MOTM

Hi Larry (all),

First: I like Paul's idea of having PDF plans to build a MOTM cabinet.

Secondly: I've never been near an ARP 2500 so I don't know about the sliders, 
but from the pictures I've seen, it looks as though the sliders take up far 
more room than the actual synth circuitry.

OK Larry, I'm not sure I followed the specifics of your idea, but it really 
got me (and more importantly Paul) thinking.

I have to say that I've never been too bothered by having cramped panels 
before, since I would like to believe I'm not just twiddling knobs, but 
rather making a fine, premeditated, adjustment -- probably not true. A much 
more immediate concern of mine is not banging a guitar, which is often hung 
around my neck, in to my morass of stuff. So my ergonomic issues are 
generally on a different level than the knob/cord debate.

That said, the MOTM is by far the most ergonomically pleasing synth to use (I 
know Dave likes the EMu, but it had too much wasted panel space for me). And 
I've really begun to appreciate the patching at the bottom which keeps all 
cords out of the way. I believe that Paul got this idea from the Aries, but 
regardless of where it came from, it is a great idea.

For these and other reasons, I've begun to think about moving away from the 
19A rack mounting and going towards a Moog 35 style. It occurred to me that 
with even a two row system, there will be many cords hanging over knobs (BTW 
Larry, just in case you don't know, the basic synth layout has signals going 
from left to right with CVs coming in from the bottom -- the ARP 2600 has a 
good panel layout IMHO). I'm really interested in the way this discussion is 
developing, so here's my basic idea:

A couple of weeks ago I floated an idea about an undedicated 1U MOTM 
prepunched panel (I'll call it the 900-X) with 16 holes and no jacks. The 
thought being that it would allow each user to custom design the panel for 
any particular function (e.g., patchbay, multiples, adapters, etc.) I think 
this might be somewhat better than a standard 19" 1U panel since it would be 
compatible with 5U MOTM standard. Also these panels would probably cost only 
a bit more than the blank 1U MOTM panel, so they wouldn't be that expensive 
for the users (maybe Paul could sell 16 jacks as an option too). Of course it 
would be nice if such a panel had little label holders (like on a real 
patchbay or like what's on little file drawers) for obvious reasons.

As a patchbay example, if one had a two row system which was about 20U wide, 
one could have two 900-X units (one in each row, one above the other) which 
have say, four jacks from the lower unit connected to the upper unit. This 
would allow a signal to be transferred from the lower to the upper level (or 
vice versa) without those pesky cords interfering with one's artistically 
inspired twiddling of knobs. Not really normalled, but a good way to get 
around the cord/knob problem.

Now Larry, if by normalled, you mean actually connecting (soldering) the 19" 
1U jacks DIRECTLY to the MOTM IN/OUT jacks, let me strongly discourage you 
from doing this until you've had your system in one configuration for a good 
long time. One of the things I like best about a TRUE modular (i.e., not 
Serge, and not the ARP 2600), is that it is so easy to move a module anywhere 
as needed. I use many of the normalled inputs on my ARP, but I don't see it 
as a major advantage.

John "I just got about 2' of Curly hair cut off my head and I can't do a 
thing with it." Barlow