UIUCDCS-R-TI+-677

HARDWARE
DESIGN OF A REAL-TIME MUSICAL SYSTtrM,1
'

by
Sergio Franco

October, 197!

,..

't,

UIUCDcS-R
-7)+-577
DESIGN OF A REAL-TIME MUSICAI SYSTEII,I;
i HARDWARE

BY
SffiGIO FBATCO

October, L97\

Department of Conputer Science

University of fllinois
Urbana, Illinois
51801

This work ras submittetl in partial

fuJ-fillnent
of the requirements
for the d.egree of Doctor of Philsophy in Conputer Science, at the
University of lllinois.
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111

HARDWARE
DESfGN 0F A REAI-TIME MUSICAL SYSTA'{
Sergio Franco, Ph.D.
Deparbment of Computer Science
University
of Illinois
at Urba.na-Cha4raign , I97l+

.
This thesis
composition

cligital

d.escribes the hardware design of a hybrid

and perfo:uance

is prinarily

eircuitry

circuitry

supervision
together
to satisf)r
interaction

ABSTRACT

with

music in real-time.

of electronic

enployed in the generation

is devoted. to the exercise

of the conposer/performer.
a propel

systen for the

and processing of sound.s,

of control , under the inrmed.iate

Such a tiigital

vs. analog partition,

choice of the nan vs. nachine interface,

the nuch emphasize'cl musieal

need. for

betveen the composer/perfor"ner

Wtrile analog

the inmediate,

enct his

is intended
real--time

instrrrment.

{;
t#h

:,r:E*l

:'S.,
tl. i';
E---

'..'r

1V

ACIOIOWLMGMENTS

The author,erq)resses
his thesis

advisor--and

suggestions

throughout

his

sincere gratitud.e

friend--for

his indispensable support, advice end

the development of this

The author is also pleased to credit

him into

the fascinating

This thesis
Salvatore
Sal,

thesis.

Dr. J. Divilbiss

fieId. of electronic

vith

initiating

with

composer

music.

has emerged from a two-year

Martirano

to Prof . Michael Faiman,

collaboration

and v'ith the other menbers of the proJect.

To his

friend

the author expresses his rarmest thanks for those endl-ess, heated and

constructive

d.iscussions that

The tiiJ.igent typing

have made this

and the beautiful

thesis

nossibl-e.

dravings of this

nade by Ms. Evelyn Huxhold and under the supervision

respectively,

both of vhom the author thanks for their

thesis

have been

of Mr. Mark Goebel,

precious

collaboration.

This work is d.ed.icated.to Diana.

.*

TABLE OF COME}TTS

PAGE

CHAP]ER
I.

II.

r II.
IV.

V.
VI.

VII.

VTTI.

INTRODUCTION.

l_

I.1

Importance of Real-Tine in Electronic

I.2

Electronic

1.3

General- Concept of New fnstrument

1.b

System Organization

Music - -

Music Instrunents

3
- t-0

20

TONE SYNTHESIS
2.I

Harmonic Tone Generation

20

2.2

Pitch

2'

2.3

Exponential

2.\

Relaxation Oscillator

2.,

Digital

2.5

Progrn'nrnable Mixer/Modulator

Control

2>

Current Generation

?n

- -

Waveshape Generation

FILTERS
ELECTRONTCALLY
PROGRAMMABLE

34
?R

- -

)+z

SOUNDINTENSTTYAND LOCATIONl+.f

Intensity

\.2

Prograrnrnable Attenuator/Iocator

\.3

Envelope Generation - -

and Location Control

,3
- -

6t

PERCUSSIONE{SE${BLES- -

Az
vl

SOUNDDTSTRIBIIT]ONAND SWTTCHING

72

5.f

Spatial

Sound Distribution

6.2

Audio svitching

CONTROLSYSTB,I

l1

T6
82

7.I

Musical Para,meter Control

82

7.2

lrogrnrnrnable Binary Sequence Generation - -

Rc

CONCLUSTON

9t

I
I

f
i

g 6 -E6 -Ecvd

- - - vfIA
- - s[cNgus.{ uu,{ 0, r s r T
wJdvuc

I.

IMRODUCTION

l-.1- Importanee of Real-Time in Electronic

music, the roles

With the advent of electronic

have been placed in a nev perspective.

perfomer

in either

have tendecl to specialize

play only one of the roles

musieians

or have tend.ed to

This has happened.mainly because of

When a musician improvises

a series

are

at an instniment,

he

This neens he is thinking

composing music in reaL-tine.1

very quickly

evaluating

Traditionally,

encor:ntered. when composing and perforning

on simrd-taneously.

is essentially

of the composer and the

one role or the other,

at a time.

d.ifficul-ty

the considerabl-e
carried

Music.

of possibilities

and

out of vhich he makes

appropriate

choices, which in tr:rn fead to the execution of the various mechani-

cal motions

necessary to prod.uce the music he rrants.

ties

encountered. in d,oing all

these things

eitlrer

execution

process

scores to

communicate arnongthemseLves.

cipally

sca1e.

the quick thinking

experience

playing

them, or both.

fn developing
by the fact

that

either

his

on his

aural

by playing

aural

he deals vith

naking of the impro-

of musical possibilities
to appreciate

choices and changes, he does not need to try

through

istics

and decision

What is even more irnportant,

ments because he can rely

or by listening

set of instruments
ral]ges.

instru-

he has developed

imagery, the musician is certainly

ertend. over known and preciictable

on

the effects

then out on actual

imagery, a faculty

instrunents

a linited.

of musical

Thus, the composer need not be prin-

process, but can pursue his inspection

his own time

of his

process (composition) or in the

(perfor"mance), a.nd have developed the notation

concerned vith

visational

at once, musicians have tended to

in the inception/evaluation

specialize

Because of the d.ifficul--

to others

helped a 1ot

vhose charaeter-

In electronic

music the

is quite

situation
tronic

d.ifferent.

instnunents

Because of the nev kind.s of sounds that

are capable of synthesizing,

musiciarr to develop the kind. of musical

it

is very d.ifficul-t

imagery that nay suffice

elec-

for

to assist

him in composing on his om time scale and avay fron his instrunents.
composer is to come up vith
absolutel-y essential
trials,

anal his

something nusically

meaningful

that he actua.l1y hear the effects

al-terations

as he makes them, so that

them in the context of the whole composition.

the

at all-,

it

ff

the

is

of his choices, his

he can directly

eval-uate

In other words, the concept of

d.irect feedback has come to pJ-ay a dominant role

in the el-ectronic

music com-

posing process.
Another important
relationship
detail
meters.

change brought about by electronic

between performer

in which the perfomer

While in conventional

d.ecays, etc.

music they are lef't

to the discretion

specify

then directly.

fixed,

built-in

If

this

feature

more demanding control- br:rden upon the perforrner,

features,

para-

attacks,

in electronic

allovs

on the one hand.

on the other
and it

it

inljoses a

cerlainly

renders

anong musicians more complex than wi.th conventional- instru-

the conmunication

ments, where the notation

of the musical score is usually

of the above discussion.

because the composer need.s to try

hinself,

and partly

people.

Furthermore,

it

out his nusical

because of difficulties

ingred.ient

in electronic

ceases to exist,

partly

ideas on the instrr:ment

by

of cornmunication arnong d.ifferent

having accepted the notion

of the irnprovisational

adequate.

should be clear that

betveen composer and performer

music the d.istinction

dispensable

musical

of the performer, who must therefore

much more freed.om of choice and experimentation,

As a result

the various

to control

instruments such paraneters as tinbres,

are, to a large extent,

and. controf

and is due to the much greater

and instrunent,
is required

the

music involves

of d.irect

process,

lt

feedback as an inis of paranount

importance

that

I>
improvising,
scnl e of the music he .:^

ment on the time

I.2

The instruments
categories:

tions

tod.ay to the electronic

available

Analog music synthesizers

Analog synthesizers
basic building

that

vith
is,

his

instru-

in real-tine.

Music Instn:ments.

El-ectronic

of tvo

be a1]owed to interact

the composer/perforner

are self-eontained.

musician fal1

and d.igital

and. nodif)r

sound.s.*

one

computers.

systens consisting

of a number of

blocks which can be interconnected. in a variety

to generate

into

of configu.ra-

The basic sound.-generating d.evice is

the oseill-ator,

whieh produces a pred.etermined number of waveforrnc rrqrrq'l'lrr

the sinusoid.al,

pufse,

sav-tooth

and triangular

waves.

Starting

basic sounds, new vavefor:nrs can be obtained by means of mixers,

signal

finear

sound. moclifier

processors,

ard other sound.nodifying

is the attenuator,

d.evices.

which is used to control

vith

these

fitters,

non-

Anotuherbasic

the dynanic charac-

ii

teristics

of the amplitude or l-oud.nessof sound.s.

In ord.er to
so that

their

task normally
Iike

"ffor

musical paraneter control , these circuits

characteristics

can be al-tered externall-y by the operator,

accomplished. by means of manual s*itches,

keyboard.s, patch cords, etc.**

d.esign a-lfov several- circuj-t

are deslgned

potentiometers,

Recent advances in circuit

parameters to be electronieally

a
piano-

technol-ogy and

control-LabJ-e by

* During the t6ors, the analog synthesizer scene was mostl-y dominated.
by the instruments of R. A. Moog, operating on the East coast, and D. BuchJ-a,
on the West coast.
fn recent years, encouraged. by the enormous progress of
technologl,
other firms have Joined in tlris venture, so that the market today
offers more than half a d.ozen l-ines of synthesizers,
spanning a wide range of
quality,
complexity,
and. price.
Besides MOOGand BUCHLA,other synthesizers
wid.ely known today are ARP and PLlllNEI.
** Because of the strong conrpetition, most synthesizer manufactprers
neither publicize their designs nor provid.e circuit schematics vith the purclpse of their equipnent.
To the authorrs knovLedge, the only comprehensive
exposition
of analog synthesis concepts and design techniques available to
date is offered in the pgpers by R. A. Moog (see references 2,3).

Hence, certain

signal-".2'3

voltage

and built

from the operator

control

the system by having some circuits

into

of knob turning

is still

and diaL setting.4'5

controf

required

of the musical-

the musiciari can exert upon his

para^meters, the a.mount of influence

instrument

This broad.ening of the gap between amount of

linited.

is rather

in the controf

and flexibility

With lack of sophistication

in real-time

mostly in the forn

of the performer,

required

control

a considerable nrnount

In spite of this,

para.netgrs of the others d.irectly.

of manua-l operation

can be removed.

responsibilities

its

and cond.itions for

in a further

results

implenentation

process already dis-

aggravation of the basic dilenma of the improvisational

cussed.
Much more poverfuJ- than arafog synthesizers,
richness and control

are musical- systems based. on d.igital

sophistication,

of appropriate programs, a computer is

Here, under the direction

computers.

a series

to simulate

instructed

of instrument

adclers, rrultipl-iers,

filters,

oscill-ators,

the musi-cian assembl-esthe instn:nents

calcu-Iates

and outputs the desired

of paraneter

both in tems

buil-d.ing blocks,

attaek generators,

such as d.igital
etc.

for his musical piece.5

sound waves in binary

1ow-pass filters

and- appropriate

sempled-data fort.

and

suitable

voltages

varying

system of loudspeakers.

With the power of modern digital

to envision

fron

a loud.speaker, which is

Therefore,
richer

the synthesis

the sornd qualities

of virtually

a fairly

general

obtainable

of a whole conputer,

for

d.riving

conputers it

any sowtd that

is not

coufd. come

sor:nd source available

tod.ay.

by the computer method spart a much

renge than in the case of analog synthesizers.

the resources

electrical

are needed to smooth the pulses

produce the continuously

d.ifficult

electrical

from vhich

The computer

Hence, D/A converters must be used to convert the samples into

pulses,

'

Having at his disposal

the musician can afso malre use of mueh

5
more sophisticated
organization

of

However,

algorithms

comes to

anal-og synthesj-zers,

l-ike

of

control

musical

parqmeters

and the

elements.

compositional

when it

the

for

performance

real--time

suffer

from

severe

capabilities,

limitations,

albeit

conputers,
of

a dif-

Ff

ferent

nature.r

operation

Apart

from tine

delays determined by the particular

processing,

of the computing center-batch

&re certain

etc.--there

from the loudspealrer,

not only a lot

thesizers

of resources,

the generation

the air-pressure

that

is coming

every minute portion

must reconstruct

waveforn of the final

the acoustic
f

it

D/1. conversion,

off-line

rrhich are inherent to the conputer itsel-f.

linitations

Since the conputer is actualJ-y controlling

directly

mod.eof

sound, a computational- task that

but also a lot

While vith

of ti.ne.

of

involves

anal-og syn-

of waveshapes in the aud.io rrnge is a rather

trivial-

matter that
i

presents no real-tine

problems, with

becomes the most d.enanding in terms of resources

$
&
f
I

even if

the nusician

Iittle

it

same task

and computation time.

general-purpose

a dedicateil,

had at his disposal

and was alfowed to conmr:nicate with

computers this

in an interactive

mode, there

Thus,
computer

is very

he could d.o in rea-L-time, Just because the computer is unable to keep

up with
If

al-l- the conputations

that

ne could somehov relieve

need. to be carried
the corrputer

the waveshape snlnples, and were to use it

characteristics

then it

necessary conputations

in real-time.7

these psychological

would certainly

time scal-e.*

from the burden of conputing

only to control

of musical- sound.sl-ike tinbres,

crescend.i, tempiretc.,

out on that

pitches,

the perceptual
d.urations, loudness

be able to keep up vith

the

This is so because the rates at which

events occur or change are much lower than the rates

vhich the air-pressure

at

vibrates.

