After Later Audio BENJOLIN V2 Bedienungsanleitung
BENJOLIN V2 MANUAL
Manual Revision B
HISTORY
The Benjolin is originally a ‘patch in a box’, meaning a couple of
‘modules’ patched up in a fixed way and put in a box to create a
specific kind of standalone instrument. This patch is not intended to
create music based on melodies, harmonies and specific rhythms, but to
create ‘sound scapes’ of pure electronic sounds. Meaning it’s an
‘electronic music instrument’, an instrument to create electronic
music in its most pure and abstract forms.
The first version of the Benjolin was designed as a kit in the year
2009, for the purpose to organize DIY workshops where people could
build a Benjolin themselves. Every participant was taken by the hand
to successfully build one, even if they had never built a piece of
electronics before and/or used a soldering iron. A necessary
requirement for the design was to keep it simple, it should not take
more as about four hours for a complete novice to build a kit. And so
the first Benjolin was fully based on the punk principle of ‘the
minimum for the maximum’.
Hundreds of people all over the world have built Benjolins in these
workshops and virtually everyone succeeded in finishing and go home
with a properly working Benjolin. At this time the technique of
circuit bending was popular, and the name Benjolin originates as ‘an
electronic crossover between a banjo and a violin’ that is ‘bent by
design’. The banjo being an instrument associated with popular music
and the violin being associated with a bit elite music, and the
built-in crazy behavior associated with circuit bending. So, an
instrument for everybody, to give incredible fun while exploring its
behavior. As a standalone instrument this DIY Benjolin was a good
companion for guitar stompboxes and other effects units, with line
level audio inputs.
Soon it became clear that the Benjolin was actually very useful in
creating pure and abstract electronic music. The kind of music that
the designer of the Benjolin thinks began with e.g. the soundtrack of
the movie Forbidden Planet around the year 1956. Several composers and
performers of electronic music and movie tracks discovered the
Benjolin. And it also became the guilty pleasure of many synth and
keyboard players that normally would play melodies and harmonies in
proper rock songs, but also like to experiment with sounds when no one
else is around, just for the fun of it.
As this first Benjolin version was a gift to the diy community the
designer was always hesitant of making a Eurorack version. There has
been an officially licensed Benjolin v1 Eurorack version made by Epoch
Modular. The downside of this v1 was that because of the design
restrictions of the original diy workshop kit many extra possibilities
were not present. Signal levels were also not very compatible with
Eurorack, as the original schematic had the specific property that the
audio output could be used directly with stompboxes, guitar amps and
living room hifi amps.
It’s now well over ten years after the first Benjolin workshops, and
some time ago the Epoch version disappeared from the market. This made
After Later Audio and Rob Hordijk decide to join hands, and that now
was the time to make a new design specifically for Eurorack with many
more features brought to the outside of the module and inputs and
outputs properly specified to be used in a Eurorack setup. And so in
the summer of 2020 the Eurorack Benjolin v2 was born.
DESCRIPTION
The Benjolin ‘patch’ is based on four ‘modules’, or function blocks.
There are two voltage-controlled oscillators with a very wide pitch
range. These two VCOs are named OSC1 and OSC2. Third is a 12dB
voltage-controlled filter simply named the filter. In this text it is
also named the VCF. This filter has exceptionally good ‘pinging’
characteristics, and the cutoff can be modulated deeply at the highest
audio rates. The fourth block is a special ‘interference pattern
generator’ function, creating voltage patterns from the signals coming
from the two oscillators. The pattern generator architecture is unique
enough that it is entitled to its own name and many years ago it was
baptized as a Rungler. So, just like how an oscillator is oscillating,
a Rungler is Rungling. In its simplest form a Rungler needs two pulse
signals as inputs, and from these two pulses it can create several
output signals that are basically stepped patterns of specific
lengths. Patterns are either slowly changing or can be frozen in a
short loop. What sets a Rungler apart from e.g. a sequencer is its
property that patterns are dynamic, so they can be constantly
changing. There is also a certain amount of control over when the
pattern changes.
The output signals of the VCOs and the Rungler are used to cross-
modulate and self-modulate themselves and the other functions. These
cross-modulations and feedback-modulations together create a system
that is capable of myriads of different and dynamically changing
sounds. Still, all those sounds will have one specific character, and
that is the ‘sound’ of the Benjolin.
To summarize, there are two VCOs, one VCF and the Rungler in the
Benjolin. Each of these four blocks can be used separately as an
individual module, having its own signal and modulation inputs and
outputs. So, it’s no problem at all to use the VCOs as extra
modulation signal oscillators in a larger patch, if you just need an
extra LFO. Also the filter can be used as a separate filter, or even
as a separate sinewave oscillator. The Rungler can also be used
separately, its functions will be described in more detail later.
