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SHAPING THE TIMBRE—DYNAMIC FM MODULATION
We continue the same patch and add more modulations.
Furthrrrr Generator has a powerful modulation bus, so far the Modulator
oscillator can modulate the Carrier in 4 different ways and the amount of
modulation (modulation index) can be voltage controlled.
Let’s enable ‘frequency’ by toggling the switch—that means the frequency
of the Modulator will modulate the Carrier's frequency (linear or exponential
– depending on the jumper on the backside of the FG—it’s set to linear by
default).
Afterwards connect bi-polar Airplane B output to the ‘mood index’ ‘cv in’
jack. Adjust the red and blue attenuator/attenuverter knobs manually (shown
in the illustration) so with every note launched with envelope B there will be a
dynamic FM modulation. In that moment we can consider the setup as a two
operator FM-synthesizer.
Grand Terminal's Airplane A/B envelopes usually pair well with the dual gates (one envelope per gate).
TIPP: Running out of envelopes? Create additional simple note/velocity/CC controlled envelopes with the Shuttle Control.
PERFORMANCE AUTOTUNING
Before every performance it may be important to tune the oscillators so the sequence
will play in a proper musical scale. That’s what the Gateway is used for. Basically, it’s a
dual 1+1 mixer with offset and a ‘tuned voltage generator’ based on analyzing the
oscillator's frequency. The principle of our autotuners is pretty simple: you have to
connect the original pitch CV (CV1 in our example) coming from the Shuttle Control
(or another pitch CV source) to the ‘key in’ (Gateway) and the ‘drop out’ (Gateway) to
the ‘key in’ (Furthrrrr Generator). Now the only thing the autotuner needs to work
properly, is a reference waveform. So you connect another unused waveform of the
the oscillator that has to be tuned to the ‘tune in’ jack (Gateway).
After you applied the reference waveform
into ‘tune in’ (shown in the illustration to
the left—reference wave is the pulse out-
put of the Carrier) you will see Ab and A#
LEDs will alter according to the change in
pitch the same way as the LEDs located
below the frequency knobs of the Furthrrrr
Generator.
What did we do? CV1 (pitch CV output)
of the Shuttle Control is now sending the
pitch CV to the ‘key in’ of the upper or low-
er autotuner of the Gateway. The Gateway now can listen to the reference waveform of the Carrier, and then alter the incom-
ing pitch CV to match it to a proper tuning. This properly tuned CV is put out at the ‘drop out’ jack of the Gateway. This is a
result of mixing the ‘key in’ voltage, with the manual offset of the red A/B offset knob, ‘cv in’ delined by the blue attenuverter
knob and the stepped tuning CV (positive or negative) that is applied to the pitch CV when pressing the red button above/
below the ‘tune in’ jack shortly. So far, having that routing set up, you can use the red knob as oscillator’s coarse tune (about
6 octaves) and blue knob as a fine tune.
Before pressing the red ‘tune’ button, the only thing you have to do is to send a pure single ‘A’ note as pitch CV (without ap-
plying frequency modulation) from your sequencer or MIDI keyboard, so the Gateway can listen to what is interpreted as ‘A’
by the oscillator. After short pressing the red ‘tune’ button, the oscillator will be tuned to the next closest A-note and you will
see both Ab and A# LEDs will light up. After that you may start your sequence/performance and you can be sure your oscillator
is in proper tune to all the rest of your instruments.
Hint: When you press that button again for over a second, the stepped CV generated by the autotuner will be removed from the
‘drop out’ output and your oscillator is again ‘untuned’.
