MOTM

At 5:47 PM +0000 01/18/02, jhaible@... wrote:

>
>Very true. When I was young, and could not play a chord on the keyboard,
>I thought electonic drums were the easier stuff. Quite ridiculous, in
>>retrospect. Now I know my limitations, and work on them where it looks
>>hopeful, and avoid the stuff where I'm helpless. At least I try. (;->)

If it's any consolation, I can't play chords to save my life, well, at
least not without a harmonica :)

>Absolutely awesome. I've become a big fan of King Crimson in recent
>years, got most of these Collector's Club CDs with their (legalized
>and remastered) bootlegs. Some of the most amazing music I've heard.

I should listen to King Crimson more often. All of my King Crimson is on
vinyl, and I'm fortunate to have the vastly superior Japanese pressings of
most of their albums, which imho, sound better than cd (no, I'm not trying
to revive that argument :) FWIW, my belt drive turntable (Ariston Enigma)
is boxed up, and I am reluctant to play them on my 1200.

>Gentle Giant is another favorite band of mine. Time signatures of
>"So Sincere" and "Cogs in Cogs" - big fun to listen to. No way to program
>>such stuff on a machine.

You're absolutely right, there isn't, and with gigahertz computers now
available, I have to wonder why.

>I built it myself. It was inspired by the verbal description of the Serge
>catalog back then. (I've never seen the original circuit.) I have
>published my version of the circuit some years ago, it's at
>http://home.debitel.net/user/jhaible/additional_schemos.html
>(look for "voltage controlled divide-by-N".)

That looks quite imaginative!! I'm having a bit of trouble understanding
how the "staircase" generator works. However, I do understand how its
amplitude increases by one "stair" for each input pulse until it reaches
the threshold of the comparator. It also seems to divide by 2N rather than
N, but it's quite likely I'm misreading something.

>Basic line is that the sequencer (with a dedicated row of switches for
>Gate On / Gate Off (Rest) / Reset allow to program a regular pattern of
>>trigger signals to start with

A gate sequencer might make a nice addition to the MOTM system.

>There's a description from 1998 (when I made the CD) at
>http://home.debitel.net/user/jhaible/hj_cd1.html
>You will even find mp3 samples here, but be warned, this is no way
>adventurous "Bruford" stuff - it's more on the Jean Michel Jarre drum
>>machine side. (Just to not disappoint you.)

Well, there is no way to do "Bruford" stuff with a drum machine.

>>it would be far worse if Synthesis Technology went out of
>>business entirely.
>
>I don't see any reason to fear this. I think it's doing fine, and much
>>better than anybody had expected.

That's reassuring to hear, and I didn't mean to imply otherwise!!