SergeModular

The recent messages about what to do with quantizers reminded me of
extra fun things you can do with 'em.

First though, quantizers can be used to quantize just about anything.
They're really handy if you want to tune
a sequencer to a scale, but you can also quantize LFO's, random
voltages, sample-and-hold, etc.
For example, if you send a rising sawtooth LFO into the quantizer,
you'll get a rising scale that repeats over and over.

Now for some extra stuff - and this is for the 'external' quantizers only.
If you mult an extra patchcord into your quantizer input and send it to
the + side of a comparator, and send the quantizer output to the - side
of the comparator, and carefully set the comparator so the offset knob
is at 0 volts, every time the quantizer makes a transition up or down,
you'll get a pulse out of the comparator.
Let's say you have the rising sawtooth arrangement from before. If you
patch in the comparator, every time the quantizer makes a 'step', the
comparator makes a pulse. The pulse will stay in step with the
quantizing action. Run the sawtooth LFO faster or slower, the quantized
steps will speed up or slow down, and so will the pulses.

You can send the pulses to a sequencer, an ADSR, or what have you. If
you trigger an ADSR you can create individual notes instead of the
continuous tone you'd get without the pulses.

One extra thing you may have to do is invert the pulses so you're
triggering off a rising edge. Without the inversion it'll still trigger
but it might sound uneven or off-beat. You can do this with one of the
BLOG's inverters or use a voltage processor.

Have fun.

John P.

--
m/n/m/l
surreal electronic music, sound, noise
http://mnml.soulcatcher.net

One thing I wish the Serge Quant had was a scaling pot like the Analogue
System's RS260. YOu can get 24 steps per ocatve on down. That and the
transposition input is really useful.

- P

I usually scale the quantizer with a scaling buffer either on the
backend to change notes/octave or on the frontend to make the dynamics
of the input more subtle or gross.

Peter Grenader wrote: