From Christopher_List@sonymusic.com Tue Feb 20 08:34:39 1996 20 Feb 96 11:34:28 +0500 19 Feb 96 18:55:04 +0500 id sma002811; Mon Feb 19 16:52:25 1996 From: Christopher List Date: 19 Feb 96 17:22:43 Subject: *FLASH* - uWave can be used for MIDI->CV! Alright all you CV junkies, I have been holed-up in my secret laboratory all weekend and I've emerged victorious! I have successfully used voice #1 on my uWave to do midi->CV conversion with CV's for pitch gate and velocity. In another week I will have built a break-out box with jacks and op-amps to "steal" CV's from all 8 voices! Here's the deal... uWave has 8 voices. When used in multi-timbral mode, a sound (on a given midi channel) can be set to go to one of the 4 individual outs. These outs are MONOPHONIC. Voice 1 is hard wired to out1, voice two to out 2, etc... For a polyphonic patch voice allocation starts with voice 8 and goes down. Each voice uses 4 CVs for: Filter Freq., Gain, Filter Res. and Pan. - but you can use these voltages for whatever you want. What does this mean? It means the uWave can be used as a 4 channel (monophonic) midi->CV converter - with each channel having Gate + CV + two OTHER assignable control voltages (like velocity, aftertouch, mod wheel, midi controller, or whatever!!) for each channel. It also means you can use it as a polyphonic midi-cv controller for 4-8 voice polyphony. It also means you can use the uWave's internal envelopes and LFO's as CV outs on any of the channels. This is totally rad! Getting the CV for pitch to 1v / oct is a little tough. The uWave doesn't <> track filter freq. to keyboard perfectly - but it centers around middle C, so you can get a 6 octave usable range with only 3 octaves worth of error at each end. The other thing is that all of the internal voltages need to be amplified by funny amounts to work. Which is OK, because you should buffer them anyway. For instance, when you get the uWave's filter to track the keyboard, the filter's frequency CV (measured at the sample & hold output) is scaled at about .48v / octave - but I got it to 1v / oct and for 6 octaves, my modular tracked to my K2k almost perfectly (tiny beating at the high end). It could be that an error in my exponential converter is making up for errors at the uWave output - but that doesn't really matter - does it? I was hoping to be able to use the DCO's in the uWave for extra oscillators in the modular - but they shut off when no notes are being played - whaaah! No biggy If you use the uWave's gain CV to control your VCA - but it's not as good as having a totally free-running oscillator. Anybody out there write 68000 machine code and want to do a hack for me? I realize this is useful info for about 1% of the people on this list (those who own uWaves and those who own modulars) - but for those with modulars who are thinking about a 4 channel Kenton kit, you might want to spend the extra $600 on a used uWave. You get all this midi-cv and - hey, they throw in a synthesizer with it! Seems to me that this is a very powerful tool. - CL (No TV)