DFISHFAQ.DOC 23 April 1995 ~To: Denizens of the Analogue Heaven mailing list ~From:Robin Whittle, Real World Interfaces, Melbourne Australia ~Re: Devil Fish TB-303 I have heard that the Devil Fish modifications to the TB-303 have been discussed on this mailing list. I have not had time to subscribe to the list recently. Damien Miller tells me that one correspondent has stated that the Devil Fish blueprints were stolen and that the last machine went to Richie Hawtin. I find it fascinating how the most prosaic things can become adorned with wonder and myth - ultimately becoming an object of worship transcending utterly any roots they had in day-to-day reality. Once someone from Sydney called me and was surprised to find that I was an ordinary person - in contrast to his belief that I had been the victim of an horrific industrial accident which all but destroyed my hands, and that I soldiered on with my work with the help of sophisticated prosthetic manipulators attached to my wrists. I assume that something of a folklore has grown up around the Devil Fish, since it is rare, comes from a far away place, and extends - in ways beyond normal comprehension - the capabilities of a unique and idiosyncratic instrument which is at the heart of an exciting musical explosion which takes us all places that never previously existed. I would love to know of any such myths/truths which are circulating, but I feel bound to state as many of the facts as may reasonably be revealed. 1 - "There is another system." - Colossus (The Forbin Project). There have been indications that some analogue synthesis device known as "Devil Fish" is manufactured in New York, and may have been used by SysEx and some other artists. This was in late 92 or early 93 - before the Real World Interfaces Devil Fish. Also I have heard that Paul Schaeffer (who apparently plays on the Letterman show) uses an instrument called a "Devil Fish". I would be _extremely_ interested in any information regarding this, partly out of curiosity but mainly to avoid confusion if there are two comparable products with the same name. There are many aquatic creatures, including octopi and the manta ray (a vegetarian) which have been dubbed "Devil Fish" at some time, so it would not be surprising if more than one bottom dwelling synthesizer got the same moniker. 2 - "Me no go down . . . " The name _Devil_Fish_ comes from a song Dean Richards wrote in a band I was in during 1980 - Equal Local. The song was called "Debil Fish", and I understand this name came from a line in "Creature from the Black Lagoon", in which a white guy has a boat, immobilised due to something entangled round its propeller. He is trying to talk a black guy into diving under the boat to fix the problem. The black guy responds emphatically "Me no go down 'dere Massa! 'Deres Debil Fish down 'dere!!!". I would appreciate confirmation of this from anyone who is familiar with the movie. 3 - Real World Interfaces history. My musical instrument business has been full time since June 1985. It started in late 1980 when I devised modifications to the Casio M10 and MT- 30 portable digital polyphonic keyboards. I sent 450 sets of instructions around the world to people who wrote and sent a small payment. It was great - I got lots of positive feedback! Quite a few people did these mods as a business, so there are probably hundreds of them around. Devo use one on their fantastic "Easy Listening" cassette. Around 1983 I started doing extra memory for the TR-808, TB-303 and TR-606 - which were used live by musicians who had large repertoires. My MT- 32 modifications were licensed to two people in the USA. Initially to "Beaverton Digital Systems" - which degenerated into a disaster. Secondly - with a really happy outcome - to David Neely (LA Custom Instruments) who is now in Nashville. All the other work has been modifications, and I have not (and will not) publicise these outside Australia since it is typically too expensive to send instruments to Melbourne from overseas. 