Wiardgroup

Not owning a Waveform City I have been listening to the Nord synths
and wondered if the Waveform City sounded like that...or what can you
compare its sound to?

Owning a Serge VC0s and a Plan B VCO I am thinking about maybe
skipping the Classic VCO to get 2 Waveform Cities, or is the Classic
VCO really worth getting

Hi cray
--- In wiardgroup@yahoogroups.com, "cray5656" <amni56@...> wrote:
>
> Not owning a Waveform City I have been listening to the Nord synths
> and wondered if the Waveform City sounded like that...or what can you
> compare its sound to?
> 

i own 2 nords and 3 Wiard VCDO's (in various forms) and i don't think
they resemble one another at all. i used a DigiSound VCDO at a college
electronic music lab in the 80's...

http://www.digisound80.co.uk/digisound/modules/80-21/80-21.htm

...and that's about the closest thing i've ever heard to Grants VCDO
design. It's far from an identical match but it's in the ballpark.

-doc

>   The WC offers the same oscillator core as the Classic VCO, plus the 8-bit waveshaper. It 
has the same sweet sine, triangle, and sawtooth waves; it offers linear FM (though without 
the dedicated attenuator); and you can get a form of PWM using certain wavetables, so in 
many ways it's the Classic VCO and much more.

You can use the on board VCA as an attenuator for dynamic depth linear FM.

Yes, we thought of everything.

The VCO (and WC) is the reason that I invested in such a large Wiard
system - I wanted a 10 oscillator system, akin to the Buchla 200
systems that I worked on in the past.

I have Serge VCOs - they are very good, but not at all like the Wiard
VCOs.  Coming from the Buchla pedigree, I do appreciate Peter G's Plan
B VCO's sound, too, but the Wiard VCO is on the level of a Hammond B3
8 foot drawbar as far as musicality - it sounds like music....  

The Random output is a great stocastic source, (a noise source when
the VCO is in audio ranges, it is your random-voltage-sample-and-hold
output when the VCO is used as a clock).

The variable sync can syncronize to even sine waves at the sync input,
and when used as a lfo, the vco can syncronize to very slow sources.

On the VCO, I love having the various waveform levels displayed on the
left side, while the right side of the LED bar display the level of
the VCA - where on the WC, the LEDs are tied up displaying the bank
and waveform position.

The WC is a great quantizer - and, since I am doing a lot of sine wave
based FM and such, I find myself using the quantizer independently of
the VCO's duties, which is often a FM modulator of a VCO carrier.

The two unattenuated CV inputs are accurate enough to have both a
keyboard and a sequencer patched, which is something of a special but
very useful feature.



gary


Chris Sawyer <paradigmshiftbeats@...> wrote:
>
> Given what you have, I would definitely recommend the Waveform City
as your first Wiard oscillator, but you might want to defer your
decision on the second one until you have put some time in with the WC.
>    
>   The WC offers the same oscillator core as the Classic VCO, plus
the 8-bit waveshaper. It has the same sweet sine, triangle, and
sawtooth waves; it offers linear FM (though without the dedicated
attenuator); and you can get a form of PWM using certain wavetables,
so in many ways it's the Classic VCO and much more.
>    
>   That said, the Classic VCO has some unique features of its own
like the random output (especially useful in LFO mode and/or patched
back into the CVCO mod inputs) and it is my favorite Pulse/PWM wave of
any synth I use. I own four Serge VCO's (1 NTO) and my partner owns a
Eurorack system including a couple of Plan B Model 15s, and while I do
enjoy the unique character of those I can tell you the Classic VCO
blows them all away.
>    
>   I think the most flexible combination is one of each, but others'
mileage may vary.
> 
> cray5656 <amni56@...> wrote:
>           Not owning a Waveform City I have been listening to the
Nord synths

> and wondered if the Waveform City sounded like that...or what can you
> compare its sound to?
> 
> Owning a Serge VC0s and a Plan B VCO I am thinking about maybe
> skipping the Classic VCO to get 2 Waveform Cities, or is the Classic
> VCO really worth getting
>