It is highly recommended to spend some time reading the signal flow
and playing with the module. It should help you get a feel for how to
control this complicated chaos machine.
New to the Benjolin V2:
Reworked oscillator and filter sections
All levels are adjusted to Eurorack standards
Two different steps modes (8/16 and 127)
Double and single clock rate
Externally clockable
External filter input with blend control
Support for the Turing Machine expanders (with Tom’s permission)
OSCILLATORS
Oscillator 1 and 2 have identical controls and inputs/outputs.
Pitch: Coarse pitch control to control the frequency of each oscillator.
Rungler: The ammount of Rungler stepped CV that is applied to each
oscillator.
CV Pitch: CV pitch input with an attenuator to control the amount of impact
on the pitch of the oscillator. The jack is normalled to the triangle output
of the opposite oscillator (OSC1 CV pitch input is normalled to the OSC2
triangle wave).
Waveform Outputs: Triangle and Square/Pulse outputs for each oscillator.
It is important to note that the oscillators sections do not support v/oct.
This might feel odd but once you play with the module it will become clear
why this is not important.
RUNGLER
The Rungler section is centered on a shift register that uses an R2R DAC to
create a stepped CV voltage. There are two inputs into the shift register,
the data to sample (which comes from OSC1) and clock speed (which comes from
OSC2). You can play with the speed of both of the oscillators and see how
they influence the stepped CV output from the Rungler.
Change: Controls how much the rungler is allowed to take in new data, and
therefore change the stepped CV output. Full CCW and CW does not allow new
data into the shift register, and therefore locks the stepped CV loop. When
the knob is at the midpoint/top, the Rungler takes in all new data and does
not recirculate any data.
Steps: Toggle switch to control how the data in the shift register is
recirculated. There are two modes of 8/16 steps and 127 steps.
Rate: Controls how the clock on the shift register is advanced. The single
clock rate only advances on the rising edge. The double clock rate will
advance on both the rising and falling edge of the clock signal.
Rungler: The actual stepped CV output that ranges from -5V to +5V.
Steps/Rate CV Inputs: The switches are configured so that when the switch is
up you will get the same behavior as passing a high voltage.
XOR: The output of one bit from the shift register resulting in a random gate
output.
Clock: Control the clock rate of the shift register and therefore the stepped
CV output of the Rungler. This jack is normalled to the frequency of OSC2.
MIXER
Controls the input into the filter section.
PWM: The output of the comparator of the triangle wave from OSC1 and OSC2
resulting in a square wave with variable width.
Ext In: An external audio input
Input: Controls the blend between PWM and Ext In that is fed to the filter
input.
FILTER
Freq: Controls the cutoff frequency of the multimode filter
Resonance: Controls the resonance of the multimode filter. Delivers more
wetness than a Seattle winter.
Rungler: The amount of Rungler stepped CV that is applied to cutoff
frequency.
CV Freq: CV pitch input with an attenuator to control the amount of impact on
the cutoff frequency.
HP: Highpass output of the filter.
BP: Bandpass output of the filter
LP: Lowpass output of the filter.
SIGNAL FLOW
PATCH SUGGESTIONS
1) The filter can be changed easily into a pure sinewave oscillator
by feeding back the BP output to the crossfader input, setting
the crossfader to the ext-in position and setting the resonance
knob about ¾ open. When resonance would be fully open you will
hear clipping in the sinewave. The sine signal can be taken from
both the LP and the HP outputs.
2) When you would want to do FM crossmodulation with two of the
Benjolin filters used as sine oscs, then you apply this BP
feedback so both filters turn into sinewave oscs, listen to the
LP outputs and crossconnect the HP outputs to the other filter
modulation inputs.
GETTING MORE INTIMATE WITH YOU BENJOLIN
Undoubtedly you have already tried out the Benjolin V2 before reading
the manual or this text. Most probably you got lots of totally crazy
sounds and undoubtedly have wondered if it is at all possible to get
any kind of control over the sounds. Well, for that you will have to
get to know the Benjolin at a much more intimate level. Which will
take some time. You will learn that it will never be possible to
predict the behaviour in detail, but it is very well possible to
predict the behaviour at a more global level. And that way be able to
actually incorporate it in a performance or composition. Though the
Benjolin will always request from you to anticipate and improvise on
what you hear.
To get more familiar with your Benjolin it is a good idea to first
explore the four functions one at a time. But before going into the
rungler function it is a good idea to get completely familiar with the
two vcos and the vcf first.
The vcos are equal in their design. Both produce a 10V pp triangle
wave and a 10V pp square wave as output, available on mini-jack
connectors. Both also have a mini-jack cv pitch input with an
associated modulation level knob. This means that there is a
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