* For a rore detailed description

of the equipnent and techniques
able to the electronic
musician tod.ay, see ref. 8.

avail-

6
To conclude,
musical
for

paraneter

it

systems are particularly

digital

vhile

in real-time,

control

sor:nd. synthesis

hand., while

seems that

incorporating

real-time

the generation

and nodifieation

can cope very easily

vith

shapes in real-time,

although the ranges in sound quality

in digital

synthesis.

generators,

it

circuitry

a satisfactory

woul-d seem that

can be arrived

is used. primarily

for

control'
wave-

of acoustic

are not as rich

as

of analog sorurd.

one coul-d improve the sophistication

If

performance capabil-ities

on the other

for paraneter

facilities

onJ.y rudimentary

to

capabilities

Analog synthesizers,

limited.

are rather

their

suited

musical- system vith

at by hybrid. techniques,

sound. generation o and. digital

rea.f-time
where analog
is

circuitry

Thiso ind.eed, is the id.ea at the basis of the

devoted to pararneter controf.

system to be d.escribed.next.

l-.3

General Concept of I'Iev Instrunent.

ff

the assurance of a real-time

and instrument
both operator
tasks

is to be the primary obJective,

and machine must be capable of carrying

capabilities

hybrid. configuration,

out their

respective

for the machine are achieved. by resorting

as mentioned in the previous section.

of sounds and., in general,

of the great
digital-

to a

Thus, the genera-

the perfornance of those tasks that,

because

anount of computation assoeiated with them, take too long vith

computers, are assigned. to analog circuitry.

on the other hand, is carried

nake parameter control

The exercise of eontrol,

with digital

out more efficiently

possible,

external-l-X progranrmable.
tion

tvo cond.itions must be met:

in real-time.
Real-tine

tion

between composer/perforrner

interaction

the characteristies

of analog circuits

The programming is done directly

of the systeno und.er the control

supervision

To

eircuitry.

by the digital

are
por-

of the composer/perforner.

Knoving the linitations

one may argue that
is

a hybrid

going to be linited

Ttris is

system, as far

However, vith

pitch

sensitive

to effects

of events,

A constant

that

from subtle

result

perfo:mance,

and modifying

cir-

d.irection

has

sound

tuning,

The human ear is very

rel-ationships

and proportions

beats, clissonances, simultaneity

factors

a problem usually

make a severe demand upon

not so serious

in al-l-digital

these shortcomings as much as possible,

In order to alleviate

systems.

is.

technolory

in this

effort

na.nely, para,neter stability.

These psyehoacoustical

etc.

analog circuit

p&r-

emphasis has been plaeed on the ma:<imization of accuracy and stability,

ticular

where the denand for

especially

Once the conditions

ve must ensure that

for

these features

too,

of the burden of too much control

activity

that'is

in reaf-tine

incomensurate

than that

of a player to his

elemental musical
instrtrments

constituent,

and., to e lesser

shouJ.d nainly

linit

that

to be possible,
which requires

detail,

the relationship

himself

an a^mountof

of the perforner/

fnstead of taking

vith

traditional

to the activity

rather

care of every

as one would nor"mall-y do nith

extent,

he must be

of e cond.uctor to his orchestra,

instnrment.

his

Human opera-

with human efficiency.

can be best achietvea if

corrrposer to the systen is like

be able to keep up with

For this

tine-scale.

relieved

usually

is more critical-.

operation of the machine are satisfied,

real-tine

the human operator,

tasks on the improvisationaL

viser

to vhieh the analog portion

Due to the presence of analog circuitry

system, and others.

a.rnongcerbain musical quantities:

tion

is concerned,

feature

the development of the system, from the design of the

another problem arises,

sound. quality,

to

generators to the d.esign of the timbre control , loud.ness controf,

distribution

musical

of sound generating

d.esign, the sophistieation

been nad.e throughout

respect

the help of state-of-the-art

cen be improved. considerably.

cuitry

with

as this

by the exlent

at least

indeed true.

and caref\:l

of analog synthesis

electronic

instnnents,

of steering,

music

the inpro-

guid.ing,

and

influencing

is already,

of a system that

the evolution

so to speak, capable

of playing by itself.
If

the perforner

is to expect such a d.egree of eooperation

must be provided

tem, the latter

parqrneters automatically.
it

the generation

of a continuous

atuomatic control
generators

of conpositional-

stream of binary

is generated. within

to some form of external

is that of rel-ieving the latter

elements that

the system must also be re-

terms of their

music at the macrostructural-

elements,

such as individual

of sound.s, involves
hr:mancapabilities

a data rate
in real-time,
The operator,

el-ements indirectl-y

through

that

of the improviser,

in the perceptual

is generally

both in

are those

of microstructural

The control

and is therefore

characteristics

too high in relation

to
by

handled more effieiently

however, can still

the usage of the control

affeet

nicrostructural-

power he has at the macro-

l-evel .

The above concepts can be better

information

As already

Ievel.

fluctuations

the systen itsel-f.

control

controf

the compositional

musical- signif icance a^ndthe associated. d.ata rate,

affecting

structural-

Slnce our goal

detail,

from too much control

are best suited. to the direct

sequence

memories.

and read.-vrite

from the operator.

control

for

Information

info:nation.

Besid.es being capable of automatic control,

ceptive

elements--be

the system by meens of binary

based. on feed.back shift-registers

ovn

of the operator--requires

irnmediate responsibility

automatic or und.er the

its

of controlling

with the capability

The d,yna.nic control

frou the sys-

invofved

mentioned,

sound.s is hand.l-ed.
with

illustrated

sequences of binary

per second., which clearly

musical piece.

in the production of a typical

the d.ynanic control

ceptua-l characteristics

by exa.mining the stream of

fluetuate

of perceptual

characteristics

control- words'

Typically'

of
per-

at rates of the ord.er of L to 100 tines

shows that

the operator

ean hardly

keep up with

the

associated. d.ata rate,

simul-taneously.

controlled

several perceptual

if

especially

Hence, the generation

parnmeters are to be

of thls

type of control

sequences is d.elegated to the systen, which ca.n certainly

required

rate

nithout

instance,

over the span of a complete musical gesture,

mation at the level

of entire

sequences.

of sequence lengths

fluctuations

order fl-uctuations
plexity.

The naniputation

and rates,

controll-ing

ferent

and activations,

elements itself

conplexity

out the real-time

topic

sequences to carry out the

classes of sequences.

of music, the chain of sequences

In this

of such a d.istinction

is the lower rate at vhich they take pIace,

of rnagnitude of the rate

in real-time.
direct

at vhich

Therefore,

access to the control

seems rather
of this

tion

in circuit

treatment

of control

design and inplenentation

macroscopic

vhich nay be typically

perform

appropriate

control

to give the

cfass of fluctuations.

be noted, in passing, that the notion of sequences controlling

all-ows a more uniforn

so1ely to

This is of the sa.ne order

a human can cornfortably

it

However,

betveen dif-

respect, vhat characterizes

of the order of one event every 1 to 100 seconds.

performer

other sequences.

here, as our goal is directed

inplications

com-

presupposes

sequences of the level- belov can be expand.ed.further.

fluctuations

actions

the infor-

music at a hieher l-evel- of structuraL

struetural

to

class of macroscopic, or second-

class of control

ve need not el-aborate on this

pointing

is likely

affect

thereby leading to the notion of sequences controlling

Oving to the multileveL

of time,

changes in the ranges spanned

of macrostructural

a corresponding

the need for

task,

which affect

vhich

Sequence rests

by sequence data vord.s are examples of this

t
I

period

over a longer

the presence of another class of fluctuations

reveal

the

d.ifficulties.

Exa,mination of the stream of information

as, for

keep up vith

arid a higher

ft

nay

other sequences

degree of standardiza-

l0

The generation

of sequences for the control

of the performer exclusively.

need. not be a prerogative

tions

operation

of the system in carrying

maximum fl-exibility,

be allowed to vary continuously

This feature

brinss

feed.s into

The second refers

the system through the input

given compositional

The first

the system by sequence generators,

to the information

vith

that

the operator

Whelher at any moment a

interface.

el-ement is to be controlled

d.ecided by the perfomer

and manual infonc.a-

between automatic

produced within

himself.

of the operator

in the design concept of the system.

to the information

as al-ready mentioned.

the balance betveen man and maehine

and under the control

about a distinction

tion which is instrunental

refers

that

co-

To ensure

type of task.

out even this

is desirable

it

Indeed, in

to seek the automatic

he may be willing

the course of an inprovisation

fluctua-

of macrostructural

automaticalty

or mariual-J-yis
device.

the aid of a simpfe infoncration-steering

1.)+ System Organization.

Both in analog and digi-

Figure f shows an overa-l-I system bloek diagram.

ta1 terrns the instn:ment
systems.
other,

can be partitioned

This system partition

d.istinct

orchestras

is intended to reffect

which can play together

of vays and at different

levels.

flexibility

contrasting

in achieving

relationships

As a result,

layers

distinct

or sub-

independent of each

since they are all-oved to share conmonresources,

other.

lithic,

four

These subsystems, however, are not totally

mation, and to be put in hierarchical

four

into

vith

to exchange inforrespect to each

the musicaf notion of

and interact

in a variety

the performer is given more

musica-l situations

than vith

a mono-

homogeneoussystem.
A conmon resource that

is the control
instn:ment.

is always allocated

pane1, which constitutes

The panel consists

to one orchestra

the interface

at a time

between perfonner

of an array of toueh-sensitive

and

switches with

CONT RO L
PANEL

MUL T I P L E X E R
/
DE MUL T I P L E X E R

System Btock Diagram. Orchestras interact

Figure 1.
For cl-arity, inter-orchestra
other.
each
arnong
arrows have been onitted.

OU T PU T
SYST EM

ts
H

T2

memory, and a corresponding

The array of touch-switches*

states.
iligitel

infotuation

purpose:

his control- information

trol-led

ind.icators.

in a mutually

control- functions,

it

of certain

exclusive

routing

a means for

setting

is more practical

the system,

generated within

the system,
can be con-

or by the sys-

is done by the operator.

to perform all- the d.esired.

to have a control

panel with

required. by one orchestra odX,

four orchestras.

d.emu-ltiplexing the information

The tine-sharing

up

into

by the operator

nr:mber of switches required

four subsystems, and for mul-tiplexing

d.irection.**

inforrnation

manner, either

share the usage of the array among afl

for

The control

Thus, the states of the touch-switches

the array of switches and lights

provided

and instr:ument.

to give the operator

tem, and. the proper infomation

Due to the large

memory to handle the

in the proper d.igital- format for input

and to al1ow the monitoring

vla the light

to d.isplay the svitch

acts as a buffer

betveen operator

flowing

panel serves a tvofold

ind.icators

array of light

ftoving

Just

and to time-

Hence, facilities

are

betveen the panel and the

the d.ata traveling

i-n the opposite

of the panel not only resul-ts in reduced cost

and size, but also introduces more clarity

and order in the control

activity

of the performer.
The basic tining
digitally-controll-ed
ferent
require
on their

control

of the various

different

(or clocks),

oscil-Iators

functions,
timing

control

even if

pertaining

scal-es and different

musical significence.

functions

is governed. by four

one for each orchestra.

to the same orchestra,
timing

configurations,

Hence, each basic oscil-lator

Difin general
depending

must be properJ-y

scaled and processed in order to obtain all- the desired. subtirning signa-ls.
* The design of the touch-svitch,
which is centered around a pair of
cross-coupled NANDgates with high-beta transistor
input buffers, is due to
Dr. J. Divilbiss.
** The Multiplexer/Denultiplexer

nas d.esigned. by T. Noggle and. R. Borovec.

LJ

The simplest

nm i.nd.epend.ently of each other

ovn tempo.

ing to its

to each other
ferent

ruler*

plays

each orchestra

are nade, however, for the slaving

accord.ing to certain

orchestras

slaving

end., therefore,

Provisions

four basic

is the one in which all

mode of operetion

rules,

so that

can be put in hierarchicaJ-

the tining

relationships.

accord.of clocks

systems of d.ifA neaningful

with the cl-ocks

in which,

although not the only one, is that

clocks

numbered. in ascending ord.err say from 0 1e 3, each eloek can be sl-aved to

any one or combination

of the lover-numbered. ones, but not to any of the

higher-nr:nbered ones, as shovn in Figure 2.

l

**
t

ca,n run independently,

l

Thus, clock 2, for instance,

or can be slaved to clock l,

and 0, but not to cl-ock 3.

or to cl-ock O, or to cl-oeks

fhe progrsrnmlng of slaving

patterns

offers

sT

good example of manual vs. automatic information

$
f

moment a given el-ock is or is not to be slaved to one of the other eligible

clocks

is d.ecid.ed.either

system.
is,

by the perforner,

d.irectty

is the performer,

It

however, who selects

who decides whether the slaving

This mechanism is read.ily

icaIIy.

usage.

Whether at any

or automaticatly

by the

the mod.eof operation.,

is to be controlled

that

manual-ly or automat-

implenented. in terms of 2-to-l-

d.ata selec-

tors.
Since the automatic
problem that
vith
type.

encompasses the individ.ual

a supervisor

control

The basic tining

the four

eontroL of the hierarchicaL

unit

to carry out this

for this

unit

itself

is a decisional

the systen is provid.ed

and other tasks of similar

is derived

from a combination of

cl-ocks already nentioned

Each of the four orchestras

or voices,
tras

orchestras,

slaving

include

consists

as they are called in electronic

of tvo general--purpose instrunents,

music Jargon.

also a Dercussion ensemble of 15 instn:ments

* Conceived. by S. Martirano.

T\ro of the orcheseach.

CL OCK

CLOCK
t

CL OCK

CLOCK
3

Figure 2.

