Flame through....?

Well, after the epic Doepfer posts, I'm moving on to other cool and highly desirable modules. There were other Doepfer offerings, but a lad has to stop at some point. Let's start with the letter 'F', shall we?

Flame Clockwork

I'd never tried this out before and I really enjoyed it. I used this to test out the CV control on the VCA aspect of the Metasonix R51. It will take an incoming MIDI Beat Clock and then convert that to 3 very manipulatable CV triggers. It also works as a MIDI to CV converter with a 5 octave range. I won't go into all that it can do as one can read about it on Analogue Haven's site or on Flame's own site as well. I could see myself adding this to the Eurorack one day as I've more rackspace than shelfspace right now.

Flight of Harmony (FoH) Plague Bearer & Choices Joystick/Gate Module

It's a good time to be into Modulars. So many new offerings these days. One of the newer purveyors is Flight of Harmony. I did not expect their 2nd offering to be a module that didn't actually make any noise! What you see here is a one-of-a-kind 'Choices' prototype complete with protective clear plastic on the joystick handle and a lovely 1st edition paper UPS label sticker adhered to a metal panel. Don't worry folks, this is just a fully functional demo model and the real deal will have a proper metal faceplate much like the lovely accompanying PB-1E Plague Bearer has.

So, another Joystick, right? Well, not really. One will note that 1/2 of the legends are printed upside-down no matter whether one chooses to have the "Choices" (get it?) with the cable sockets on top or the joystick on top. This panel layout allows a buyer to have free access to the joystick according to how their modular is set up. Don't like cables draping down on your joystick? Just mount the Choices with the jack sockets toward the bottom. You'll note that, regardless of whether you are right or left-handed, you can rock the joystick with whichever hand you choose and will still have a Gate trigger button available for the other hand to fire off. Lovely ergonomics here. This prototype hadn't had button caps put on it yet. The shipping version will have them. I've got 2 joysticks in my modular rig (3 if we count the Wretch Machine) and I will state that this is the highest quality joystick that I've yet to lay my hands upon. O.K., yeah; I haven't tested many joysticks and I've always been perfectly happy with the ones that I have. However, this one is a notch above in quality and smoothness. It certainly won't droop or sag.

Plague Bearer

This is the original modular offering from FoH. If you don't know this module (also available in a Bad-Ass Black Frac unit) then you are missing out. It does quite a few things besides being an all-around Satanic FSU (Fuck Shit Up) module. If you turn the Gain all of the way up (or to at least 3 o'clock) and the Input all of the way down, it generates some wonderful sounding, weighted, noise; noise that is definitely toward the 'dark' side of the spectrum. It's possible to change the timbre by sweeping the "High" and "Low" pots. High & Low are misnomers to a degree, but you can read about that on the FoH site. 

Should one feel inclined to run audio through the PB, get ready for mayhem. It is a king amongst FSU modules. I got one of the few double-wide PBs and I can't imagine not having 2 of them. Cascading one into the other and using the outputs of one unit to go into the various inputs of the other is a treat & a possible pathway to insanity, the skies raining blood or cats and dogs playing together & tickling bunnies.

FutureRetro Orb

Look at how small it is! I mean, it's small now! Get it? It's smaller. I left my hand in there for an idea of scale but then realized that the MIDI connectors already did that for me. I did like the spongy-feeling ball bearings used as switches. It reminded me of the ball bearings in the Genoqs Octopus, except that... wait for it... these ball-bearings are 1/3rd the size. a.k.a. they are small. I had heard that the Orb would forego the CV/Gate/Accent controls. I'm glad to see that they are still there.

Musik Messe 2009

I ended up hanging around the Schneider's Buero booth for about 45 minutes on one day and then 2 hours or so on the last day of the show. I rarely have the time to check out Musik Messe this extensively. We didn't have a 'real' stand this year, so it allowed for a quick disassembly and the last day free for the most part. 

Enough of the chatter. Let's get to the good stuff! Remember that each picture is 'clickable' for greater size. 

One caveat however; it is really hard to fully demo a lot of gear in the din & noise of a tradeshow. In some cases (Metasonix R51 & Wogglebug try-outs) I had headphones. In most cases, I had to compete with the ambient noise and the wankers that were next to me playing with modules in the same cases. With that out of the way & in alphabetical order:

Analogue Solutions (ASol)

Here we have the very Mini-Moog-esque Leipzig-k Analogue Monosynth. It has been on the ASol website for a while now but I'd not seen it in person. It is also available in a '-r' version for those that would prefer the part in black. That is to say 'sans keyboard'. The keyboard version has a few extra features that the rack one doesn't have: There is an extra LFO/VCA and the Mod wheel controls the LFO directly. There is also a headphone output. It sounded good but I didn't spend too much time with it due to the noise & I suck at playing keys. Check out the site for more info on the really cool stuff that Tom Carpenter makes. I'm quite fond of everything that I own that he has made. That's 18 items thus far, including the Mighty Vostok. Which is now available in sexy RED livery.

Concussor Modules with MFB & Seven Woods Ursa Major Prototype

I've posted several times on the Mighty Muff Wiggler forum about my fondness for the Concussor Drum Modules. They are the ones in the bottom half of this orange case (the catchily titled: "Neulant van Exels Klanformer V1")

More about the other modules in this case later. A couple of other utility modules from ASol were scattered about various racks on the Schneider's Buero (SB) (not :sb:, yet still very :sb: for those in the know) Super Booth (also abbreviated as "SB" and also :sb:...)

Club Of The Knobs

They had their own booth this year. I got to speak with Kazike for about 15 minutes. He's a very nice guy. His COTK system sounds beautiful. It's really quite stunning. 