4 - Devil Fish history. In February 1993, I was doing CV and Gate inputs for Ollie Olsen's TB-303 and I decided to try a few other mods. I think Ollie encouraged me to explore the possibilities. Certainly Ollie, through his encouragement and through his music, has been a tremendous inspiration for the Devil Fish. Check out Ollie's latest CD (the third as Third Eye - some of you may have heard Max Q, which was a previous project) "Dance of Creation". This is great music and Ollie has an elevated status in my pantheon of musicians. Third Eye CDs are on the Psy Harmonics label, with European and US licensees. They are distributed by MDS. People outside Australia can browse and purchase this and other Psy Harmonics CDs (under the MDS grouping) via Aussie Music Online at http://www.aussiemusic.com.au. (End of shameless plug and deification of Ollie Olsen - actually he is a normal, but visionary, person.) It became clear that there were more mods to do than could be done on an ad-hoc basis, so I returned Ollie's machine back to normal. The first Devil Fish was for Krishan Knowles, a member of Sydney collective Clan Analogue. This machine was finished on 21 April 93 and had most of the final Devil Fish mods, but the overdrive (oscillator into filter) went only to about 20 times normal. The modifications were on matrix board. Later, I replaced this with proper Devil Fish printed circuit boards. Here is an approximate quote from a conversation with Krishan in July 93: "We are smoking our brains out with this new Devil Fish, down at the studio with Cubase and a MIDI to CV converter. The 303 is just smoking me . . We've never heard anything like it . . just freaking out and literally bouncing off the walls shouting 'Yeah! Yeah! This is what we want! This is what we want!'" Then I designed some circuit boards and a front panel so I could do the modifications properly. The first one was my own 303 - which later went to Richie Hawtin. This is serial number -001. (Krishan's was 000.) Ollie Olsen got the first full Devil Fish mod (SN 001) and he was over the moon when he got it - staying up all night getting sounds from it. His sleeping flatmate Geoff Hales (and a great musician too) thought some of the sounds were from birds. That was 29 May 1993. The last Devil Fish mod was for Ken Evans in Brisbane in April 94. Two went to (Australian born) Johnny Klimek in Berlin. I sent my machine to Richie Hawtin in Canada. Gus Till - who helped Ollie with Max Q and the first Third Eye CD has one. I think he is in France. Of the 18 Devil Fishes, four are outside Australia, three and in Queensland, one in Adelaide one or two in NSW and the rest in Melbourne. I planned the Devil Fish so that it could be set to achieve anything that a standard TB-303 could do. However I later discovered that my accent filter sweep circuit behaved significantly differently with repeated fast accents - crucial for some acid sounds. So I introduced a new three position switch, which fixed the problem. Devil Fishes are version 1.0 or 1.1 - functionally identical but the 1.1 is slightly simpler inside after I got the 500 k Alps pots I wanted. Versions with the extra switch are 1.xA. With repeated accents, a standard Bassline's filter goes up at the first accent, and gets a bit higher with subsequent ones. This gives an emotional response like something is being poked or hit and its just can't cope - its cries gets higher and higher. The 1.x version Devil Fish would go high at first, but subsequent accents gave a slightly lower filter frequency. Both these are valuable modes and can be selected with the new switch in the 1.xA. There is a third mode like the original one, with a super slow slide up and down, so the filter frequency is still falling after the accents disappear. Only about four machines have this extra switch. It doesn't matter for the great majority of things which the machine can do. One thing I am really against is the idolisation of particular machines. Some people just have to have the pure, original machine, so they can sound just like their heroes. This is fetishism of a boring, narrowing kind. (Fetishism is fine when it leads to fresh combinations - I have a substantial collection of exotic corsetry.) Some people have said "I will get two 303s - one to keep original and one to turn into a Devil Fish." There is no need for that (with the 1.xA switch), however it is true to say that I have never fully described exactly how the TB-303 and the Devil Fish work. You _do_ need to fully understand them to make the Devil Fish replicate a TB- 303 exactly in all circumstances, but I personally have no desire to slavishly copy a subset of the new machine's range. You do _not_ need to understand anything to get great music out of either machine. The instructions I have supplied have been perfectly adequate for exploring the many aspects of the Devil Fish - including areas which I have not got into yet. However the primary limitation on the number of Devil Fish mods has been my own inability to do them since April 94. 