Clock HierarchY'

shown in block

A voice module is

of a Frequency Synthesis
Digita]

d.iagran form in Figure

and a Progrnrnmable Filter

the instnmental

It

consists

a dual-

of tinbres I a Mixer/Mod.uLator

for the d.ynamic control

for

an Attenuator/Iocator

of pitches;

device for the manipulation

Waveshape Generator for the progrnming

3.

of tonal

as well

characteristics;

as spatial

characteriza-

of sound.s.

tion

vays,

The eight

voice modules are coupled with

each other

so that,

under coromandfrom the control

system--be it

matic--the

el-ectronic signals

the anplitude,

fomr of analog parameter control

ad.clition to the d.igital

exercised in digital
a.nd musically

as well

it

For instance,

the pitch,

manual or auto-

one vaveshape may be

that

the system offers

already mentioned..

comes as no surprise

that

control

can be

is possible

effective.

granming the paraneters

synthesized by properly

of voice modrrles, they are actually

rateJ-y by means of sinpler,

special-purpose

circuitry.

more efficiently

This sol-ution

are d.c coupled, a feature

ste^ndardization.

but veveshape generators

in the vafues of tining

they can be

capacitors,

that

all-ows a certain

Thus, the basic clocks are nothing else

as in the voice nodules,

the desired. paraneter

vhich

ranges.

d.evice serves the purpose of controlling

while

is

all-ocated to the synthesis of sounds of higher complexity.

AJ-most al-1 circuits

a.mountof circuit

pro-

generated sepa-

intended to reduce the overload of the voice modules, so that

firnctions,

in

Indeed., since

as in analog fo:rn vhenever this

Although percussive sounds can be readily

obtain

This

or the timbre of another.

is a feature

foru of control

the whole system is hybrid,

of

associated. with one voice device can be uti-

l-ized to nodul-ate parameters of others.

used to nodulate

in a variety

the only d.ifference

are properly

In this

being

sealed. in order to

case the Frequency Synthesis

durations

and associated

the sub-aud.io vaveshapes here obtained are utilized

tining
to

F RE O UE NCY
S Y NT HE S I S

WAVESHAP E
GE N E R A TOR

WAVESHA PE
G E NE RA T O R

P RO G RAM
MAB LE
M I X E R/ M O DUL A T O R

PROGRAMM
ABL E
F I LTER

P RO G RA M M A B L E
/ LOCATOR
ATTENUATOR

OCUT P UT S
Q UA DRA P HO NI

Figure 3.

Voice Module Block Diagram.

r7
control

slov-changing

sandi, transpositions,
Another resource
carries

nusical

effects

shared by aJ.J-four orchestr&s

the instrunent

performances confined to a linited.

ity

of its

space or for

in a quadraphonic nod.e.

channels.

ing in the block d.iagran of Figure 3.

control

part

For performaices

In this

Facilities

tion

directlonality,

one for

appear-

through the use

the spatial

d.istributed.

of 96 channels,

by resort-

a.nong the aud.ience.

mod.eof opera-

2\ loud.speakers having \ input

a total

resol-ution

and sophisticated

system is switched. to an alternative

the use.of

each orchestra--for

distribution

reverberation.

number of loudspeakers properly

which involves

the directional--

are also provid.ed for the

teJting place in a concert hall,

case, the output

controls

the instru-

out by means of progranmable

of the quadraphonic system can be nade more subtle

ing to a larger

record.ings,

For

of the Attenuator/Locator

of the d.epth of sounds, besides their

of programmabl-e artifieia-l

system vhich

vorld.

progrqnming their

This task is carried

d.evices, vhich constitute

Joystick-l-ike

l+).

to the outside
studio

gfis-

crescendi,

is the output

Each orchestra

sounds d.ynanica11y by continuously

aJnongthe four

(figure

portarnento, etc.

tjmbres,

the sound.s created. nithin

ment operates

and parameters like

channel-s each--

as shown in Figure

The presence or absence of sound. on any of these cha.nnels is controlled

correspond.ing aud.io gate.
its
that

Thus, every orchestra

ean control

5.
by a

the routing

of

own sound.s to e.ny combination of the 2l+ loudspeakers accord.ing to patterns

can be prograrnrned directly

spatial

effects

mented with

this

as sound. travel

by the perfortner
and spatial

type of sound. distribution.

on the control

panel.

d.ialogues can be easily

Such

inple-

SE Q U E N C E
C L O C KN
I G

P RO G RAM
MA B L E
B IN A RYS E Q UE NCE
GENERATOR

S UB- A UDI O
F RE Q UE NCY
S Y NT HE S I S

SUB-AUDIO
WAVESHAP E
ATOR
GENER

DURATION
CLOCK

Figure l+.

Dlration

S UB . A UDI O
WAVESHAPE

Orchestra'
Clock Generation for One

'ro

O U TP U TSFR OM
FO U R OR C H E S TR A S
AUDIO
GATES

L O UDS P E A K E RS

#1

llll
rl l l
tl l l

#?4

Figure

5.

96-Ctra.nnel Output System'

20

II.

2. I

TONE SYNTHESIS

H a rmo n i c T o n e G e n e ra ti o n.

Har'nonic tones are periodic

pure tones--whose frequencies

vaves--al-so called
basic

frequency called

important

role

The nrost inportant

to vhich

it

that

task of the instrunent

qualities

subjective

is related

by a logarithmic

structure

generation

their

of the fund.amental frequency,

is the resul-t of

therefore,

the subjective

counterpart

Hence the versatility

qualities

a sound. exhj-bits

a:nount of sophistication

it

some form of voltage

ang1e, sguare-wave, pulse and sine.

by electronic
and. this
easily

eonvenience:

obtained. fron

it

control

available

Musically

there

once one of the first

relaxation

by neans of relativel-y

for

the frequency

are the saw-tooth,

tri-

is no reason to prefer

particular

The choice of this

is usuall-y the case with

vj.th the

harrnonic tones is by means of relaxation

The vaveshapes generally

these waveshapes to others.

re-

for the dyna.mic control- of the tones.

offers

The usual- method of generating

incorporate

can achieve, together

it

at

evolve with

of a haruonic tone generator is directly

l-ated. to the range of tonal- possibilities

that

of the

of sounds

a given noment, but also the manner i-n vhich these qualities

of oscillation."

and

under d.iscussion.

d.epend.ence. Tinbre

Imporbant in music are not only the tonal

osciflators

of a

multiples

of the rel-ati-ve amplitudes and. phases of al-l- the significant

components of a tone, and is,

tine.

of sinusoid.al

of harrnonic sound.s are piteh

is the perceptual- cormterpart

Pitch

the distribution

spectral

are integral

comes as no surprise

the central

of a mixture

Since these sound.s play a rather

the fund.anental.

in musie, it

control- constitute

and timbre.

sound.s consisting

set is dictated

two vaveforms is available--

oscil-l-ators--al1
sinple

circuits.

others

can be

Add.itional

2I
vaveforms can be Senerated by nixing
altering

their

linear

spectral

signal

structure

processors.

shapes, these techniques

tion

of dynamic tonal

waves of the basic

through the use of forrant

Although
afford

control

set together,

expand.ing the initial

are still

or non-

set of basie vave-

an anount of tonal- variety

thet

filters

or by

a.nd a sophistica-

inadequate to span a broad

musicaJ. scope.
In view of this
hamonic
fo:m.

limitation,

arl alternative

approach to the synthesis

of

tones was adopted. here, namely, the generation of vaves in seynpled

This nethod., as shorm in the bl-ock d.iagran of Figure 5, is centered

around. a binary
tized

counter

and a random-access memory.

and stored' in the memory, vith

The waveshape is digi-

each memory word holding

the value of

one waveshape sn'vnF1e. Memory ad.d.ressing is provided by the binary

counter,

whose modulus equals the total

of pulses

feeding

the counter results

word's which are thereby

into
is

analog voltages

a staircase

in a sequential,

displayed

version

the staircase
It

is

immed'iately seen that

cut-off

waveshape must be kept

filter

is

eonstant

al-so progra.nnable,

mechanism that

In ord.er to elinisampling resol_u-

can be controLl-ed merefy by prograrnfeeding the counter.

is ind.ependent of pitch,
to the fundanental

over the rrhole frequency

and its

obtained.

snoothed by a lorr-pass filter.

pitch

frequency relative

memory

and converted

Thus, vhat is uitinately

introd.ucecl by the finite

is subsequently

anount of smoothing that

the filter

scan of all

of the waveshape stored. in memory.

ming the frequency of the pulse train

uniforu

repetitive

A train

at the memory sense outputs

by a D/A converter.

nate the unwanted. discontinuities

tion,

number of vord.s in memory.

tuning

To mai.ntain a
the position

frequency of the
ra.nge.

Thus the

is controll-ed by the same

programs the frequency of count.

of

RE L AXATION
OSCIL L AT O R

EX PON E NT IAL
C URRENT
GENERATOR

PITCH
C ONT ROL

32x 4 - B lT
ME M O RY

PR OGR AM M ABLE
SM OOTHER

OU TPU T

4 - BIT DAC

PR OGR AM M ABL E
M IXER/
M OD U L AT OR

5 - BIT
COUN TE R

3? x 4 - B lT
M E M O RY

Figure

4 - B I T DA C

6.

Harmonic Tone Generator'

N)
t'J

)?

The shape
inforrnation

of

in

residing

memory can be reprograrmed

the

saine basic
f am ily

of

Usually

h a rn o n i c

to

operation

generally

d.esirable

From the

enother.

If

vaveshapes

that

easily

by the

d.ete::rrined

capabilities,

read/write

new vaveshapes.

to

in

resul-ts
of

change

an abrupt

tonal

same counter.

albeit

simultaneously,

implemented. in analog fashion

generation

The sinultaneous

prograrnmable mixer.

sl/eep to the mixer progra^ming

to the mixer output

itself.

input

causes the energing

from one of the incoming waveshapes to

comes entirely

fron the other

By allowing

either

by the mixer

memory to be upd.ated only vhen its

the d.iscontinuities

a,ttenuated,

operations

&re alvays kept below aud.ibility.

the contri-

from one of the tvo memories, while

is under complete attenuation

is totally

perceives

have

Thus, the applica-

At the begiruring or at the end of a sweep, therefore,

the contribution

of one.

shapes, both menories are addressed by the

different

vaveshape to undergo a smooth glide

bution

The tvo waveforus are then fed to the anafog mixer vhere they

of a l-inear

the other.

is

as an option.

acceptable

are combined. in progra.nr.nable, complementary percentaes.

tion

one

it

the waves emerging from the corresponcting D/A converters

pitch,

although

of two waveshapes is achieved by using tvo separate memories instead

id.entical

of

from

hovever'

control-,

und.ergo smooth transitions,

betveen the tvo can be easily

by means of a continuously

To ensure that

Hence,

generation

the

and final- waveshapes are available

the initial

smooth transition

with

acconmodate

rather

vievpoint

changes may be occasionally

abrupt

is

filter

to n e s .

a memory-lrrite

vaveshape

at wil-1- to

l-ends itself

circuitry

the

provided.

Being

menory.

the

ric h

from

wave emerging

the

associated. vith
Consequently,

contribution

memory-write
the listener

vaveshape changes only in the form of snooth transitions.

24
This technique
arnong others,

of dyna.rnic spectral

enhancing the expressiveness of synthesized. sound.s.

for

has long been recognized that

and J-ife that
ference

can be put to good. use,

control

characterize

efectronic

sounds.

natural

stems fron the fact

sounds generally

changes consid.erably in the course of its

Whil-e computer sound. generation
problem of spectral

controlrl0

are somevhat artificial-

does not lack effectj.ve

it

sounil
o
nay be.-

approaches to the

employed. in anafog synthesis

techniques

th"

It

and u.nsatisfactory.

approach to sowrd. synthesis

however.brief

duration,

d.if-

of a natural

the spectral- structure

that

lack the warmth

extent this

To a large

It

seen that

is

here ad.opted al-lows for

the hybrid.

flexible

controf

over

the Srnnmi cs of aud.io spectra.

of the waveshape generator

The versatility
for

alloving
ties

overriding

illustrated

the constraints

upd.ating a memory even vhen the correspond.ing output

complete attenuation
viev

of the fact

If

outputs.

random binary
coloring

infor.nation

generator,

ean be easily

available

the other

By forcing

of pitehed

arbitrary

of special

noise,

values with

These options
effects,

alloved

useful
present

for

instance,

colored noise,

under
in
at the

to the sense
.from a pseudo-

md the amount of

with the progrnmmable, low-pass filter

controlled

is

is derived,

then one obtains

at the output.

node vhile
consists

the input

is not necessarily

d.irectly

of the memories here used is transferred

data inputs

above and for

the infortation

vhen in the vrite-mode,

that,

Thus, facili-

is particularly

This option

by the nixer.

expanded.by

control.

modes of memory read/write

alternative

are provid.ed for

can be further

only one of the merories into

the vrite

to proceed. in the usual vay, the mixer output

and the a.mount of pitching

can be progra.med to

the aid of the mixer itself.

ca.n be properly
as ri11

exploited

for

the creation

be discussed in more detail

below.

of a variety
Also beIow,

2'

it

will

be shovn horr the mixero besid.es serving the purposes illustrated.

foras of arnFlitud,e rnodulation,

above, can be used. to implement various

by expand.ing the class of available

2.2

Pitch

of a voltage

be mapped into

signal

a pitch

Seven bits

of info:mation

Besides this

can be any integer

yie1d. L28 d.ifferent

or non-integer

of design--1972--a

and the proper

and for

The variable

value betveen 15 and 20.

prices

prohibitive

D/A converter

D/A converter.

of these deviees at the

vas used instead.,

of fixed. full-scale

the help of a tligitally-prograrnnable

an exberrral, variable-transconductance,

also incorporates

inputs

for

r:rtiforr

2.3

analog

the system is
pitch

transposi-

frequeney nodulation.

the scales of the circuits

to be described

in the folloving

from the temperature-compensated 10V voltage

D/A converter

number

Al-1 of these

as vell

The reference voltage to set the scale of the D/A converter

derived

in the

an equitenpered. scal-e of L2 tones per

scales are obtained. with

the circuit

ultimately

pitcne's vtricfr,

Independ.ently of the equitempered. mode in vhich

operating,

J, is the

vill

implemented. by meulsof a muJ-tiplying

in conJunction with

nultiplier.

tion

as shown in Figure

basj.c mode, the system can operate ?lso with l-5, 20,

coul-d. be readily

nrnFlifier

circuit,

in the rrnge 0 to +10V, vhich

implenent

Hovever, because of the stiIl

tine

control

number of equitenpered. tones per octave.

or a variable

options

ones.

in the audio range.

basic mod.eof operation,

octave.

anharaonic

Control.

