Hi
I guess most people buying an Hapax did the choice for their modules
Oppositly that’s because I got an Hapax that I consider the idea of starting with modules. I’m mostly about to use effects and filters. But I also wanted a VCO with Sine Wave as not havin any in my set up
So I bought a CRE8 from Chipz Tune but I absolulty don’t know how to plug it and was surprised to not find informations in the manual
Actually for a test I just plugged the VCO on mixer (I will plug it into another synth input later) I tried both CV1 out and Gate1 out. The output of the VCO on mixer. Don’t get any sound.
Oh and I just did a basic notes sequence trying both CV or Gate out 1.
you should hear the vco when you plug its output to a mixer. cv from hapax goes to tune in on vco. gate needs to go to a vca that is not included with your vco.
You mean I should hear the VCO without any use of the Hapax ? just basically plugged on mixer ?
Hapax will just send the tone ?
And if I plug then in the audio input of a synth then I got the VCA of this synth. It will be enough ?
And then wich output of the Hapax to use ? CV1 or Gate 1 ?
Thanks
yes with nothing plugged into the module and the module plugged to the mixer you should hear the vco drone.
hapax sends pitch cv which is not audio, its only a voltage that tells the vco what pitch to play.
im not clear on the ‘synth’ you are plugging the vco into. that generally doesnt work without you setting it up in the synth. what synth is it? you can maybe use a synth as a vca but you will need to set up your synth to do this. if you are using a synth as a vca, you will likely need to send a midi note on to open the amp stage of the synth. is it a midi synth?
if you are using a midi synth as a vca you dont need to use a gate from hapax. this all depends on what synth you are using.
also, depending on the synth you are trying to use as a vca, the audio signal from your vco may be too loud since its at modular level and presumably, your synth is line level. so unless there is a gain knob on your synth, it may sound clipped which wont sound good, depending on your intention
Ok thanks for this infos
I got different analog synths with audio in:
Sine MB33, Novation Bass Station2, Waldorf Pulse 2, Akai VX90…
None havin Sine VCO (why is it rare on analog synth btw ?). I had a Minibrute that had one, and it is really the best to make kick and other sounds
I knew that I need to send a trigger to the synth as well in midi, but I didn’t know about the possible too loud level of the module. I tried a filter module actually and it was ok with normal line level signal. I gonna try again.
you can use line level input to modular because its not too loud. modular levels are much louder than line level. to use the output of a module into a line level synth, you just need to reduce gain on the input. but you can also attenuate the levels somehow before input to a synth. but this would sort of invalidate the need for a synth. why not just buy a vco with envelope built in? or buy separate envelope and vca modules.
another possible problem you could experience with using a synth and vco module is what is known as ‘ground loop hum’ because the 2 devices dont share a power supply, you can buy inexpensive ‘opto-isolator’ on amazon or similar for 3.5mm ts cables. even if the isolator is stereo, you can still use it with mono cables.
have you ever tried a digital FM synth for kicks? there are many desktop FM synths that are not expensive and can do what you want. all FM synths will have a sine available. FM is known for big bass too! of course all synths are different.
Ok headphone test I got a sound, but it needs to not plug it full to have signal on both sides
So I tested my DIY cable it was already broken. But even repaired I needed to plug it half to get a signal
I use a mono jack câble 6.35 and solidered a jack 3.5 at the other side. But as only havin stereo connectors on this side I just solidered tip to the end and ground to ground. But it seems it doesn’t work like that
Also I tried to plug the LFO of the module on pitch input, also with a stereo 3.5 câble and I also needed to plug it half. I will receive soon mono patch câble but I’m curious to understand why it doesn’t work with stereo câbles ?
So actually I can’t as well use a stereo 3.5 cable from Hapax to module ?
you should use ts cables for cv. modules arent normally stereo, they always have L and R separate ts cables.
seems you may have made the cable wrong?
Yes but for audio normally a stereo cable works for a mono use. Not with this ones ?
I’m very bad in doing cables. But one is a normal stereo cable and it was givin the same problem
I know modules outputs are mono, but usually ou can take a mono output with a stereo cable
should be but something is wrong. what can be wrong? youve soldered the wrong leads. you didnt buy euro rack cables meant for the job. one of those is your answer!
i recommend buying patch cables meant for euro
Because of fluctuations in pitch and voltage in analog synths, getting a perfect sine wave is hard.
Yep that’s what I thought but some cheap filters that can auto oscillate we often hear that they give a sine wave in this case
Ok I’ve been able to act on the pitch of the module with an enveloppe … in the correct sens
But by adding an output effect to CV1 it was acting reverse !! Lower notes were higher pitch ! But not for midi (if unplugging the audio in of my MB33)
By the way I thought the MB33 was done to accept 5V level as other sources were too low but thie VCO is effectively to loud, and filter is almost not acting at all. This is bad news for me if I need a VCA for each module !
Ok I’m able to control the pitch from any modulation but not from notes. How do you do that ?
I thought just adding output on the track to the correct CV but it stays on the same tone
Also when controlling the pitch with an enveloppe to make a kick I need it to go very high from a low base. And actually I can’t. I feel like the range of the enveloppe is too low. I really tried everything in parameters of the enveloppe. But even with 100% depth I’m still very far from the highest pitch the VCO can do
because youre really supposed to have an envelope module. hapax cv modulation is not really meant to do very fast modulations of those kinds. its meant for slower sub audio speed modulations like pitch or vibrato etc. of course its hard to characterize with words. but sub audio rate would be accurate. you can trigger a module outputting a finely tuned env or lfo which is faster than hapax can manage
That’s killing a lot of dreams. But with midi it is possible to send fast enveloppes and I thought CV is better for that (more precise mostly)
But what about controlling notes ? This must be possible ?
yeah… im not sure what youre doing wrong but ill let some other genius chime in
maybe hapax is fast enough. i reserve the right to be wrong lol