5 - What is happening??? In the last three years I have been doing a lot of unpaid work on consumer advocacy in telecommunications - particularly privacy issues including telemarketing and Calling Number Display (Caller ID in North America). I have also been writing about the communications revolution. I have run out of Devil Fish boards, and need to redesign them to include the new switch, to make the slide time trimpot a proper front panel pot, and to clean up various difficulties with the old boards. I also need to make more progress on "The Bridge" - my flexible MIDI to CV converter which I have been promising for much longer than I would like to admit. Since October, I have been working on a big report on the future of the music industry. This was supposed to be one month's work as a consultant to a Federal Government economic think tank - the Bureau of Transport and Communication Economics. It was a fascinating project and I spent many months on it, for no extra pay. The result is a 350 page paper "Future Developments in the Music Market" of which 100 copies have been printed and sent to key music industry people for feedback and as background for the Contemporary Music Summit in Canberra on 27 April. We will be working further on this to produce a BTCE Occasional Paper which will be properly printed and sold through the Australian Government Publishing Service. I retain the copyright to the paper in its current form and I will soon be making it available via my World Wide Web site (http://www.ozemail.com.au/~firstpr), in Microsoft Word for Windows 2.0 format. This should be printable on a Mac or Windows PC with a later copy of Word and a PostScript printer. I will also make a version without EPS files, and make the graphics available as .GIFs as well. A text only or HTML version will _not_ be available - there are too many tables and graphics. It may be a week or two before I get this on my site, but please check it out because I guarantee you will find lots of interesting things, and I would _really_ appreciate your feedback! 6 - Emma Chisit. By June I hope to have new printed circuits and a new front panel. So I should be able to do more modifications. The Devil Fish will _never_ be available as a kit - it is way too complicated, so don't believe anyone who offers such a thing. TB-303s will have to come to Australia, and transport costs must be added to the modification costs. The price is likely to be $550 Australian (just over US$400 at present). In addition it is typically necessary to replace all the pushbutton switches. This is $60, including a flexible plastic dust cover which I put between the switches and the buttons. Dust, particularly flecks of skin (the main component of household dust) gets in the switches and coats the contacts - causing intermittent operation. So keep you TB-303 and TR- 808/606 out of the dust as much as possible. The switches are fine if they protected from dust - for instance the same switches in a DX7 work forever. When I am ready to do more mods, I will contact Analogue Heaven and the people who have called me in the past year. 7 - The future. I need to work on the MIDI to CV converter. That will take a lot of work. After that I may design a stand- alone Devil Fish analogue synthesizer - no keyboard or MIDI, just the synth with CV and gate, and inputs for CVs to activate Accent and Slide, and to control filter frequency. This could be a long way off. Ultimately I would like to make a Devil Fish with MIDI, and a "bar at a time" inbuilt sequencer which would be ideal for studio/live real-time manipulation and programming. I also want to make some music, continue with consumer advocacy and do some to the things that ordinary people do - so future Devil Fish developments will happen far slower than I would like. 8 - What does the Devil Fish do? After all this, I am not going to give a full description of the machine! For one thing it would take another few pages. For another I don't want other people using the ideas - it would be far more interesting if they devised their own modifications. There are extra knobs and switches on the machine to the left of the volume control. There are extra inputs for CV and Gate etc, and for audio in to mix with the oscillator and to frequency modulate the filter. The result is the weirdest, strongest, thumpiest machine I have ever used. One thing that people say is that MiniMoogs are "fat" - but the Devil Fish is the "Monster Below"! It can do some highly idiosyncratic things quite apart from its heavier duties. One myth is that the Bass Station (excellent name!) is comparable to the TB-303. It is an ordinary synth, with standard well behaved filters. Nothing compares to the 303 (except clones such as the Deep Bass 9), since only a few synths (Moogs, Synthi AKS, VCS-3) have diode ladder filters, and no other machine has the accent circuitry, which affects