The purpose of the pitch

generation

sound.s to include

there-

two section

source internal

Aq

are

to the

itself.

Erponential-

Current Generation.

Owing to the fact

fo:m a geometric

rather

that

the frequency

than a.n aritbmetic

intervals

of interest

progression,

in nusic

the linear

domain

TONESPER
OCTAVE

oo
ol
lo
1l

L?
l6
?o
V A R IA B LE

T4L

PITCH
VOLTAGE

(0To +tov)

MOD

27K

FROM
MULTIPLIER

IH5016
t---------r

27K
SHIFT
POINT

7400

,.P,'

(+ 1 0 v)

+5V

+IsV

18

32

SHI FTENABLE

-lsv

MODENABLE

33rz
23

PITCH
CONTROL
BITS

4
q

D /A

20430

DI

t3K

coDtsroR

t2 0

22K

rl g rz 13 ,o arto

22K
CODISTOR

TO
M UL TIPL IER

o2
IN9I4

dI
f\)

Figure J.

Pitch

Control.

o\

27
of tlie piteh
tial

control-voltage

d.onain.

d.iscussed. must be napped. into

iust

an exponen-

This conversion is accomplished by expJ-oiting the relationship

betveen collector

current

Ia and voltage

d"rop v*

across the base-emitter

. i:

junction

of a silicon

transitor,

which is expressed by the wel-I knovn for-

r.

Ml]-LA

lt.l-2

(r)

Ic = o F Ir, lexp ( wr r /kT) - lJ

Her e eo
- . t ' is
em it t er
T the

th e

fo rw a rd ,

s at u ra ti o n
absol-ute

s h o rt-c i rc ui t

el -ectron

T-E S i--s

cornmonbasel

charge;

k B ol tznannts

the

consta.ntl

temperature.

T he dy n a m i c ra n g e o f
o c t av es .

For

ralrge

exponential-

for

q th e

c u rre n t;

gai n,

current

i n te re s t

re a s o n s th a t

1 m A . F or a h i g h -b e ta
can be r epla c e d .,

w i l -l

currerit

I,

tra n s i s to r

a t th e p ri c e

pi tches

for

b ecome apparent

about

fater,

has been chosen to

operati ng

of

is

over

negl i gi bl -e

the

lie

thi s

error,

3 decades,

IO

correspondi ng

between I

range,

or

pA and.
(f)

E quati on

by the trul y

exponenti al

rel-ation

fc = IES exp (avrr/fr)

.

Since the hunan ear is extremely sensitive

t/

to pitches out of tune, the

utmost care must be exercised. to ensure a stable

and, accurate exponential

generation.

Thus, eornFensation for temperature variations

by resorting

to a pair of transistors

fore,

satisfying

the cond.itions for

lying

of IES i"

achieved.

on the same substrate and, there-

close natching

and thermal coupling.P

shorm in Figure 8, the exponential conversion proper is done by transistor

Transistor

ql}, being d.riven at eonstant current

base-to-emitter
variations
priate

voltage drop which is also constant,

tracking

lov-inpedaJlce,

generator Q3.

by regulator

analogous variations
tenperature-tracking

in Q3.
enitter

As
Q3.

Al , d.evelops a

apart from temperature

Thus Ql+provid.es the approdrive

for exponential

P I T CH
VOLTAGE
(O T O + lO V ) E X PON EN T IAL
C U R R EN T
( IpA T0 lmA)

'.ll

,.P ..
FR OMP OIN T

PO I NT. 'Q . .

(+ lo v )

( + 6 . 2 )v

+15v

QT TO Q5 '

cA3046
+l5v

10K

Q6
2N3 56 6

5.6K
R6

20pl
IOOO

R5
100Jl

Dl
1N753

IK
680J}

EXPONENTIAL FUNCTIONGENERATOR

lpl

Q7
2N3566

SUBSTRATETEMPERATUREREGULATOR

N)
ol

Figure

8.

Temperature-Compensated Exponentia.I Current

Generator.

29
Compensatlon for temperature
therral

fluctuations

entirely,

depend.s on T through
instability,
constant

the exponential- term.

circuit.

and is used. by external

The remaining

tvo,

substrate,

regulator

at a value

the quiescent

Q.l and Q2 d.raw about 30 nA of current

Having ninimized
error

the emitter

source of

is .paintained
array,

generation,

be-

includes

the:mal

temperature.

power in order to keep the

set by external- trinpot

pover dissipated
is half

its

R6.

This

by Ql and e2 into

and operate in a constant-curent

instability,

there

the

maximum. Transistors

l-oad. chenges for the positive

to be taken care of.

last

42 to sense the fC substrate

at normal- anbient tenperature,

in ord'er to avoid. large

sti1I

One of these, Q5, is connected as a d.iod.e

constant

chosen so that

substrate

firnction

QJ and Q2, merely dissipate

temperature

this

The RCA 30\5 transistor

assigned to the exponential

three ad.d.itional- transistors.

does not eliminate

To mininize

the temperature of the tra.nsistorsr

sides the pair

value is

of I*

As Equation (z) shovsr r,

hovever.

by another regulator

substrate

variations

mode

pover supply.

remains one last

source of

This is j.ntroduced by the bulk resistance

r,

of

region of Q3, which causes the Junction vol-tag" rBE to d.iffer

from the voltage

by the amount

V",

"EIC.

actually
If

this

measured betveen base and enitter

fact

is taken into

terninals,

account, then Equation (2)

Lt.
oecomes

rc = rES exp lq(vsp which shows that

As r,

the rel-ationship

"Erc)/rr]

betveen I,

and V*

,
is not truly

is only of the ord.er of l0 ohms, the bul-k voltage rrla

in the lower part

where, for
excursion

of the Ia range.

instance,

in Ia.

of the range,

in comparison vith

of about 18 nV, which is the a.rnounttypical-ly

change of one octave

is inconsequential

Not so in the upper portion

rEIC is no longer negligible

exponential.

a VUU

required. to effect

30

tive

This source of inaee'racy

can be comFensated.for by applying

vol-tage of nagnitud.e rrl,

either

d'irection,
voltage
tor

to r,

down and by feed.ing it

is aehieved merery by scaling

20 }.Hz'

and acts therefore

'

To avoid'

as a fil-ter

aceu-racy d.egradation,

to the subsequent stage by high-beta,

range respec_

for pitches

beyond approximately

the exponential

generator

conmon-base transistor

j.s buffered.

e6.

Relaxatio4 Oscillator.
The task of this

proportional

stage is to convert

frequency vhich in turn

ing the memory'

meaus the exponential

prinary

'

as the intended audio frequency,

As the counter used is five

frequency must Iie

approxinately

a range vhich presents unusuar problems

if

bits

where

1ong,

betveen 6\o

llz

accuracy is to be our

obJective.

current-to-frequency
oscil-lator

converslon

shown in Figure p.

c is d'ischarged', current

is

achieved by neans of the rel-axation

Assr:ning for
r,

a moment that

value of G.z v.

by the high input-imped.ance, unity_gain,

Al which compares it

..ith

Rl = 0 and capaci-

charges c and c&uses the voltage

side of c to d.ecrease from the initial

buffered

j-nto a

is used to drive the counter ad.dress-

as fast

N is the mod.u-r-us
of the counter.

ana 6l+0 kHz

the exponential- current

rn ord'er for the fina.l- waveshape

to l-ie in the aud.io range,

the counter must count N tines

tor

a'd the base of the r,

Zener diode Dl cra.urpsthe upper

var-ue of ra in the case of input

overdrive

this

such voltage

Rl+ and R5.

tively.

2.4

resis-

to the base of Qlr, a tapk acconplished

by resistor

Trirnrners Rl and R2 set the width

As a negative

is already being developed across emitter

R3' the desired. correction

divider

to the base of Q3, in the positive

or to the base of Ql*, in the negative

d.irection.

proportional-

a correc_

a threshold. voltage

at the lower

This vor-tage i.s

FET e,nFlifier

to comparator

of r-.p v as set by resistor

ry-3+t#t

' q''i*r< '

+15V
F R O M POIN T

(+6 .2 v)

330pf

c
+ lsv

02(
| 2N3566

1N746)fr\ Rl

(3.3v)T rx
1N746

{3.3v )

,. I I o.rpt
EXPONENTIAL
CURRENT

sN74r2l
oNE-SHOT
o

IN

(8.7v)

FREOUENCY
OUT

l OO pf
L^)

ts

Figure

p.

Rel-axation

Oscil-l-ator.

?2

d1vider
the

R2 and' R3.

one-shot

vhich

d'elay-constant
f or

t he

Qf is

of

As the

of

c o mp l e te

in

turn

the

The introd.uction

of

discharge

the

C are

completely

Ql to

about

150 ns,

is

A fter

the

close

threshold.,

and d.ischarge

vhich

the

A1 triggers

is

long

one-shot

C.

The

enough to

ti me-out,

all-ov

svi tch

repeated..
betveen

betw een

Thus,

hits

switch

one-shot

d e ]a y

a new cycle.

voltage

C by Ql .

cycle

a re l -i a b l -e

of

is

d .i s c h a rg e o f
and the

init iat ion

causes

one-shot

opened again

es t ablis h i n g

capacitor

Al- and Ql serves

the

tri ggeri ng

fl uctuati ons

masked. by the

of

stable

of

the

purpose

the

A t and the

ti ne

taken

d.elay-eonstarit

by Ql to

of

the

one-

s hot .
The overall
ginning

of

longer
or der

in

a l th o u g h

the

of m i c ro s e c o n d .s .
and input

duced- by the
trigger

a time

by r es is t or

RL.

in series vith

upper
This

current

presence

c ar t be r es t o re d -

that

t occurring

a n e w c y c Ie ,

negrigible

frequency

to

delay

of

frequency

fa c t
Ia to

causes the

v a l ue.

Tc it

the

linear.

fC ,

A1 and the

The error

d.uration

R l devel ops

C.

If

be-

is

are of

betveen

by causing

overal-l

no

the

output
intro-

comparator
of

acti on

is

vol tage

A1

a cycle
perfomeddrop

VC is the capacitor

R .IC

voltage

then

rc=r.9v

takes to charge c to voltage

v, at constant

TC=C.VC/IC.
Elinination

period.s

S uch compensati ng

the voltage across capacitor

5.z v -v c - il.
The tine

vhere

rel ati onshi p

be no longer

so that

of

at l ow frequenci es,

range,

B e i n g d .ri v e n b y current

causes Al- to trigger,

triggering

can be compensated. for

p ro p e r

i ts

the

i nconsequenti al

t prenaturely,

to

betveen

of Va Vields

T c = 4 '3

c/r c - RL

current

ra is

55

The d.uration T of an entire

cycle is then

T=T^+r=\.3
By choosing R[ so that

C/I^-Rt

RL = t/C,

the fregueney f = I/T

f = rr/(l +.9
'i4 .e.tv\a4
a vrr v . / *lra rranrr-ncy

It

is

lineqrly

is worth noticing

current

to a first-order

I^

over

generator bulk-resistance
vil-l- quickly

responding fornulas
trimpot

for the bul-k-resistance

used. there,

and the final

rrhole

range.

the error

eontributed

by the

rgr as a series expansion of the cor-

revenl .

Thus, rather

compensation, a fixed

overall

the

approximation,

contributed. to f by t is of the same type. as the error

exponential

becomes

c) ,
to

related

that,

C+t

than having a separate

d.ivid.er was

resistor

trirnming for both compensati-ons is d.one

by means of Rl alone.
In ord.er to maintain the fl-uctuations
tn comparison with

the value of capacitor

as possible.

large

current

I^,

und.esirabi"

The larger

of stray-capacitances
C, the fatter

the capacitor,

of the error

To improve noise and Jitter

through

its

Schnitt-trigger

trigger

by virtue

Transistor

innunity,

input,

comparator A1 drives

the one-shot

is connected as a Schnitt-

Q3 serves the purpose of interfacing

relationship
three

A compromise

in the range l- UA to l- mA.

a^nd.A-I itself

Q2 ensures proper start

The overa]1 aceuracy.of the oscillator

scribed

rg.

is

of d.iode DI.

QJ, while transistor

ponential

must be

freguency range, and this

causeil by butk-resistance

vas achieved by choosing C = 330 pF and I,

should be ehosen as

however, the larger

in ord.er to obtain the prescribed

in viev

negligible

in the conventional

when power is turned

sca1e.

This figure

on.

frequency vs. piteh-voltage

vas measured to be better

decad.es of range.

the one-shot to switch

ex-

than + .2/o over the pre-

is about 1/30th

of a semitone

J4

2. ,

Digita l

Wa v e s h a p e G e n e ra ti on.

B ec a u s e o f
controL

of

to

monic that

the

can be exercised.

be represented.

s n m p l -e s c o n ta i n e d

hararonic

generator

int er v als

should

is

generation

of

high

memory size

been point e d . o u t

in

vith

frequency

vi th

an exponential

how ever ,

sequentiaJ-

scan of

memory as

over

samples.

A c o mp ro mi s e h a s been achi eved. w i th

t ion

of

32 sanples

sa^mple.

increase

programning

of

of

the

arbitrary

is

th at

the

the

presence

resol-ution

between

has alread.y

direction

as the

because

it

a ti me

per

number of

sam-

resol uti on.

resul -ts

a]lovs

sempl-es of

corresponding

resol- u-

l -5 l evel s

ti ne

mi xer

higher

of

of

of

by the

accurate

d.ecades becomes

choi ce

of the

sa:npling

the

three

the

d.etermined. solely

amplitude
ratios

of

resol uti on

need not be as hi gh

re s o l u ti o n

s hou- l- d .b e n o te d ., h o w e v e r,

effective

and an ampl i tude

band.vid.th

tonal

11" 1 sn rn F l i tu d e

ples ,
It

As the

p e ri o d

per

in

shifted.

