Neutron Blender

[Hawkeye]

Hola,

Finally, had some time to spare for a friday night synth session, containing two new synths in the collection: the MFB Dominion I and the Roland JD-990. Many thanks to J for recommending the latter one, it is really fantastic. I routed it through the Polivoks DIY VCF to add some (manually controlled by the left hand) analog filter touch to the already flawless, but digital pad sounds! :-)

As always, many thanks to TK. for creating everything MIDIbox, without it, i would have given up the idea of doing those live synth jams a long time ago, now creating a track is just a matter of a few hours, sitting down, recording some sequences and having fun, no computer needed :)

Thanks for watching and listening and have a great weekend!
Peter

[yogi]

I always look forward to your sessions :) Love those filter sweeps, any info on the VCF? 

Yogi

[Psykhaze]

Polivoks VCF gives SID nice ruffness =) Aerial and sweet style SIDhead-feeded , hawkeye's mark. like it !
Greets,
Jerome 

[eptheca]

Sounds great. Really liked this one.

Is it the Erica Synths Polivoks filter?

#dawless 

[Hawkeye]

Thanks a lot, guys! :-)

Regarding the Polivoks VCF - it is Marc Bareilles clone-version, I DIY-built it years ago as a stereo version on veroboard, just exchanged the VCF potentiometer (mono) with a stereo pot and built the circuit twice. It is not difficult and can be done in an evening. The filter output is very convincing, quite lo-fi, a bit distorted (if you want to) with mad resonance (if you want to) and is a highly recommended DIY build. It sounds really great (+15V/0V/-15V bipolar PSU required for the opamps). It should also integrate nicely into euro(c)rack setups! :-)
http://m.bareille.free.fr/modular1/vcf_polivoks/vcf_polivoks.htm

Have a great weekend!
Peter

[latigid on]

Nice to see the Dominion in action! I have a eurorack version of the Polivoks with the original Russian ICs. It's a cool design because the filter corner frequency is controlled by the variable slew rate of one op amp. Quite a different sound!

[Hawkeye]

Thanks a lot, Andy! Yes, i love the Polivoks, too! :-)  I don't know how much difference there is is between the original russian opamps and the cloned version, but Marc Bareille posted a description of someone who a-b tested clone vs original and said it was close! If you buy the widely available non-russian parts, the whole build costs only around 20€ (without the PSU)...

Many greets!
Peter

[jojjelito]

Yay! Great music again! Dawless and nice. Nice to hear that you enjoy the JD-990, I guess I should take a look at a Dominion to even the score 

The Polivoks filter addition was a nice touch to further warm up the digital pads!

[Hawkeye]

Thanks J! I am so thankful for your synth suggestions a few years back. All of them were fantastic! :)

(But i gotta tell you, last week i managed to acquire a really cheap dave smith evolver desktop, that really begs for a programma interface! It is a great 4 osc (2 analog/2 digital) monosynth with supercool modulation possibilities, if you don't have one, yet... ! :-))

Have a great sunday!
Peter

[jojjelito]

Evolver, eh? I've been looking at Sequential/DSi Stuff to go beyond the VS, maybe I should act on it? :)

[ilmenator]

The Evolver is a great synth - it's a pity the Poly Rack is not available anymore (actually, that saves me quite some trouble at home...)

[Hawkeye]

Ilmenator: hehe, well, there are those occasional evilbay sales... but i passed on the last poly rack sale due to government restrictions, too ;-). But i think, even the single voice evolver has some really cool features and yet a quite low price (~ 300 bucks).