Delta
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Life & synths
September has not been a good month in many ways. Firstly my partner has been in hospital for a week having some major surgery as a result of her having had cancer 6 years ago and A week before that my mum had a stroke and has been in and out of hospital. Suffice to say, I’ve really not had much in the way of energy or enthusiasm to do much with synths, but I have done some bit when I’ve had the beans. Quadrowave Quadrowave has fully functioning ADSRs for VCF and VCA, the VCF and VCA work, two LFOs are also working and the oscillators are working, it’s…
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Even more synth updates
Things have been moving with synth projects this last month, first up the Quardowave card for the Isla Instruments Caladan has arrived, I’ve assembled it, checked power and got blink working on the CPUs. I still have to debug the VCFs but the other parts, like DACs and VCAs are the same as the OPL3 card I’ve been working on for Isla Instruments, so they shouldn’t be a problem. The next job is coding the CPUs and getting some sounds out.I’m looking forward to getting this up and running and making some sounds, it should sound epic. In other news the prototype voice holder for Delta has arrived and been…
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Synth updates
Things have been getting a little better of late and I’ve got some of my mojo back, some. Firstly, I’ve been working with Isla Instruments on their Caladan synth, specifically the OPL3 card for it, this uses a bunch of new old stock YMF262 4 op FM chips and a multimode VCF and VCA. Originally it was 4 voices and has now been expanded to 6 voices. It’s almost done but I have a couple of features I want to add to the firmware yet.I have also been working on a voice card of my own design, I’m calling it the Quadrowave (until I can think of a better name),…
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Synth stuff
It’s been a while since I posted anything to do with synths, and that’s largely down to some family issues (my partner not being well, but she’s getting better now) and my mood taking a massive dive. The recent news about Modal hasn’t helped, it’s a huge shame and I do hope that a solution can be found going forward. I thought it was time to give a quick update on my polsynth, currently known as ‘Delta’. I’ve been thinking it through and I think I got carried away which has meant that some of the bugs are now really difficult to find (read I have no idea). So I’m…
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LTNT (long time no type)
I am trying to keep my blog (this thing) updated regularly, but I’m failing so here are three updates in one! PDP11 Hack Plus I’ll give a quick update on a number of things, firstly with the PDP11 Hack plus board I’ve been doing. Basically I can’t get it jump into the onboard monitor or ODT (Octal Debugging Technique). Whilst I can see a clock and I can see at power up some address and data lines change as if it is looking for a boot strap of some kind, but I cannot get it into the ODT. Mr Usagi Electric has kindly offered to test my DCJ11 chip for…
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Life and Delta
I’ve succumbed to the dreaded black dog that is depression again, but with the help of my partner, Jayne, I’m getting better. She is very good at looking after me and helping me avoid pitfalls. Jayne is also improving, she nearly ended up having emergency surgery, but has pulled through and we’re waiting to see the consultant early April to find out what can be done to stop this from happening again (this has happened before, and will happen to her again). In the meantime I’ve been taking time to enjoy walking with my dog, Suzi, and appreciate some of the good things in my life, like Jayne, Suzi, my…
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Delta & Life
Recently my partner was rushed to hospital and has spent 5 days in with a serious condition, thankfully she is now out but will need to have major surgery in 6 to 8 weeks. This has got me thinking a lot about my life and what is important to me. She and Suzi are what matter to me above all else, this trip into hospital has really brought that into focus. So what is the upshot? Well, I’m giving serious thought to Delta being my last commercial synth. It takes a lot of work to make a poly synth, and for one person it can be very hard. There’s a…
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2023 and onward
Well another year has come and gone, 2022 was not a great year. With chip shortages, recessions and friends suffering a lot (for reasons I shan’t go into). I’m not one for new years resolutions, but I do like to have a goal for the year, so my goal is to “declutter” and simplify my life. Things have gotten very complex. So I’ve put some effort into Delta over the holiday and I have most of the prototype UI (screen and knobs) done which let’s me fully test the synth engine and debug that. Though Dove Audio is now closed, I’m unsure what form Delta will take. PJ5 (my TTL…
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Walks, Delta and dogs
The weather here has been cold of the last weeks and yes we had snow, which Suzi was really confused about, she kept running and trying to eat it, rolling in it and generally seeming to enjoy the experience which was wonderful to see. During these walks the colours of the sky are often quite amazing, so I take some pictures, here are a couple from recent days (before the snow). I’m no photographer but I can appreciate the colours 🙂 Delta Delta is now playable, I can set a default patch (pushing a button and it sends a string of commands to the FPGA) and play it via MIDI…
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Speed, Delta & Doves
Speed The world is moving at an incredible rate lately, now I know as you get older your neurons fire slower and time seems to move quicker, but that’s not what I mean. Everyone is in a rush, a rush to make things, a rush to get places a rush to buy and received stuff and people seem to be incredibly impatient, now I caught myself doing this and I was shocked. I blame amazon for their “next day delivery”, and sometimes same day which is just nuts. It’s made us all impatient and rush to do things and expect things. The item in question for me was this uConsole…