The new polyphonic keyboard that is shown in the picture is an amazing feat. It has a PIC in it that controls what is happening. Although it seems like a relatively common CV keyboard it is far more.

It comes in a 4 or 5 octave version (your choice). You can split the keyboard using the rotary switch labled "KEYB.SPLIT AT OCTAVE". Then you assign how the voices are partitioned on either side of the split with the "VOICES LEFT/RIGHT" rotary.

You can then use the "PLAY MODE LEFT"(blue) & "PLAY MODE RIGHT"(pink) sections to determine how you wish each side of the split to behave in a manner that is entirely independent of the other side of the split. Choices are "Mono", "Poly 1", "Poly 2" & "Arpeggiator" in forward, backwards, pendulum and 2 types of Random modes. Pretty slick stuff. Click on the photo for more details.

Curetronic

This is the first time that I'd been able to lay my hands upon this fine 5HE variant. The modules are well-made and he has some interesting ideas about making integrated utility modules with 3-5 functions in one module. They are called "Tool-1" and so forth. What I liked the most were the 3HE to 5HE adapter modules that are clearly visible in this photo as they are populated with Doepfer & ASol Modules. This is great solution for also bringing some Harvestman Stylee to your Enormo-Mammoth Rig.

The only thing that I found as a qualified negative was that, due to my unfamiliarity of the system & even the location of modules, it was very hard for me to figure out what I was doing since the modules all look so similar with the black panels and light grey font. They look even more similar to each other than the Doepfer offerings since the panels are almost all the same size. I'm sure that you can tell what I'm talking about when looking at the picture. It is hard to achieve a mental 'anchoring point' as to where things are in that vast sea of black and grey.

Mr. Curetronic (sorry, I've forgotten your name...) was very polite and let me play around with his system for quite some time. He even pulled the prior patch and draped all of the cables around my neck whilst I patched away. Top bloke.

Doepfer

Wow! Just simply 'wow'! How many SKUs (Stock Keeping Units) does Doepfer have?! I dunno but there seems to be even MOOOAAAAR this year. 

Be sure to visit this link for more info on the new modules & specifically some more info on the Dark Energy http://www.doepfer.de/home_e.htm

That scrolling matrix of LEDs is a new step sequencer that is extensible. You can add another bank of 8 onto it and have 16 steps. It may well be further extended, but I don't recall all of the details right now. Here's something from the pamphlet that I picked up: 

• It doesn't have a name yet
• It will cost around 150-200€ (Red LEDs)
• It has 64 buttons with an LED each
• Each button can be assigned to:

1.  a MIDI message (e.g. note on/off, control change, program change)
   
2. different switch modes (momentary, toggle [state changes with each operation], radio buttons group [group of buttons with one active button only. If one button is pressed the others in that group are also actuated/deactivated.
   

• It will be available with custom LED colors
• MIDI & USB interfacing (Mini-Monome-Module! <- My comment added)
• Release date: Summer/Fall 2009

Check out the Bi-Colored LEDs!

Dieter Doepfer had a bank of A-111-5 Mini-Synthesizer Voices set up. Dig that sexy paper face-plate on the right. The A-111-5's stand-alone brother the "Dark Energy" is below.

Dark_Energy_Prototype_01.jpg

Click on the Above Link for a Sexy Photo

The Dark Energy and the A-111-5 are exactly the same module, except that the Dark Energy differs in the following ways:

1. MIDI & USB interface
2. Black faceplate
3. Wood end-cheeks
4. Moog-style vintage knobs.
5. The spacing of the knobs and switches is a bit wider than on the standard A-100 series modules. This makes the black panel larger than the A-111-5 unit.
6. Dark Energy ~ 400€ delivered in June 2009 vs. A-111-5 ~300€ delivered in May 2009

Here's the Cut Sheet for most of the product. Some information that is left out from my scan of the Cut Sheet:

• The LFO goes into Audio Rate (right on!) for FM fun with the VCO pitch & PWM. Or jam it into the VCA or VCF
• If the Triangle Core Osc. is turned off, the VCF can be used as a Sine Wave Osc. in the typical fashion. However, one can now modulate the sine wave in a Linear manner from the triangle wave of the VCO and by LFO2 in an Exponential manner. How cool is that?

A1871_sm.gif

I was foolish in not having taken a photo of the A-187-1 DSP module. Doepfer doesn't even have a photo on their site right now, so I scanned the Cut Sheet. 

I've added the chart that shows what the 16 settings will be. Please note that the 1st preset will not be "Bypass" in the finished version. Dieter told me that it wasn't practical to expect people to swing from #14 or #15 (etc.) to preset #1 and then right back to the correct number as a way of bypassing the signal. Plus, you'd be sweeping through all of the presets as you did this. Instead, he is adding a Wet/Dry Mix knob & this will also serve as a Bypass. 

This module was one of the standouts at the show, in my opinion. The pitch-shifting is so smooth under CV control. Not a glitch or artifact to be found. Dieter made a point of showing me how the delay settings are not quite 'finished' in DSP code yet. There was a very consistent glitching that was more steady (not in a good way) than what you'd find in manipulating the CV on the TipTop Z5000, but it was much less 'screwed up & chaotic' than what is found in the finished & shipping Z5000. I'm really hoping for good things from the A-187-1 as I am very disappointed in the Z5000 except for the reverbs.

The Distortion setting was quite nice as well. It was not like a Rat™ pedal or other fuzztone. It was much more rounded and mid-rangey like a tube distortion (and dare I say it) the very nice R51 from Metasonix.

Doepfer A-190-3 CV4

4-Channel Polyphonic MIDI to CV converter

Guess what? It does what it says it does. Although I have to admit that I didn't really play with it myself. I did watch a few other fellows play a MIDI keyboard with it and, hey, it works.