As it

osci l l ator,

a range

f r equenc ie s .

is

the

densi ty,

the

mrmber of

if

semFl i ng

difficul-t

range

Thus,

A hi gh

more and- nore

as the

hal-f

equals

the

rel arcati on

frequency

har-

scope,

for

the

highest

the

process

sampling

acconmodate the

c o n n e c ti o n

ord.er of

t he

bandvid.th.

a linited.

one w aveshape peri od..

vi thi n

to

the

the

a s possi bl e.

b e a s l a rg e

a conmensurably

ve11 as a large

theorem,

techni que,

snmpl i ng

over

only

span a rrid.e tonal

to

by the

i ntrod.uced

velJ- known sampling

can stil-l-

num b e r o f

requires

d i s c re ti z a ti o n

qualities

tonal

Accord.ing

t he

th e

in

an

for

the

the

incoming

v av es hapes .
W it h
generator

th e

a b o v e s p e c i fi c a ti o n s,

requires

The open-col-lector
verters

which

suitabl-e

for

provided.

in

d.riving
balanced

rea.l i zati on

SN7\89 IC bipolar

four

memory outputs

generate

the

the
the
foru

are

low-l-evel-

fed. to
analog

eliminate

the

sinple

a di gi tal

as shovn

menories,

prograrrmabl,e mixer.
to

of

in

d.iod.e-resistor

signals--O

to

The inputs
d..e. offset

Figure

the

about

10.

D/A con-

approximately
to

of

vaveshape

mixer
15 nV

+32 mV-are

TO M IXER
A- IXPU TS
sr s2 s5 s4

TztEg

r EA

DI

0t

D2

D?

o!

D3

I).

D'

srs2sss

looo
+l5v

7469

WE
TE A

w
D

cl
c2
FREOUEXCY
llrlPUT
TIXER
@ilTROL
VOLTAGEr

(oTo+lov)

UEA

7489

D
WE

XEA

D1

ol

oz

o?

03

D3

o4

D4

sl s2 s3 s4

7489

sl

s2 s3 s4

loK
loK
It{914
TO M IXER
B. IN PU TS

D A TA IN P U TS

Figure I0.

L,J
\tl

D i gi tal

W aveshape Generator .

36

introduced

by the D/A converters

and also to compensate for

causecl by mismatctres between the input

transistors

Figure l-0 afso shovs the circuitry

read./write

The pair

operations'

pair

monitors

either

respond.ing output

is und.er complete attenuation

signal

setting

bits

control

of J-V and !V re-

the mixer progrernming vol-

is

by the mixer.

completely attenuated

C} and C2 both to logic

is inplenented

This mode is usefuf

,i

Ii

:,

t;

the rrrite

mode.

This control

state offers

memories.

present at the d.ata inpurs

be injected

into the mixer, via the D/A converter,

where it

combined with the vaveshape energing fron the other nemory pair.
by the faet that

the other

the option of bypassing one

so that the infornation

is made possible

is con-

is permanently forced

of the memory pairs,

directly

a nodu1atback arrd

mode of the upper memory pair

and the l-ower memory pair

re-

the

repetitively

by the corresponding conparator in the usual- way, while

comparator is overridden

for

amnlitrrde

for

by prograrnning the mixer vith

betveen the two rravefor:ms trapped in the respective

When Cl-C2= 10, the read/write

into

altogether,

as will- be d.iscussed in more detail- in connection vith

Such an effect

troll-ed

d.esirable

0.

ing signaf whicir causes the output waveshape to glide

forth

When v l-ies

smooth vaveshape changes and is selecte6 by

gardless of the vind.ow d.etector response.

nixer.

vO is

and memory up-

is particularly

When C1C2 - 01, memory-vrite operations are inhibited

nodufation,

Input

vU vhen w is belov lV.

This mode of operation

the production of continuous,

TTl-compatible

of memories to be updated only when the cor-

attenuated. vhen v is above 9V and input

d.ating is inhibited..

with

having thresholds

tage w and allovs

insid.e the vi-ndow, neither

of mFm^rv

involved. in the control

The d,etector eontinuously

spectively.

offsets

of the mixer.

of LM 301 conparators

a windov detector

outputs constitutes

possible

can

is then

This option

the SNTI+81nemories, when the write

mode

d.ispley at the sense outputs the same information--albeit

is enabled,

complemented fom--that

vith

vhich

noise,

eontrol

is easily

state is typified

while the output lov-pass filter

tlpes

tion

sounds of the crash-clmbals

effects

The control

state

useful

to iropart
The

in the synthesis of

or snare-dn:ms type,

or in the crea-

steorn gushings, surf surges, etc.

like

CICZ = 11 puts both memory pairs

into

and- causes titem to be l-oaded with the same infomation.

for amplitud.e mod.u-Iationwith
-ore detail

amoirnts

to the sound. energing from the mixer.

of coloration

of special

of arbitrary

can be exploited

cl-ass of sound.sthus obtained is parbicularly

percussive

Cl-C2 = l-0.

and by setting

The presence of the mixer aflows for the progrnnning

different

by the generation of

achi.eved.by d"riving the memory d.ata inputs

nr:nber generator

a pseud.o-random, binary

of pitching,

in

appears at the d.ata inputs.

fhe usefulness of this

pitched

:r>-'d+

*st''{r:"

-eF{-4..@!6tu{elsid.fjb

carrier

the vrite

mod.e

This node is useful-

suppression, as will

be d,iscussed.in

in connection with the mixer.

The infornation
is normally

derived

to be foaded into
from a central,

the memories d.uring wri-te-operations

pseud.o-random, binary

number generator.

Since the a^mountof hardvare and contrcl- is kept to a bare ninimum, this
generation

of infornation
econon\y. It

also offers

the sFme circuitry

noise-Iike
options

inprovisational
deterministic

the signifieant

and

in that

can be used. for the generation of hamonic as well- as

method., in conJunction vith

above, has proven quite

situations,

a central

the contrcl-

adequate to span a vast range of

there are circumstances which ask for

approach to the generation

these situations,

ad.vantages of simplicity

a more unified. approach to sound. synthesis

sound.s. Although this

ill-ustrated

pertaining

offers

foru

of waveshape information.

memory bank is provided,

to the waveshapes of interest

a strietly
To handle

vhere the information

is stored. and made available

for

38

pr oper ly

f or

s u i te d

ar e par t ic ula rl y

mati-on is

o u t,

c ont r ol

opt i o n s

us e f or

t he

2. 6

w i th

of

steering

and

noise-generator

arid.

presence

generati on

pi tched.

a m :m b e r of

generator

vaveshape

of

of

synthesis

humarr vow el- s

here d.escri bed. .

associ ated.

memory from where it

the

the

degree,

techni que

the

by the

offered

a consi derabl e

vaveshape,

that

is

synthesi s

p eri pheral -

m e a n s fo r

a s s o c i a te d

s y n th e s i s

to

read.-only

th e

binary

the

si tuati ons

d .i gi ti zed

passing,

in

s i mp l e

a r a th e r

of f er s

a central
any of

i n to

point i n g

v or t ir

in

stored

upon r eques t,

of

h a s a p re d e te rmi ned

eac h v o v e l

S inc e

cl ass

th e

to

add.itiona-l

i nformati on.

B e i n g h a rmoni c

sounds.

s peec h- I i k e

Thus,

blryassing

for

d e s i re d

e x a ^ m p l e o f th i s

A t y pic a l
of

th e

ro u ti n g

generators.

harnonic

are provided.

facil-ities

controf

the

by ally of

consumption

d.i gi tal

i nfor-

can be load.ed,
memori es.

ft

progrnmmabl -e mi xer

the

di phthongs,

and col -ored noi se

and that

can be put

the
good

to

consonants.

fri cati ve

Progra^nsnable lvlixer,/I,lodu1ator.
T he f u n c ti o n

complementary

v o l ta g e

with
w.

the

T h us,

to

mi x tw o i nput

nixing
if

ratio

v^ denotes

being

vO and vU i n

prograrnrnable by an

the mi xer

vO = (w/10 v) vo + (r - v/to
vhere control-voltage

si gnal s

output,

the

d.e-

is

fu n c ti o n

s ir ed, t r ans fe r

is

c i rc u i t

percentages,

c o n tro l

ex t er naf

o f th i s

v) vB,

w spans the range 0 to +l-0 V.

As shown in Figr:re 11, the mixer is centered around two variablepairs,

transcond.uctance transistor
ta rL
IC nultipliers.*''-transistor
phase.

pairs

The bias

vid.ed by current
this

eurrent

very much l-ike present day four-quad.rant

However, unlike

in a nultiplier,

are kept separate artd their

current

the inputs to the

8,re connected. in

for powering the transconductance el-ements is pro-

generator

is split

eollectors

into

Q8.

After

is

going through d"ifferential

pair

tvo cornplementary conponents vhich bias

$/Q5,

N O N- I N V .
OUTPUTS
INVERTING

INVERTING

II{VERTING
B-INPUTS
NON-ilttv.

A-INPUTS
NON-tilv.
.

corrTROL
INPUTr

(o To +lov)
TODT,LATII{G
II{PUT

loK
in^
loK

2 N3 6 3 8

(r5vt

Q3,^

6.2K

1N753

( 6.2v )

QI THROUGH
Q6.
cA3054
Figure

(,
\o
lJ-.

Progremrna.fl-e Mixer/Modul_ator.

1+0
q)/q2

trarrscond.uctance pairs
transconductance

eLement is proporbional

of the tvo pairs

contribgtions
ratio

controlled

sures that
current

to the conmon output

splitter

is completely
no contribution

l-inear to saturating

regions

place smoothly by virtue

cut off

ratio

a control--voltage
This precaution

range one of the transistors

and the correspond.ing transcond.uctance

to the mixer output.

The transitions

d.ireetJ-y to the filter

no need for aclditional

vith

Oving to the inherent

areas of application

irrnnrinn

nultiplicative

of this

interface

capabllities

device can be further

circuitry.

of the mixer,

control- voltage

is provided. for applying

Both inputs

llhen the circuit

inhibited

are then added together

end, in addition

a tvo-quadrant

nultiplier.

ca.n be suppressed by having vA = -rB a^ndby d.c.

by 5 V, as cen be read.ily verified.

carrier

Q7.
is

purpose of the rrin-

dow.d.etector is defeated by the presence of the nodulating

most conmonly obtained is vithout

signal.

The type

suppression,

since

Hovever, the carrier

offsetting

fron the nixer

for

the nod.ulating

by common-basetransistor

(CfCe = O1), owing to the fact that'the

vari-

to the input

is operated. as a nood.ulator, waveshape updating

is basically

the

expanded to inclu6e

To this

w, another terminal

to be

of the mixer to be fed

ous for"ms of a,mplitud.e mod.ul-ation.

signal

and take

stage of the prograrrms|1e lorr-pass filter,

the balanced output lines

the circuit

from

occur around I V and p V respectively,

discussed belown aLlows. for

of nodulation

en-

of the

of the knee exhibited. by the base-emitfsr

The nature of the input

usually

span

of Q3 and Q5.

characteristics

signal.

can be

a3/45.

overd.rives the curuent splitter.

at the ed.ges of the control

el-ement brings

splitter

the relative

are d.etermined by the

Hence, the nixing

by progrs'nrning current

slightly

As t,ne gain of a

bias current,

para.neters have been chosen so that

fhe circuit
of l-O volts

to its

bias currents.

of the respective

easily

end Ql+/Q) ind.epend.ently.

the nod.ul-ating

transfer

function.

\r
fhese eonditions

are achieved. by first

c&uses both memory pairs

control

bit

Cl is

phase inversion

control

state

C1C2 = 11, nhich

to be loa.decl rrith the sa!,e $aveshape.

changed. to zero, while w is being set to +! V.

of one of the waveshapes is ensured by the fact

balanced outputs
to the mixer.

setting

from the correspontting D/A converter

This asymetry

The required,
that

the

are vired. interchanged.

d.oes not d.istr:rb the other

the phases with vhich vaveshapes are loaded into

Subsequently,

control

mocles since

memories are imrnaterial.

I+2

PROGMMMABLE
ELECTRONICALLY
FILTIRS

III.

A filter

progra.nmable if

is eLectronically

damping factor,

or center frequency,

Although

control

signals.

filters

of fixed

etc.--can

resistorsrf6

JFET voltage-controlled

useful

their

The need for

of fil-ters,

A range of this

a fi,'l ter

have mad.etheir

parameter control

*"log

achieved.

eapabilities.

nultipIie"",f?'I8

duty-"y"1.19'20

is

""u

"trd

s)camFlesof the

used.

from one kind. of linitation

periodic-

Al-1 of these

or another vhich

of much nider
blocks vhich,

prograrnrning range has 1ed to the

when properly

utilized

in the syn-

al-low for more tiran three decades of para.meter control-.

vidth

nals are currents,

is nade possible by the fact that the controlling

than voltages.

rather

accuratel-y represent

curent

filters

ranges of operation to no more than a ferr octaves.

d.evelopment of two building

In fact,

has been goi-ng on for

components and techniques being presently

methods, however, seem to suffer

a feature

tunable
Fil-ter

networks with variable

nultiplicative

by neans of external

some forrn of nultiplicative

by means of devices exhibiting

thesis

be altered

or manually progra.nrmablecharacteri-stics

appearance only in very recent years.

restrict

characteristics--corner

a consid.erable amount of vork in the area of active

more than a decad.e rro*,15 electronically

switched. filter

its

Tnd.eed.,currents

sig-

can be used to

analog variabl-es over much wid.er ranges than voltages,

of present-d.ay technologll which never seems to be stressed enough.

by exploiting

the highly pred.ictable relationship

and base-to-emitter

can.be easily

controlled

ranges are (ynanically

voltage

drop of the silicon

over a number of decadesrlf

linited

The heart of the filter

by tenperature

drift

between collector

tra.nsistor,

currents

while ord.inary voltage

and other forns of noise.

blocks in question is a prograrmable rranscon-

d.uetance element, also referred. to as an operational- transconductance

43

a,nplifier,

or OTA for

amplifier

in that

of the output

The device resembles an ordinary

is also has one output

signal

put terminals,

short.

being the same as that

a.nd opposite

tional- amplifiers,

to that

characteristic--which

conductance--can

be controfl-ed

ports

to as a bias current

mentioned.

