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new system and smooth stepped generator help...

new system and smooth stepped generator help...

2001-10-04 by moog@qwest.net

so, i get my first 3 panels yesterday and spend the night twiddling
away. the system is made up a blue voice, red control, and tkb
sequencer.

everything seems to be working as it should except the smooth stepped
generator. the rate knobs don't seem to control anything and i can
get it to generate smooth or stepped patterns. so, before i go off
and send the thing in to rex for repair, could someone give me a
basic setup patch on how this thing is supposed to work? i have the
sneaking suspicion that i might just not be getting the approproriate
way to hook this thing up. i'd be happy as a pig in filth if i could
just get it sample and holding.

james

Re: new system and smooth stepped generator help...

2001-10-04 by John Papiewski

The SSG is indeed a thing from Mars....
The top part, Smooth, is a little more straightforward... it's like a
one-parameter DSG. The rise and fall slope times are both set by the same
rate pot. The other pot, VC Rate, varies the amount of rate control voltage
you might have coming in. But if you don't have any CV patched into the blue
VC rate jack the VC rate pot has no effect.

Why would you use VC rate on the smooth side? If you're using Smooth for
glide, and want to make it glide faster or slower by control voltage, send it
to the VC rate jack, then trim the voltage with the VC rate pot till it's
right.

The Stepped part is a little stranger. It's pretty much a sample and hold
type thing but more generalized.
At full rotation the Stepped rate pot allows the greatest difference of
adjacent steps. So at 100% you get big steps. Back it off, the steps get
smaller and smaller till they're inaudible. If you like ultra micro tonal
sample and hold this is for you. If you send a voltage to control this VC
rate then the VC rate pot adjusts the voltage, just as it does in the Smooth
section. If you don't use a control voltage here the VC rate pot has no
effect, but the Rate pot does.

To get a sample and hold effect using the stepped side, send the signal
you're sampling to the IN jack, and a trigger pulse to SAMPLE. The stepped
output will be at STEPPED OUT.

You can do much more stuff with the SSG but this will get you started.

John P.

moog@... wrote:
Show quoted textHide quoted text
> so, i get my first 3 panels yesterday and spend the night twiddling
> away. the system is made up a blue voice, red control, and tkb
> sequencer.
>
> everything seems to be working as it should except the smooth stepped
> generator. the rate knobs don't seem to control anything and i can
> get it to generate smooth or stepped patterns. so, before i go off
> and send the thing in to rex for repair, could someone give me a
> basic setup patch on how this thing is supposed to work? i have the
> sneaking suspicion that i might just not be getting the approproriate
> way to hook this thing up. i'd be happy as a pig in filth if i could
> just get it sample and holding.
>
> james
>
>
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> SergeModular-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
> Keep on Patchin'!
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

Re: new system and smooth stepped generator help...

2001-10-04 by John Papiewski

BTW congratulations!!!!!!

moog@... wrote:
Show quoted textHide quoted text
> so, i get my first 3 panels yesterday and spend the night twiddling
> away. the system is made up a blue voice, red control, and tkb
> sequencer.
>
> everything seems to be working as it should except the smooth stepped
> generator. the rate knobs don't seem to control anything and i can
> get it to generate smooth or stepped patterns. so, before i go off
> and send the thing in to rex for repair, could someone give me a
> basic setup patch on how this thing is supposed to work? i have the
> sneaking suspicion that i might just not be getting the approproriate
> way to hook this thing up. i'd be happy as a pig in filth if i could
> just get it sample and holding.
>
> james
>
>
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> SergeModular-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
> Keep on Patchin'!
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

Re: new system and smooth stepped generator help...

2001-10-04 by alt-mode

--- John Papiewski <johnp@...> wrote:
> You can do much more stuff with the SSG but this will get you started.
>

John,

Please tell us more SSG applications! I admit that it has been one of the more
perplexing modules for me as well.

Thanks,
Eric


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Re: new system and smooth stepped generator help...

2001-10-04 by yahoo@hearn.to

Hi all,

I, too, am a proud new Serge owner. (Barry personally delivered his
system to me!)

I've been trying to really grok the SSG. After poring over the Gold
book many times, before I had my system, I thought I understood it
completely. But playing with it, it doesn't do quite what I expect.

The first behavior I didn't expect is that the cycle output on either
unit never goes high unless it's patched to the corresponding input. I
had figured it was just like the gate out on a DSG. But no! Use
either module like a DSG, and cycle never goes high! But patch it to
input, and you get an oscillator. Weird. (Nevermind the fact that
cycle is actually drawn as an INPUT in the Gold book diagrams...)

The slightly more puzzling behavior is this: when the stepped generator
is pulsed, the amount it jumps its output is purely a function of the
rate knob (constrained so that it doesn't overshoot the input, I
think). Why is that weird, you ask? Well, I had built up a mental
model of how it worked, as follows: suppose the stepped generator is
just a front-end to something like a DSG, that actually tracks the
input at a rate controlled by the rate knob. In particular, whenever
sample is pulsed, it samples & holds the current output of the hidden
DSG. That would give you more or less the correct qualitative
behavior. Only thing is, that model is not correct, because it
predicts that the amount the stepped generator will step when sample is
pulsed should depend on how long it has been since it was last pulsed
(which it doesn't!). That's because the hidden DSG would be tracking
at its rate in the meantime. Such a nice model. But it's wrong!
Anyway, if you have an extra DSG and sample & hold lying around, that's
how to make a faux stepped generator...

Bob Hearn
Show quoted textHide quoted text
--- In SergeModular@y..., John Papiewski <johnp@w...> wrote:
> The SSG is indeed a thing from Mars....
> ...
> You can do much more stuff with the SSG but this will get you started.

that much I've done...

>
> John P.
>
> moog@q... wrote:
>
> > everything seems to be working as it should except the smooth stepped
> > generator.

Re: new system and smooth stepped generator help...

2001-10-05 by C. Whitten

> After poring over the Gold
> book many times, before I had my system, I thought I understood it
> completely. But playing with it, it doesn't do quite what I expect.
Well it calls in to question, in my humble opinion, the lack of a manual.
Thank heavens for resources such as this and John P's website.
Do you get anything with the Wiard system?
CW

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