SergeModular

For What its worth I'll describe mine. It was basically given to me
in the early eighties from Carter Thomas, as part of my compositional
studies with him.
He built it at Calarts, in the class that Serge taught. Each student
I think would come up with about 500.00 for parts and such, and Serge
would have them build these things in class.
It is housed in a folding wood cabinet, there are six panels counting
the power supply, and the nearly empty bottom left panel.
It uses banana jacks pretty much through out, with the exception of a
couple of mixers to allow one to interface with the outside world.
Most of the knobs/pots are cheap, and loose feeling. The VCFs for
some reason used a different set of knobs, one gets the idea that
there was alot of making up matters as they built these.
The panel graphics use lots of shapes, no numbers. The graphic is
printed on paper, and this paper is laminated on the predrilled panel.
In my machine's case, the plastic laminate is flaking off.
The unit is pretty stable, although, one of the mixers are not
working, one of the negative slews are having some trouble as well..
I know several folks who work with electronic music in the early 60s,
using hp generators and such. In that context, for a person who had
no possible chance of affording an early Moog or Buchla, this would
have been a fantastic machine. When Carter gave it to me I went
through about one year of shock, it was great. It does lack a few
items that I would have wanted, but still. It really is not all in
the same class with the STS machines, maybe like comparing the very
early Hondas with today's models..
At some point I will upload a picture or 2.
This unit has:
6 vcos, sine w. waveshape, & sawtooth, scalable cvs(through whole
system for that matter)
4 multimode vcfs, self oscillation requires patching vcf output to
input
4 vcas, log/lin input, ac/dc as well
2 very nice ar generators w. self trigger, end pulse, a gate or
window pulse, trigger input, cycle input(my favorite module on this
machine)
1 10 stage sequencer, really a pulse sequencer, which can be used
with a programmer
3 4stage programmers, 3 cv outputs,cheap buttons to address each stage
4 negative slew generators
2 positive slew generators
1 very nice phase shifter, w. 1080,760,and 320 outputs
6 mixers, 3 controllable inputs with one unity gain input
1 dual voltage processors, usable to mix &scale cvs
6 comparators to produce square or pulse wave signals
2 peak and trough modules(which I have never figured out an
intelligent use for)
1 multiple
Additionally, it has a bank of 8 vcas that one of his classmates put
in the nearly empty bottom left panel, leaving it filled, along with
a patch panel w.1/8&1/4 $banana jacks
Hope this adds to the discussion.
Don Hassler

> 4 negative slew generators
> 2 positive slew generators

How were these used? I've always assumed that they
served as primative envelope generators and VC clocks,
but am I missing something.

> 1 multiple

Were these just a row of 4mm sockets connected together,
or something more elaborate? There was a discussion of
this on Synth DIY, and many people were confused about
why a simple multiple would be needed on a Serge when
the 4mm connectors can be stacked.


Thanks


Steve Ridley