I' I A S .

of

above,

T he d e fi n i ti o n

T he f ilt er
cu i t

of

the

F igur e

13.

th e

block

Using

is a current,

port

control

signal,

is

the

for

i l l ustrated

b e d.escri bed. fi rst

Laplace

the d.imensions of a
also

Thus, in ad.dition to the three signal

i d e a l - 0TA i s

to

opera-

rather than a voltage,

by means of a current

OTA has a fourth

of

building

IgtRS.

at one of the in-

However, unlike

has therefore

externally

the polarity

ports,

of the voltage

of the other.

the OTArs output signal

and the transfer

referred

and tvo input

operational

application

Fi gure

in

provi ded

12.

by the

ci r-

tra n sforms,

tr

T
tl^i\
'o - -or,o-)

t,,*

%(V'

11

V )/(sC)
- "-\

or
v_=(v+-v-)/st
n'
where

r - c/e ^= (c/K) /tu*,

Thus the transfer

fwrction

vith

of integration

the constant

IS'RS.

of the circuit

This sinple building

configurations
topologies.

readily

being external-ly

block can be readily

based. on integrators,
Then, by controtling

the constant of integration)

is that

like

programmable by means of
incorporated into

filter

or the biquad22

the state-variable2l

ISIAS with an exponentiaf current generator,

i.e.

the natural

can be

frequency of the filter,

varied. over a vid.e dynamic range.

As an sxnmple, Figure 1l+ shows hov tvo such integrators

together

integrator,

of a bipolar

to syntbesize

band-pass transfer

a filter

fr:nction

vhich exhibits

sinultaneousl-y

of constant bandwidth.

transforros in the marner indicated

cel be connected
a lov-pass

By vorking

vith

above, one can read.ily veri{y

that

and

Laplace

44

I aras
+
L.

L.

L_

1
+

s\v
-m
v'f

-A

--In
r'l
L 6mr

Figure 12.

Definition

-t
-

l!

= consta,nt

,t\

IJ]-AD

of operational

Ir\l

-t.

Transconductance Anplifier

vo

V*

Figure 13.

Programrnable Bipolar

Integrator'

(0TA).

l+5

9ml

:' M

I ens

Figure 1\.

I aras

Tr+o-integrator

progremms6le Filter.

Iar e s

FigUre 15.

Progretrmable Cond.uctance.

)+6
ve.p. /Y,

+ sr.,o/q * rot)

"ro/("2

and

vl,.p. /vi

+ sr,ro/Q*

t/("2

2\

tit

vhere
u
is

t he

natu ra l -

= I/t

-- K I^-" ^/C
lJTAb

o f ' c h e fi l ter,

fre q u e n c y

and

,o/Q = r /( cn)
i- s t he

b a n d w i d .th o f

c on s ta n t

added t o

th e

band-pass

a l -o s s a n d th e re fore

i n s e rt

R esi stor

functi on.

ensure a non-zero

l',
li'

tk.

R has been

dampi ng factor.

l.r
$

If

R is

om it t e d

th e

a l to g e th e r,

as a pr ogr a mma b fe

c i r cui t

s i n e -w a v e

osci l l -ates

o s c i]l -ator

as such,

and,

quadrature

w i th

can be used.

it

outputs.

C onversel y,

''

;l
*t
tPi

t he

r eplac e m e n t

a p ro graJnmabl -e conductance,

R w i th

of

to

be di scussed

bel ow,

#tr.
'4.

{!

of f er s
t he

t he

o p ti o n

of

independent

control

over the

Q or over

the

bandw i dth

of

&

f ilt er .
T he o ti re r

block

building

The behavior

F igur e

t 5.

of

y - pa ra rn e te rs ,

it s

of

vhich

is

th i s

offered

by the feed.back confi gurati on

ci rcui t

can

qp'l

annni

rr

daqarilrod

of
hrr
vJ

lvvs

maqnq

*
#

a re

Yl -f = Y IZ =

Or

-8^,

Y Z)-=

Y ZZ = * %

I
Howev er ,

ic

I D

u s e fu l n e s s

c l, ^r .llm . Irr
in r.i
-.re
! I6U

DIIUW

tance
qq

it s

ea n b e b e tte r

f il- t er s

in

qaon

series
'inrn

with

n a r *' r

a s a b u i l di ng
v i s u a l -i z e d

15.

T h e c i rc u i t

a voltage
af

J- h ^

cireuit

bl ock

for

by consi deri ng
consi sts

foll-over

n r i- in a l-

!'igure l-5 are connected in parallel

sulting

to

C i .rC U i t.

of

the

synthesi s

i ts

equi val ent

accourit
If

of

programabl e

ci rcui t,

a current-control l ed
for

tw O

the

}i ke

irnpedance
the

but with the ports interchanged,

behaves l-ike a progra.nmableo floating

conductance.

programnable conductances and thus nake the filter

w hich
conduc-

infinite

deV i C eS

is a simpl-e matter to replace sone or all- of the resistors

with

li{
e"

One

Of

the reHence, it

of a given filter

itself

progra.mable.

\r

I ar as

Figure 15.

Equivatent Circuit

for Figur" K

Iaras

Figure lf.

Three-pole,

maxi-mally-fIat,

lov-pass

progrqnmable firter.

48
In most cases of
f ic lent ,

w i th o u t

whic h

r equ i re s

th e
tv o

i n te re s t,
n e e d fo r

b y p o rb

I,

des ir abl- e

fe a tu re

since

ex ploit ed

to

it

fi l -te r

pass progra.nrmable filter

jus t

des c ri b e d .

vith

th e

Indeed,

netw ork

the
or

hi gh

suf-

d-i scussed,

i nput-i mped.ance
is

a nui sance,

coupl i ng,

is

often

can al so

and i t

be

s e n si ti vi ty.23
reafi zi ng

three

T h e fi l te r

anr r nr a r lr a ^ 1 ,+ h 1 l t o f

j ust

confi gurati on

a l i ni tati on

fa c i l i tates

shows one vay of

1l

one.

fro m bei ng

fa r

i m p ro v e

of

OTA per resi stor

& si ngl e

th e para1l el

O T A Is i n s te a d

pr es ent ed

F igur e

how ever,

a three-pol e,

cond.uctance buil-d,ing

u s e s al -so a uni ty-gai n

th i rd .0 TA

maxi mal J-y-fl at,

from the

blocks

of

the

fofl -ow er

vol tage

feed.back esneei
f tor
u vr
u q }/a u

1ovtype

to

de-

a.nd outsi d.e

f oads
F igur e
t anc e

l -B s h o w s a c i rc u i t

c onc e p t

c ir c uit

which

el e me n ts

could

of vell

real i zati on
be put

re a d .i l y

e s ta b l -ished

of the
in

i ntegrated.

feasi bi l i ty

in

balanced voltage-to-cr:rrent

converter

form

si nce

commerci al

stage, as in present-day analog nultipliers,*

The input

transconduc-

operati onal

'l h

it

i nvol -ves
IC rs.

l i near

eonsists of a

(Ql- tlrrough Ql+) and a diod.e compressor

(qr/q6)

to provide the appropriate base-d.rive for transconductance pair

a7/a8.

This configuration

linearity

results

in a substantial- improvement for the

of the transcond.uctance pair,

whil-e d.rift

and other noise factors

are al-so minimized.2L

Because of it,s Dnrl'i nrrton-connected., differential-

plifier

I
tire voltage-to-current

configuration,

impedance which al-l-ows for

am-

converter presents a high input-

an OTA to d.rive other OTArs direetly,

as shown in

-t
Figures 14
and 17.

The bal-anced.col-lector

verted into
mirrors

currents of transcond.uctance pair

a7/a8 are con-

a single-ended d.ifference output current by means of current-

A9lalO/AlI,

q)2/Q)3/AII+, and $r/$5/q)7.

imped.ance, titese current-mirrors

To achieve high output-

make use of the Wilson configuration.-'

2q

V_

Figure J-8.

Operational

Ia,o,

Transcond.uctance Amplifier.

+\o

50

The value of K is established

by the circuit

currents

parameters of the voltage-to-

and anount of enitter

current

converter--bias

venient

parameter choice which confolus vith

degeneration.

present

A con-

analog stand.ard.s is the

one vhich resul-ts in K = 1/(10 V).

of Figure l-B is not avail-able

Although the complete circuit

grated

form, an IC OTA of simil-ar concept but vithout

and eompressor is presently

premenrarron,

10

converter

manufactured by RCA (CA30B0). For this

- - = q./rKl
tr
, so lnat,

The CA30B0 al-so requires

the input

in inte-

that

at room fsmperature, K = L).2'

IU'O, flow into the current

control

OTA infO-3V-1 .

teruinal

which is kept at a negative potential-.

The smoother for

the harnonic tone generator has been real-ized with two

CA3080OTArs in the manner i]lustrated

tvo-pole,

i-s achieved by means of resistor

attenuators,

conditioning
as shown.

values have been chosen so that the bal-anced outputs from the
to the inputs of the first

progranraable mixer can be tied

out the need for

ancilfary

additional

source fol-lowers.

vi-th the fol-lowers $o not affect

with-

the output from each OTA naust be

buffered. by a high input-imped.ance decoupler.

of FET-transistor

0TA directly,

AIso, because of the finite

circuitry.

imped.ance presented. by the attenuators,

pair

realizes

Due to the absence

converter and diode compressor, signal

of the voltage-to-current

Tire resj-stcr

This circuit

low-pass prograrnrnable fil-ter.

maximally-f1at,

at the OTArs inputs

in Figure 1p.

This task is performed. by the

The voltage-offsets

the dc level

of the filter

associated
because each fol-

l-over is placed insid.e the feed.back loop of the correspond.ing OTA.

AJ-so shorn in Figure
provid.es the appropriate

19 is a dual- exponential
bias for both OTAts.

three matched pnp transistors

beta npn transistor.

current

generator which

The generator consists of

array and a d.iscrete, highfron the CA30B1+

Being forced to conduct a constartt current--about

I nA--

IT{PUTS
FROT
TI XER

Rt
loK
CONTROL
II{PUTS

o 1 , 0 2 , 0 5 , CA3 OB4

Figure

1!.

Two-po1e,

Maximally_flat,

Lov_pass

progrernms|le

Filter.
\'l

,2

by regulator
apart

from temperature

minal

of, Qf constitutes
v it h

of f s et
provide
Q 3.

re s p e c t

S inc e th e

v a ri a ti o n s

fo r

T r i. np o t
O ne of

t he

s ignal,

th e

R 2 s e ts

th e

th e

f re q u e n c y ,

c ontro l -

input

th e

,
I

i
N

regulating

kept

is

u s e d to

vhat

is

of

vol tage

need.ed to
t)2 and

any vol tage

eni tters

of

Furthermore,

Q\.

QJ- tend

d.rop of

ter-

voltage-

generators

the

providing

Q2 and. Q3, theieby

to

Q2 an d.
temcance l

temperature

generators.
R l - the vi d.th
is

i nputs

o f the

is

to

action

b a s e -to-emi tter

g e n e ra to r

j ust

current

transni tted

b a s e and tri mpot

p o s i ti o n

d i s c u s s e d ..

Qf i s

affecting

by pr ov id. i-n g a n a d d .i ti o n a l pr ev ious ly

the

is

emitter

a fixed

Q2, and Q3 are ti ed. together,

e x p o n e n ti al

e x p o n e n ti a l

s o th a t

s ar nF ling
ot her

of

of

anal-ogous variations

s t abiliz at ion

Q I,

Thi s

exponential-

for

th e b a s e o f

by virtue

Q3 unaltered.,

out

to

of

and presents

point

b a s e termi nal .
drive

emitter

e m i tte rs

ex c r . r r s ion a p p l i e d

per at ur e

th e

Thus the

al-so constant.

a Iow-impedance

to

proper

the

is

fluctuations,

d.rop vhich,

voltage

QJ- d.evelops a base-to-emitter

Q\ , transistor

fi l ter

perturb

or

spectral

the

the P i tch

vhol -e range of

aJter

thi s

control -

fi xed
besi des

range.

exponenti al

V oJ-tage contro l
rel ati ve

corner-frequency,

over the

c o n stant

fo rm of

fed vi th

of

i nterest.

constrai nt,
the

to

th e
The

there-

techni ques

)5

SOUNDI}MUYSITY A}ID LOCATION

IV.
l+.f

Intensity

The circuJ.try

psychoacoustical

prinarily

d.escribed. so far has dealt

and controJ- of pitches

particularly

Control.

and Location

consequence is intensity.

As in the case of tonal

in music are the dyna,nic characteristics

inportant

rel-ated to the manner in which sound.s build

a significant

it

These charaeteristics

up end d.ecay in time,

is desirabl-e that

instn:nental

by means of progrsnrmable attenuators

operating

generators.

The types of envefope functions

trapezoid.al,

or trapezoidal--with-overshoot,

stea{r-states,

These techniques,
conpound. real

are

and conof sound.s.

intensity

con-

eapabilities.

In enal.og systems, the dynamic control- of sound. intensity

attacks,

para-

a broad. choice of somd. envelopes in ord.er to ensure a vide

al-l-ov for

spectrr:m of

paraneter,

co1or,

of this

cfue toward. tire instru-mentaL characterization

Given the importance of this

trol-

the synthesis

Another parameter of considerabl-e

and.tinbres.

meter, also referred. to as the sound. envelope.

stitute

vith

satisfying

usually

available

using irybrid. techniques,

as it

and. such envelope pararneters as

preset by hand.

they necessitate

wil-I be shovn belov,

can be approached. in a more organic

fashion

in a ma:rner that

deviations

are triangular,

a broad range of instrumental

time perforrnance in that

plex a.nd.minute

und.er the control- of envelope

and decays must be individually

fatr fron

is realized.

that

manuef control.

