Thanks For Your Input!

Putting in the input

Some things are just too easy and you wonder why you didn't just do them earlier. Attaching an external input to the Orchestra effect is one such job.

Referring back to the modification I did to the switches and depth control to have individual wet/dry mix controls for each voice...

I simply added a wire to the Violin voice's input to the mixing amp and switched off the Violin voices for good measure. I haven't replaced the Violin switches yet and I just wanted to isolate the external input as much as possible.

And, hey presto, I have a chorus effects unit!

Because the PSS-580 sounds relatively poor and because I had it to hand I filmed a demo of it with a few different presets to show how useful the effect is.
 This film is a multi-camera wonder! You can see me playing the'580 and adjusting the effects-send at one and the same time! I also downloaded Lightworks so I could superimpose them together.

The channel on the right is the PSS-580. The one on the left is the SS-30. By using the mixer I can also feed the SS-30 back into itself. This creates an even deeper effect. As you get closer to the point of howl-around you get some interesting artifacts around the attack portion of sounds too. A couple of times I push it too far.

Now that this is tested I need to decide how to implement it.

• Input connector on the front or back panel?
• Is it worth having an input level control?
• Should I add a feedback control for the SS-30 so that the deeper effect can be obtained without any external mixing? 
• Should the external input be routed in with the SS-30 voices or should it just go into the Mixing Amp with it's own channel and 22K resistor?

That was an hour's work on Sunday afternoon so in the evening I decided to try something else with the Orchestra.   

The indications are good

The Orchestra has two LFOs. One fixed at 0.6Hz and the other variable. It occurred to me recently, whilst having deep think about the user interface (of which a blog post is forthcoming), that I could have a blinking light to indicate the rate of the variable LFO. At least now that it's fully variable and not just two fixed speeds it's useful.

The LFO is generated by the IG00150 VCO. This device has two outputs, a sine wave is used for the Orchestra effect and there's an unused sawtooth which I can use to control an LED. 

With a simple transistor driver circuit and borrowing a 15V supply rail I quickly got this demo working.

I would need a small board to hold the components but this is a nice addition to the SS-30M.