The Cyndustries List

Ingo Zobel wrote:

>
> hello cynthia,
>
> just a short thing which caught my attention.
> when looking at the eurorack format, i count 20 jacks.
> on all the other formats there are 22 jacks.
> the preliminary manual says that there are two
> dynamic fm inputs, but the eurorack panel only has one.
> also the manual says that there are a few differences
> between the formats, things like ac/dc coupling and so on.
> please, can you explain? i'm asking because i'm still not
> sure which format to buy, eurorack or fracrack.
>
> many thanks :-)
>
> best wishes
>
> ingo

Hi Ingo!

Thanks for noticing that difference; yours is an excellent question!

The Euro Rack Zeroscillators have two jacks less than the others.
There are actually several differences between the Euro and
Blacet or FracRac versions...

The FracRac versions are more compact, thus you can fit slightly more
of them into any given cabinet.

The width of the Euro Rack is 36HP or roughly 7.20 inches wide,
while the width of the FracRac Zo is 6.0 inches wide.

The Euro Zo runs on +/-12 Volts,
while the FracRac runs on +/-15 Volts, thus you may experience ever
slightly more extreme modulation possibilities using the FracRac Version? 
It's kind of theoretical at the moment, but it is comparing a
24volt rail-to-rail system against a 30volt rail-to-rail system afterall.

(OK,  some people "think" that yellow hook-up wire sounds better!)

The Euro format Zo has only a single one-volt-to-the-octave input jack
compared to the others.  The absence of the extra jack is no hardship
as the second jack is mainly gravy.  On all other versions the two jacks
are not multed or "Y"ed together, for the correct impedances, they
have their own respective precision input resistors which are hand-matched
pairs so you may use either or both with 1V/Octave inputs such as a
sequencer and a keyboard.  (The Euro will accept either, but not both
without combining them elsewhere in your system; not a big deal).

The other difference is that there is only one Dynamic Linear FM Input
on the Euro format Zeroscillator.  The others have two jacks instead of
just the one, and the difference is that as an afterthought we decided to
add a 10 microfarad non-polarized capacitor to the second inputs to block
DC voltages.  This is known as "AC Coupling", (without the capacitor
it is called "DC Coupling").  This is why there are two different color
banana jacks on the lower left of the Modcan version, the white input
is DC coupled and allows full AC and DC inputs, while the gray input
is AC coupled because it has the magic capacitor and blocks any DC
from getting in.  What is the difference?  AC = audio signals and
DC = control voltage sgnals.  The Euro supports either type of inputs,
so one is not really "loosing" anything.

Adding the above capacitor to the middle of a patch cord would give
you the ability to block DC inputs on ~any~ module in your system if
desired.  This is true of any modular synthesizer.

So the differences are not any big deal really, which is why we didn't
make a big deal out of them.  The Euro Zeroscillator format simply
looked cleaner without them... Ah, what price for beauty!


Cynthia

http://www.cyndustries.com/





















>
>
> --- Cynthia Webster <cynthia.webster@gte.net> schrieb:
>
> > Les Mizzell wrote:
> >
> > > David Bartz wrote:
> > > > OUCH!  The nuns just slapped my wrist with that friggin' ruler
> > again.
> > >
> > >
> > > You know Sister Helga too?
> >
> >
> > Good thing you never met Sister Helga one!
> >
> > (Sorry, couldn't resist).
> >
> > Thank You David!
> >
> > Seriously, we shipped more Modcan format Zeroscillators today along
> > with
> > some other orders.
> >
> > We should be getting a large batch of the two MOTM specific circuit
> > boards within the next two-weeks.
> > Stuffing those is a breeze compared to the other four circuit boards
> > that are universal to all of the
> > module formats, (thankfully we have lots of those built already).
> >
> > All of the other formats are coming along nicely, we're making last
> > minute tweeks to the circuit boards.
> > As long as the DotCom Format front panels arrive in time, then we
> > should
> > be shipping all formats of
> > Zeroscillators this month!
> >
> > A note on the DotComs, is that we discovered that the cards on the
> > backplane are a fraction of
> > an inch too long to fit into the Synthesizer.com portable cabinets,
> > this
> > neccessitated the creation of
> > a new little right-angle circuit board adapter so that the cards will
> >
> > now fit by standing-up vertically instead.
> >
> > The threaded bushings on the Euro Rack and FracRac versions looked
> > great
> > head-on, but in
> > profile we found that they protruded too far out from the front panel
> >
> > and interfered with the handspace
> > around the tuning knob, which I'm trying to keep clear.  Over the
> > holidays we ordered
> > and auditioned every mini toggle switch we could find, and now have a
> >
> > lovely solution, but the new
> > switches have an odd little circuit board mounting bracket that
> > required
> > a new footprint pattern on
> > the circuit boards, so those updates are now done.
> >
> > We just did a lot of fine tuning like this on all of the formats
> > during
> > the holidays and they're all
> > starting to ship in whatever order the final parts arrive.
> >
> > Best Wishes!
> >
> >
> > Cynthia
> >
> > http://www.cyndustries.com/
> >
> > New Devo Synapse Electronic Music Magazine Issue Posted!
> >
> >
> >