By

both of these problems

allovs

parallels

situations,

the controf

of com-

the donain of natural

sounds.
Another parameter that
last

has become rather

tvo decad.es is the location

ronnent.

For studio-type

significant

in the nusic of the

and movenent of sound vithin

operations,

the output

a musical envi-

of the systen wtder d.iscussion

5)+

The control

consists of four d.iscrete channels.

accompli-shed by dynamica1ly progrc"r'ning the d.istribution

of sounds among

to the original

sound.s.

fn hardvare terms,

sound- enveloping

and quadraphonic sound. location

by means of a progrqmmgfls attenuator/focator

irandled uniforrnly

rever-

&d by adding prograrnrnable a,nounts of artificial

the fou:r channels,

beration

parameters is

of spatial

circuit.

and prograrnmable

as progranmable attenuator

This device acts simultaneously

are

j oy-stick.
)1.2

Programmable Attenuator/Locator.
prod.uces sound.s of constartt amplitude,

Since the harrronic tone generator

signal

put into

out-

the amount of

A block diagram of the attenuator/

an envelope generator.

shovn in Figure 20.

Oving to the fact

vitlr

l-ocator is

;i

and by control-fing

a progranmable attenuator/locator

attenuation
'I

is real-ized ind.epencl.ently by feeding the generator

l-evel, control

that

the human ear respond.s to the amplitude of sound.s

is necessary that

in a nonl-inear manner, it

domain of the envelope

the linear

voltage

first

adequate as well

nusically

one, and tire related

,.
version
tor

is shown in Figure 21.

circuitry

Q2 serve the purpose of providing

input

Circuit

justified

The exponential

QJ whil-e transistor

the appropriate

con-

Q3 and regula-

emitter

,{lthough tire circuit

by the l-ess stringent

d.rive for

Ql.

requirements of

parBmeters have been chosen so that

range is mapped into

a convenient

A mappir.rgwhich is

is of the type already encountered., except for a certain

degree of sinplification
l-evel- control.

napping.

conveni.ent is the exponential

as electronieally

prope? is perforrned. by transistor

Thus the circuit

trol

nonlinear

undergo an appropriate

can easily

comFromise that

an exponential
afford

current

range of about 50 db.

a much wid.er range,

ensures ad.equate musical

a 0 to I0 V con-

50 db constitutes

range vithout

imposing

55

FRONT/LEFT

F R O I {T /R I G H T

SACI(/ LEFT

B A C X/ R IGH T

TRAilSCOT{0,

TRANSCOND.

T R A N S C O T {0 .

UULTIPLIER

MULTIPLIER

MULTIP L IER

SIG'{AL
IIIPUT

CU R R E I {T
S P L I TT E R

CURRET{T
SPLI TTER

LEF T/ RIGHT
CONTROL

FRONT/8ACX
cor{TRoL

CURREIIT
S P L I T TE R

ENVELOPE
VOL TAGE

CURREilT
GENT
, R

SOUEL CH

cor{TRoL

Figure

20.

Block Diagra,n for Progrn'vnnable Attenuator/Locator.

E X P ONE NT I A L
C U R RE NT
( 3pA T O lm A )

+ 15v

E NVEL OPE
VOL TAGE

(c r0 +10v)

F R OM
POINT .'R ,.

( - 3 3v)

741

+1 5 V
160K

QI A Q3.

e/51x cA3046

Figure 21.

Exponential

curient

Generator and squelch control.

rr

!tr-

# +_ :'* .:- * :

-._E-tff . . a- : -

57
too stringent

demand.son envelope control.

enough attenuation

does not offer

naf level

inconvenience is eliminated
the input

controL

sig-

vhen silence

This

is d.esired..

by means of a squelching circuit

and completely

voltage

However, 50 db belov ful1

shuts off

expands the total

the useful

effective

portion

control

The exponential

vidth

current

thus obtained. is subsequently spi-it

pairs,

four pairs

to all

are tied. together.

i-mnediately seen that

the output

diverted

to tiiat

mon scaie factor

the current

four

The signal

Since the gain of a

bias

it

current,

from one of the pairs,

level

is

rela-

depend.son the percentage of exponential-

tr\:.rLhennore, all

four

gains d.epend.on a com-

to the magnitude of the exponential

generator

splitters

determines the overall

determine the rel-ative

intensity

current.

sound. intensity
distribution

and
among the

channel-s.
\
schematic for the transcond.uctance pairs

The circuit
ters

pair.

proportional

Thus the exponential

four

signal

to the l-evels of the others,

into

one for each output channel.

depend.s on the amount of emitter

current

keeping

correspond.ing variable-

transcond.uctance pair

'ive

stil1

at about 50 db.

tra^nsconductance trarisistor
terminals

This artifice

of the range, while

separate components which are used to bias four

input

generator

the exponential

as soon as the input goes belov a fev tens of nillivolts.

greatly

which senses

is shown in Figure 22.

choice of circuit
overdriven

voltage

at each end of the control

totally

shut off,

d.uctance pairs
nnel

the cur-oni

of 10 V range.

cnlitlere

This precaution

the

"re sfightly
ensures that

range one of the currenf en.lirJ-ino rrnpsislgrs

thereby provid.ing fu1l

biased by that

isolation.

split-

As in the case of the progra.mnable mixer,

paraneters is such that

by a control

and- eurrent

transistor.

signal

attenuation

This feature

is

at the transcon-

allovs

complete

B A LA N C E D

OU TP U TS

+ t5v

Ol THROUGHOl2'

2 x cl3ta.

Ol7 THROUGHO22'
( l+ 2 /5 ) X CAlO.r 6 .

slcxilL
IIPUT
(r5vPrPrl

Q2t
QZ2

C U R R E N T-FR OU
E X P ,L C ON V E R TE R

\'I

Fi gure

22.

P rogrernmabl e A ttenuator/Locator'

59

pairs

Diod.e-connected. transistor
linear

compressor rhose purpose is the linearization

voltage

spJ-ittersI

transfer

with OTAfs.

characteristics,

current

the right

of the circuit

generator

To ill-ustrate
pair

transistor

qU/4I8,

which constitutes

control- voltage

the controf

voltage

from qf6 to QJ-!.

transferred.

of d.iodes shown at

example, consider

an actual

the front/back

current

is around 0V, qI5 is cut off,

Thus all- the exponential

transcond.uctance pairs,

If

and the ex-

d.iagram.

Q2l- and Q18 are al-so off.

cut off.

already discussed in connection

are provided. by the string

the above argiuaents vith

I,Ihen the front/back

the t'fronttt

a topic

of the current

The proper bias voltages for the current splitters

ponential

a non-

A)9/A2O and QZl,/Q22 constitute

vhile

so that
to

is diverted

current

the "backt' pairs

splitter.

are completely

is nov increased., conduction is grad.ually

This is'accompanied. by a simultaneous increase

in the cond.uction of Q21 and QJ-8and decrease in the conduction of Q22 and
Af].

Thus, the exponential

causing a gradual
tion

is

that

usually

current

voltage,

their

is now reversed,

particularly

reing perma.nently fed. vith

usa.ge in high-quality

This effect,

owing to the fact

a fuLl-Ievel

as

Similar

signal

when im-

generate an undesirable
aud.io applications.

the noise l-evel depend.son the amoult of emitter

application,

Q16,

splitters.

transcond.ucbance pairs,

increases with the latter.

in the present

and. the situation

general purpose IC trarisistors,

a.mountof noise which linits

Anong others,

from Ql-] to Q18,

Upon reaching 10 V of controf

the left/right

a knorrn fact

plenented vith

diverted

the case in which the controtr- vol-tage is around 0V.

arguments hold for

It

chennels.

are connpletely cut off,

compared.vith

is gradually

at the t'l-eftt' chennels and grad.ual a.nplifica-

attenuation

at the I'rightil

Q22 and Ql[

current

bias,

and

however, is not so critieaf

that

the attenuator/locator

is

from the tone generator.

/^

OU

Thus, an increase in emitter bias increases not only the noise fevel-, but the
signal l-evel as we1l, thereby ensuring a satisfactory
over the entire
further

Subjectively,

dynamic range of interest.

improved by the well

partially

case--are

this

ratio

of human hearing,

knovn masking effect

upon weak sound.s--noise in this

signal-to-noise

ratio
is
where-

masked by loud" sounils

in the same frequency band..

The circuit

real-ization

the exponentiaJ- generator,

requires

four IC transistor

and the left/right

transeonductance multipliers

current

one more CA30\6 is need.edfor the diod.e compressors.

pair

is provi-ded vith

verted. intc

the balanced. outputs

a single-ended

means of a d.ifferential

vol-tage signal .

channels, it

for drivine

on1y.

operationsl

Rather, the outputs from allcorrespond.ing collectors

together.

conversion is then accomplished vith

This circuit

configuration

results

The desired.
four

d.ifferential-

in the saving of 28

nmFlifiers.

Before being fed to output

a spring

must be con-

is not necessary to use an operational- amplifier

of corresponding transconductance pairs bei.ng tied

enplifiers

pair

in the conventionaf manner of

eight voice modules are connected. in paralleJ-, vith

standard audio

eight voice modules share the same

for each of the 32 transconductarice pairs.

double to single-ended

compensation.

This is readil-y accomplished. by

amplifier,

Hovever, since all

analog multipliers.
four output

suitable

and

Each transconductance

from each transconductance

operational

One

splitters.

a trirnrner for input offset

To render the attenuator/locator

equipnent,

besides the

arrays,

and the exponential generator,

CA30l+5implements the remaining splitter

transistor

of

shown. Two CA305l+ICfs are needed.to imptement the four

circuit

ancillary

inclusive

of the enti-re attenuator/locator,

reverberator

audio equipnent,

and the spring output

each cha.nnel is

sent through

is nixed. in program.able

amounts

a-

ol_

with

the r:nreverberated

stand.ard.

Envel-ope Generation.
To control- intensity

the exponential

d.ynamically,

above must be progranmed with

task

involving

here any further.

wilJ. not be described

audio eircuitry,
l+.S

The associated. hardvare,

signal.

control

generator

f\:.nctions of tine,

d.iscussed.

or envelopes.

is handled in hybrid. fashion by means of an envelope generator

Envelopes are generated. in the form of Joined straight

of a given enveJ-ope are entirely

Thus the characteristics

of its

involves

eight

bits

output

positive

and four bits

the data,

d.eter-

The envelope

a request

for

an B-bit

generates a

The polarity
of
by the homonymousbits.
/
by the remaining four bits of a:npJ-itude. Depend.ing on
specified

specify

a greater

or a smalfer voltage

by the envelope generator,

or negative.

this

information

the envelope circuit

the rernp polarit,y

than that

va1ue, the generation

cur-

is respeetively

Thus, in the course of ra.rnpgeneration,

voltage approaches linearl-y the value speeified

reaching

of rate

at that point.

segment terminating

receiving

inplied

these bits

vhether
rently

After

ramp at the rate

the ramp is

of a breakpoint

of anplitud.e information

sends the binary word sequence generator

word of d.ata.

segments.

defined. once the

generation of a segnent occurs as follows.

The typical

voltage

Four bits

of information.

mine the slope of the line

line

are knor,rn. The specification

breakpoints

d.etermine the breaL,point ord.inate,

generator

in con-

a binary word sequence generator.

Junction vith

locations

This

the output

by the amplitude bits.

of the current

line

segnent is

Upon

completed.,

and a new d.ata request is issued for the generation of another segment.
Four bits

e1 anplitude

to handle detailed

as well

as rate

envelope charaeteristics.

resolution
It

may seem inad.equate

shoul-d.be noted, hovever,

Gz
16 loudness level-s over a dynamic range of 50 d.b yield

that

about 3 db, which compares favorably

tion

of,the

human ear.

d.esired., this
terns

If

a fine

can be sinply

of smal-l line

a resolution

of

enough rrith the sorrnd.loudness resolu-

control

over the envelope structure

is

achieved. by expressing the envelope function

in

segments.

fhe envel-ope generation process is iJ-l-ustrated in the block diagram of

Figure 23.

The heart of the circuit

grammable sl-ew-rate.
two ordinary
current

This d.evice is readily

a.npJ-ifiers:

integrator

is an operational
sinulated

achieved. by progranming the current

When the output

from the integrator,
position.
d.irectly

eonverter,

Slew-rate

the current

the comparator sets the current

is therefore

and produces a positive

control

and a
is

To ensure a
is generated. by

of pitch

as in the control

from the a,nplitude D/A converter

The integrator

stage,

feeding the i.ntegrator.

wide dyna,nic range of envelope characteristics,

with pro-

with the help of

a comparator to simul-ate the input

to simu-l-ate the Mil-l-er stage.

means of an exponential

amplifier

and loud.ness.

exceeds the output

srritch to the "0"

d.riven from the exponential- generator

rAmFr or attack.

When the integrator

output

exceeds the converter output,

tlte semFarator sets the switch to the "I"

position.

to the current mirror,

Being now diverted

unf,.ergoes a polarity

reversal,

the exponential

thereby causing the integrator

to prod.uce a

negative

raJnp, or d.ecay. Thus, the chain comparator-svitch-integrator

.
stitutes

4,.
a voltage

follower

with

cl-osed-loop frequency paraneters

beco.mesequal to the input,
"0"

atrld "f"

states.

of the chain are such that,

the corparator

This feature

prograrrrrnablesl-ew-rate.

externally

is

begins to oscillate

intentionally

achievement of an envel-ope brea.kpoint and therefore

new vord. of data fron the binary
is handJ-ed by the breakpoint

sequence generator.

d.etector circuit.

exploited

current

conThe

vhen the output

betveen the
to mark the

issue a request for

The request generation

AMP L ITU D E

oA c
(4 B rrs )

C OMP A R A TOR

CURRENT
I NTEG RATO R
BI'IARY

sEouExcE

ETIVELOPE
O UTPUT

GETERATOR

RATE
D AC
(4 B rTS )

E X P ON .L
C U R R E NT
GE N E R A TO R

B R E A K P OIN T
D ETE C TOR

o\
(,
Figure

23.