the volume and filter in ways which cannot be replicated with modular synths. The Devil Fish does not have an external oscillator, but it does have an external input. The Devil Fish principle is for a single chain of processes (not two oscillators in parallel) to be doing things which range from "electronic naturalesque" to "mechanical overdrive" - through the use of unusual circuitry, high signal levels, and in one case, a filter FM feedback system which can elegantly approach chaos. Those who recognise that complex things like a love life can benefit from wise or reckless overloading of certain elements (for instance a hard spanking) are well on their way to understanding the Devil Fish. In this case the filter is driven well beyond normal limits. Like an ultimately appreciative spankee, its noises and gyrations provide depth, complexity and emotional heat which is exciting and highly satisfying for all concerned. (As when any gentleman heats up a derriere, there is no permanent damage.) Boosting the oscillator level to 20 times normal was good, but there was a promise of even greater excitement at even higher levels. I decided this called for the clothesbrush treatment and whilst examining various combinations of standard resistor values, decided that the pair which gave 66.6 times the normal level was the most auspicious. (Gentlemen, if you think that all that women want is what they say they want, then you need to read some romantic spanking fiction written by women, for women. An excellent source is "Sassy Ladies Magazine" - PO Box 4516 Lexington, KY 40544 USA US$12 for a sample issue. From their advert - "Independent, feisty women find they still need strong, caring men.") Although Devil Fish have been used on a number of CDs - I have not heard anything yet in which it really pounds or sings. (It also has subtle, subterranean voices too.) The closest thing is from that notable Detroit gentleman, Richie Hawtin, before he had the Devil Fish - "Krakpot" on "Recycled Plastik". (There is an overdriven, distorted fragment of this on HyperReal - I think it sounds even better than the CD). Here is what I faxed him when I heard the CD: "My definition of Techno is 'machines cranking over - lovingly tended' - and the result is a curious impression of mindless processes clashing and running like ghost freight-trains endlessly towards their throbbing destiny. I think _Krakpot_ is fantastic! This scorpio like pursuit of intensity indicates that you are just the sort of musician the Devil Fish is intended for. I look forward to more music in this vein. Drive things into distortion - make it seem like they are busting to get out of something. I think there is a lot of fun to be had with physical processes like driving synth sounds into old valve radios really loud and miking them up inside a tea-chest." - - - - o o o o 0 0 0 0 o o o o - - - - I would really appreciate information about rumours and other synths of the same name. I will post to Analogue Heaven when I am doing the mods again. Please check out my "Future Developments in the Music Market" paper at the WWW site soon and let me have your comments. It is aimed at informing leading edge musicians about the extraordinary future - which I think will be so good for us as musicians, listeners and as listener/musicians. In the mean-time, don't wait for exotic instruments from faraway places - gather whatever instruments, effects processors, amplifiers and microphones you have got, wire them all up and consider them as a modular synthesiser. Investigate feedback loops and tweak them beyond stability. Now find which spots are particularly sensitive to stimulus and consider the whole thing to be a highly spankable [school-girl/boy, man/ woman] (insert your preference). Dim the lights, flex your arms, turn on the tape-recorder, forget about the world outside, and with your Polaroid camera ready, deliver the punishment your studio/synthesizer needs to find its true voice - wailing into new musical territory. Cheers - Robin Whittle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Robin Whittle rwhittle@ozonline.com.au . . http://www.ozemail.com.au/~firstpr firstpr@ozemail.com.au . . 11 Miller St. Heidelberg Heights 3081 Melbourne Australia . . Ph +61-3-459-2889 Fax +61-3-458-1736 . . After July 95 Ph +61-3-9459-2889 Fax +61-3-9458-1736 . . Consumer advocacy in telecommunications, especially privacy. . . . First Principles - Research and expression - music, . . music industry, human factors in . . technology adoption . . . . Real World Interfaces - Hardware and software, especially . . for music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .