI keyboard and a converter unless of course you like some sort of
extra feature like say a built in joystick or that French Connection
ring (though the unit is far shy of what a real Ondes Martenot can do).
As for the Buchla 222e, Don is saying he'll be delivering more soon,
why I mention that is that there isn't much feedback from users yet.
I think there were issues with the original touch surface
manufacturer. What I do know for sure is as currently configured it's
not really recommended or that suitable for use with a minimal system
or on it's own. It really needs to be in a 12 or 16 module case to
connect, power and orient it (it's ranged to being on a vertical top
boat and a horizontal bottom boat) and wants to talk to a preset
manager module. Buchla's combined trigger/gate and CV are not
standard though it's not impossible to make use of them, just not
near a plug and play situation if you want to make use of most of it.
nick