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my new CD
Holiday in Purgatory
  
  
JH. PolyKorg Clone, Part 2
Pictures
Blank Frontpanel in Enclosure
Detail View
"It opens like a book"
Starting to make connections
 
Ribbon Cables
Pull-Pots and Cables
9mm Pots
Jacks and Pots
 
Fisheye
Did you know a 19" 6U Rack is so tiny ?
Cards with Trimpots
 
Left Mid Right
Signal Generators, Dynamic LP Filters, Envelope Generators Sample & Hold, Modulation Generators 1 and 2, Resonators, General Envelope Generator, Amplitude Modulator, Ensemble, High Pass Filter Programmer, Trigger Generator, Voltage Processors 1 and 2, Adding Amplifier, Midi and Keyboard Interface
 
Finished !!!
 
Sound Samples
Normally I hesitate to make samples of raw synthesizer sounds. It's the music, and thus the synth in its musical context, that matters. And often those sounds which appear most impressive when produced stand-alone, are also those wich never fit into the mix of your music.
Anyway - after one and a half year of building this synth, I could not resist to capture some of its output, and put these samples on the web. They are not completely raw, however: There is some unobtrusive reverb from the Quantec on all the sounds to place them in some acoustical ambience. And a few samples also have some echo from the TC D-Two, but you'll notice this immediately.

Brass (287k mp3)
Not like a real brass instrument at all, but reproducing the trademark electronic "analogue brass" sound. Please note that VCA and VCF share a single envelope, but the different response of VCA and VCF to this CV allows the typical Brass contour.

Wood (396k mp3)
A bit like a Xylophone. I think the woody character has to do with the envelope shape of the PolyKorg. The ADSR has a linear attack, exponential decay, and linear release slope. The ADSR is slightly rounded (500us time constant, plus compression from nonlinear response) for the VCA.

Ensemble (500k mp3)
String ensemble sound - using the triple chorus generator from the ARP Omni that I've implemented instead of the original Korg ensemble circuit. Still a tad noisy. I'll have to either change the signal levels, or better include a compander, in the ensemble section.

Hold (969k mp3)
More ensemble sounds. Demonstrating Korg's unique "Hold" function. With the hold switch activated (or hold Pedal depressed) and the Attack time of the ADSR long enough (strange, but true), each note that you play on the keyboard will latch this voice (like a Hold function), but if you play the same note again (and play it shorter than the attack time of the ADSR), the voice is unlatched and starts its Release phase. Not exactly what you would expect from a piano's damper pedal (or from other synthesizers' Hold functions), but quite useful to gradually build up huge chords (as usual ...) and to also deconstruct these chords note by note (not so usual ...).

Synth1 (304k mp3)
Soft and fairly percussive synth sound

Synth2 (637k mp3)
Buzzy high resonance synth sound. The bass notes at the beginning are produced by the same patch as the searing higher notes that come in later.

Edit1 (1.1M mp3)
Starting with a Xylophone sound, the sound is edited while a short sequence runs (Frostwave FAT Controller). Pulling out individual pots will override the according parameter of the stored sound patch. As most of the internal CVs are running over Vactrols, no ugly glitches are produced while switching.

Edit2 (954k mp3)
Edit1 continued. Amplitude modulation gradually changed to Ring Modulation, Modulation Generator frequency increased to audio range. Finally, Ensemle effect added. I think Ring Modulation and Ensemble fit together nicely. The AM part (sub audio range) is a bit lame here, though. The Synth can do better than this.

Full Polyphony (568k mp3)
No voice stealing on a fully polyphonic instrument! This is useful for all kinds of percussive sounds, where the "tail" is not cut off by new notes. A subtle but important difference from synths with a limited number of voices. But here the effect is overdone, to show it more clearly, and it ends in a chromatic mayhem with 49 voices playing at the same time.

Nylon (190k mp3)
Similar to "Wood", but reminiscent of a very short, plucked nylon string.

Glass (405k mp3)
Percussive notes at the beginning, held notes towards the end.

Two Squares (609k mp3)
Symmetrical Pulse Waveform on both VCOs. Note how each note sounds slightly different because of component tolerance between the individual voices.

Gentle Giant (377k mp3)
Organ sound. My pitiful attempt to play a short phrase from Advent.
 
 
 

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