200e

Ah, the guilty pleasure of the 261e....

Just mixing the sine waves from both the main and mod oscillators 
and detuning them give you all sorts of wonderful, percussive, 
woody, glock or marimba sounds. Just like the ones in Charles 
Cohen's Easel improvisations. Other warm sounds like PWM strings and 
brass are also easy to dial up (I always wondered how Suzanne Ciani 
got that sound in that small video snippet on her site. Now I 
know....). The crunchy, resonant sounds that the 259e makes can also 
be obtained with it, except with no aliasing (yay!). No wonder Don 
chose not to add resonance to the 292 (it would be overkill!).

Verdict: Awesome. Only thing that comes close is a combination of 
Serge NTO, PCO and Wave Multiplier. If we add up the prices of these 
three it comes pretty close to the $1400 that the 261e goes for 
($1335 according to The Serge site). 

Still, I wish it tracked at 1 V/oct, but hey, it's got presets! It 
also needs CV for the amount of FM (which the NTO has, BTW). And it 
would be great to have a pure sawtooth wave.

Otherwise, it's a toy that will soon be joined by a twin brother..

> Just mixing the sine waves from both the main and mod oscillators
> and detuning them give you all sorts of wonderful, percussive,
> woody, glock or marimba sounds. Just like the ones in Charles
> Cohen's Easel improvisations.

Just from two mixed sinewaves?? Exactly how did you patch that?

Anyway, i have found that mixing the waveshaped output with
the sine output (on the same principal osc) is usually a good thing.
The waveshaper can make the sound pretty thin at some settings,
especially with the 'high order' shaper. Adding a little bit of sine
balances the sound again in a nice way. In fact it would be great to
have a blend knob directly on the 261.

johan

>>> Just from two mixed sinewaves?? Exactly how did you patch that?<<

The trick is to detune them at least 1-2 octaves appart, and maybe a 
fifth above that. Also, feed each oscillator into a separate gate, 
then trigger one EG with the pulse out of another one (the one 
opening the LPG with the higher-pitched osc). This causes a slight 
delay between both sounds, making it sound bright and rich.

>>> Anyway, i have found that mixing the waveshaped output with
> the sine output (on the same principal osc) is usually a good 
thing.
> The waveshaper can make the sound pretty thin at some settings,
> especially with the 'high order' shaper. Adding a little bit of 
sine
> balances the sound again in a nice way.<<< 

Hmmmm, I dunno... I did this and found the sine wave making the 
whole sound a bit dull.

Anyway, do you own an oscilloscope, dude? The mod oscillator wave at 
about 25% pulse duty cycle sounds like a perfect sawtooth to my 
ears. This is something that Wendy Carlos mentions in her "Secrets 
of Synthesis" CD, but I'd never noticed it as dramatically as with 
this baby.

I love this thing, guys. It's given me a whole new perspective on my 
Buchla, making me realize that yes, it is worth the $$$$$...

2006/2/6, cuari7 <cuari7@comcast.net>:
>
> >>> Just from two mixed sinewaves?? Exactly how did you patch that?<<
>
> The trick is to detune them at least 1-2 octaves appart, and maybe a
> fifth above that. Also, feed each oscillator into a separate gate,
> then trigger one EG with the pulse out of another one (the one
> opening the LPG with the higher-pitched osc). This causes a slight
> delay between both sounds, making it sound bright and rich.

Ok, i get it. Timbre can be adjusted by setting the second EG
to some different decay time and using different type of gate/lowpass
settings.

> >>> Anyway, i have found that mixing the waveshaped output with
> > the sine output (on the same principal osc) is usually a good
> thing.
> > The waveshaper can make the sound pretty thin at some settings,
> > especially with the 'high order' shaper. Adding a little bit of
> sine
> > balances the sound again in a nice way.<<<
>
> Hmmmm, I dunno... I did this and found the sine wave making the
> whole sound a bit dull.

Well, it might be a matter of taste, but some bottom can be added this way
which is good imo.

> Anyway, do you own an oscilloscope, dude? The mod oscillator wave at
> about 25% pulse duty cycle sounds like a perfect sawtooth to my
> ears.

I don't but i have friends that do. I'll talk them into bringing one over
(it won't be that hard ;)  I'd really like to see what's going on in the
waveshapers.

> I love this thing, guys. It's given me a whole new perspective on my
> Buchla, making me realize that yes, it is worth the $$$$$...

I got both 259e and 261e at the same time, initially i liked the 259e
a lot more but after a while now i am really getting into the 261e. They
do complement each other.

--- In 200e@yahoogroups.com, "cuari7" <cuari7@...> wrote:
> It also needs CV for the amount of FM (which the NTO has, BTW). 

It has that, doesn't it? (at least if the source is the Modulation oscillator set to modulate Pitch)

-C