EnveJ-ope Generation

Bl-ock Diagram.

6l+

d.iagram of the envelope generator,

The d.etailed circuit

the binary

sequence generator,

separatoly

converted into

and transistor
exponential

svitches,

shown in Figure 24.

is

of transistors

in the usual ma.nner. The arnplitude D/A converter

Ql+, Q5 and Q6 connected.

is fed to the TTl-compatible

compared against the output from the integra-

is

Depend.ing on whether the amplitude of the converter

tor.

or greater

than that

to the integrator
W/qz.

Transistors

either

current

the comparator begins to oscillate,

small-er

is d.iverted.

Q! belong to the CA3095 IC array.

counter to overfl-ow ancl thereby

sequence generator.

is

output

through d.iode D1 or through current

Q1 through

ing an envelope breakpoint,

2-bit

the exponential

of the integrator,

input

netvorks

The rate D/A converter is fed to the

as shown.

output

of

Binary data are

analog signals by means of diode-resistor

generator, which consists

comparator where its

exclusive

mirror
Upon reach-

causing the

generate a request pulse to the binary

tlte request, the sequence generator also

When servicing

clears the counter, thereby provid.ing proper initial-ization

for the detection

of the next breakpoint.

With the
1

U/rr

"i""rit

slew-rates

pararneters sholrn, attack

from 2Y/ms to 2Y/s.

to 1 V/s and decay slev-rates

the exponential range by a correspond.ing

ience qjd is hand}ed by offsetting

a,nount in the course of decay ranps.

sistor

The offsetting

switch Q7.

Rl and transistor

output is at "0" and the offsetting

ing.a

The one-octave

by reasons of.musi-cal conven-

d.iscrepancy betveen the tvo ranges is dictated

around resistor

cover a range from

circuitry

circuitry

During an attack the comparator

is disabled by svitch

d.ecay the comparator opens svitch Q7, so that the current

RL is directed

d.uces a voltage

offset

Q7.

of about -1"8 nV.

't

intro-

This causes the col,l-ector current

as desired.

the base of the exponentlal

Dur-

through re-

to the base of exponential generator Q).r,vhere it

of Ql+to d.ecrease bX one octave,

of ad.justing

is centered

Trinrmer R2 serves the purpose

range.

ol THROUGH
05, CA3096
otoDEs' tN9l4
9 n P T R A N S T S T O R2SN,3 6 3 8
AIPLITUD

oo

CI

a
6

RATE

ro
rl,

72

r3

cL-m
o\
\,
i,]gure

^t
2
4.

E nvel ope

Generator.

66
As vill
cations

be seen in connection with musical parameter control,

of piece-nise

enveloping

alone.

linear

function

When used in applications

octave d.iscrepancy betveen positive

ting

circuitry

tion

of the generator.

generators

Just described. is

that

are not confined

do not require

the applito sorrnd

the one-

and negative slope ranges, the offset-

simpJ-y onitted. from the hard.ware realiza-

67

V.

Two of the four

PMCUSSION ENSN4BLES

orchestras,

in addition

to the voice modul-es described.

above, includ.e al-so a l-6-elenent percussion ensemble each.

percussion-l-ike

sound.s can be synthesized by means of voice moduJ.es,as all

other sound.s are.

percussion sound.s consist,

Hovever, the fact that

good approximation,
tronical-ly,

fn principle,

of d.a.mped
oscil-lations

makes it

means of dedicated. hardvare.

which are easy to produce elec-

to generate these sounds separately,

vorthvhile

This solution

to the synthesis of sounds of higher conplexity.

as viIl

appear bel-ov.

ft

of a trigger/envelope

driver

al-so offers

allocated
the benefit

Figure 2) shovs the basic percussion circuit

sists

by

is intended to reduce the work-

load of the voice nodul-es, so that they can be more efficiently

of simpler control,

to a

configuration,

and a phase-shift

vhich con-

oscillator.

Norrnally

switch Ql is open and. Cl- is charged at -15 V.

The base netvork

such that,

is unable to sustain oscil--

urtder these conditions,

d.ue to insuffieient

lation

The arriva.l
ground..

the circuit

base bias to keep Q2 on.

of a trigger

puJ-se causes QJ-to cl-ose and discharge CI to

The vol-tage step nov appearing across R2 is large

in the active

region,

vhere the circuit

fhe frequency of oscillation

of Q2 is

enough to bias Q2

is capable of sustained. oscillations.

is d.etermined. by the components incl-uded in the

feedback network of Q2.

After

qharge again to -11 V, at a rate

voltage

pulse,

relqovnl of the trigger

transition

of oscillation

gradually

QI is opened. and Cl is alLowed to

deterrnined by Rt, R2 and Cl- itself.

turns

Q2 off,

via R2, and causes the amplitud.e

to und.ergo a smooth d.ecay to zero.

'eteruined by the rate

This

The rate

at vhieh CI charges to -15 V.

\

of decay is

Resistors

R3 and Rb

L2K
R5
2N3638

our

2N 3566

o2

IOK

3 .3 V

LT

o.ov

l MS

- tsv
o.,

Fi gure

21.

B asi c

P ercussi on

C i rcui t.

- ::* ....:;- f,:r

69
set the point
The trimer

at which the anplitude

shown is used. for

final

Thus, vhenever the circuit

series

family

of percussion

tuning

configuration

choosing the various

can be easily

emits a
component

adapted" to span an entire

As sn g).nynF1e,the following

have been used. to synthesize

Cl =
C2 =
C3 =
Cl+=
C5 /

Rl=220k
R2=l-M
R? = 2 2 M

R4=100k
R5=150k
Figure 25 shows the simplifierl

circuit

The control- portion

involves

by a variable-modulus

counter.

l-over memory specifies

be struck

in sequence.

intensity

vith

Circuit

pu1se, it

instruments l-ike bass d.rums, tom-toms, bongos, claves,

component vafues that

para1l:I

of the pereussion pitch.

By properly

wood.-blocks, congas and. castanets.

ensemble.

reaches the zero value.

is struck by a trlgger

of d"a.urped
osciJ-l-ations.

val-ues, the snme basic

of oscillation

the pattern

which each instrurent

is rather

pulse from the orchestra

duration

a bongo:

.05 uF
.0033 uF
.0033 uF
.0033 uF
750 pF

schematic of an entire

tvo read./write
The information

percussion

menories ad.dressed in
resid.ing in the

according to vhich the instn:ments

The information

operation

are the

of the upper memory deternines

are to
the

is to be struck.

straightforward..

The arrivaf

of a cfock

controL steps the counter, and. causes two

new vord.s of data to appear at the outputs of the respective memories.

vord. from the upper memory, after
the proper foudness.
that

the 1 ns trigger

instrr:ment.
pattern

D/A conversion,

The vord. from the lover

Thus a sequence of clock pulses results

of percussion

sound.s. Pattern length

coulter,

whieh

can be progrnmmed externally.

for

memory sets up the decoder so

pulse enitted. by the one-shot

the

prograns the attenuator

The

is d.irected to the proper

in the generation of a

is detemined by the modulus of

WRITE
ENABLE

WE
SI

PRO G RAM M

16X4 BIT Sz
RAM
s3
(7489)

/
ATTENUATOR
LOCATOR

OUTPUTS

S4

QA

VARIABLE
MODULUS Qg
COUNTER o.
"
( 74193)

PERCUSSION
INSTRUMENT

#o

Oe
CK
SI

16X4BlT
RAM
(7489)

DURATION
CLOCK

s2
s3
S4

s 4-T0-16
DECODER
t (z x 7 4 1 5 5 )

a
a
o

o
o
a

MIXER

Y Is

WE

a
o
o

a
a

WRITE
ENABLE

IOOns
ONE- SHOT

Ims
ONE- SHOT

t.r74rz3l

( + 74 1 2 3
)

^/
Figure 26.

PERCUSSION
INSTRUM
EI'JT
#i5

--il
O

Percussion Ensembl-e.

IL

Being provided" vith

read/write

capabilities,

both memories can be inde-

pend'ently updated to accornmodatenev patterns.

prograrnrnabi.lity of the counter,
vid'e variety
vhile

makes the circuit

of rhybtrns and patterns.

the percussion

1ems, the lead.ing ed.ge of the d.uration clock

a sharp puJ-se by the 100 ns one-shot,

The entire
' cl-ock.

percussion

into

suitable

together
for

vith

the

generating

Memory upd.ating can be carried. out

ensembl-e is in action.

at the memory data-inputs

This fact,

To avoid. synchronization
is

folloved

which strobes

the menory register

ensemble is silenced

prob-

by the emission of

the infornation
being currently

by disabling

vaiting
add.ressed..

the duration

I1

VI.

5. f

S pat ia l -

SOUNDDISTRIBTNIONAND SWITCHING

S o u n d D i s tri b u ti o n .

T he f o u r-c h a n n e l f or

t he

in

c on tro l -

ex panded by th e

are then

of

a d d i ti o n

hardvare

to

d.rive

different

l-ocations

output

complexity

than

an effect

one pos it ion

permuti.ng

to

the

c e. n s nenif v

th e

order

n e x t,

S ound. ro u ti n g

which

r equir e s

only

one bit

sirabl-e fea+uure in that

vithin
tates

it

manageable l-imits.

of

nuch greater

of

by sor:.nd

offered.

a sound from
By

l oudspeaJrers.

grouped

into

chains,

one

c o ntrol

naintains

B ei ng

i nfornati on,

the overal]

or

audi o

a tw o-state

and thi s

is

inforraation

gates,

as

devi ce,
a hi ghl y

a
de-

reouirements

Thus, a complete sound.routing

system necessi--

24 aud.io gates, each gate being assigned to control

the presence or

entire

sound distribution

To set a d.istribution
be properly
cular

is

anal -og gates,

absence of sound on a correspond.ing channel.

ot

are

sound traffi c.

b e te rme d. henceforth.

which

area.

by switching

are

elements

Spatial

situations

consecuti ve

l-oud.speakers

h a n d l -e d b y neans of

p ro p e rl y
,t liey wil- l- m o re
gat e

of

are

pow er

w i th

loud.speakers

One exemple

produced

a chai n

the

n e .th s o f
is

performarlce

spatiaJ

instn:ment

the

loudspeaker.

the

i ntended

For operati on

each compl ete

various

system.

along

of

the

can handle

can be readily

that

n rh i tre rv

channe} s,

throughout

nri mori .l y

si tuati ons.

capabilities

sound.s to

quadraphonic

in

output

a correspond.ing

configuration
the

studi o-type

2 4 d i screte

by routing

This

in

the

controlled

placed, at

traffic,

s o u n d l o c a ti o n

environments,

concert-hal-I

araplifying

of

iq

s y stem d.i scussed. ssrl i pr

o u tp u t

pattern

pattern

assigned to control

The register
the state

the specifieation

can be done with 2l+ bits

of data.

in motion, the associated inforuation

proeessed, and a suitable

shift-register.

Accordingly,

d.evice to perforn this

consists

task is a cir-

of 2l+ cell-s, each eell

of a corresponding

audio gate.

must

ft

is

being
also

T3
provid.ed. with

paral1e1 load facilities

bution patterns.
register

cells

throughout

the performance space.

To offer

Thus, shifting

sound, pattern

of motion i.s d.etermined by the d.irection

six shorter registers,

by pernuting

are joined together.

Pernutation

of a 5 x 6 lnterconnection

serial

one, the serial

input

matrix.

any other register,

including

Although this

paths, the shift-register

the order
patterns

14o"s gemplex

are progrgmmed by means

bit

register

of the matrix

is

is d.iverted. to the

Thus each register

can be connected. to

itself.

scheme d.oes not exhaust all

possible

can be specified. with a systen of 2\ loud.spealrers, it

to satisfy

is

in which the shorter

When the (irJ)-tn

output fron the i-th

of the J-th register.

around the

of shift.

as shovn in Figure 2J.

sound. paths are then specified

at logic

pattern

a bit

to move around. the loud^speaker

a wider choice of sound traffic

broken d.ovn into

registers

of sor:nd distri-

defines a corresponding chain of loudspeakers extending

The direction

chain.

entry

The order in which the gates are assigned. to consecutive

causes ari identicnl-

register

for the d.irect

a wid.e range of musica1 need.s vithout

paths that

traffic

offers

enough variety

rend.ering control

unclear

or too complex.
To preserve
provided vith
trol

spatial

and movement of its

the sounds pertaining

orchestras

system, so that

sowrd distributlon

it

is

can con-

own patterns
system is

The systen has four input busses, each of which carries

to one of the four orchestras.

by the quadraphonic output

and

each of the four

sounds accord.ing to its

A block d.iagram of the entire

shown in Figure 28.

orchestra

individuality,

an independ.ent sound d.istribution

the l-ocation

and rates.*

its

systen discussed earlier.

to one of the quadraphonic outputs

* The sound d.istribution

Borovec.

These busses are driven

The assigrunent of each

is acecmplished by proper

controL system 1ta6 d.esigned by J. Divilbiss

CONT RO L

6 x6

I NP UT S

TO

A UDI O

GATES

COM M UT AT ING M AT RIX

Figr:re 2J.

Distribution

Control System'

AU D IO IN P U T S

C ON TR O L

I N P U TS

LO UDSPEAKER
*l

C O' { TR OL

IN P U TS

a
a

LO UDSPEAKER
+?4

-.1
\I

Figure 28.

Sound Distribution

Systen.

T6
initialization
loeator

6.2

of the d.irectional

control

inputs

to the various

deviees.

Audio switchins.
As shown in the btock d.iagran of Figure 28, the real-ization

d.istribution

system requi-res a total

of 96 audio gates.

magnitud.e, the cost per gate plays an important

cuit

attenuator/

realization

With a number of this

in the choice of the cir-

role

to be adopted..

An aud.io gate, besid.es satisfying

tortion,

of the sound.

high on-to-off

must al-so exhibit

transfer

specific

such obvious requirements

ratio,

transient

and l-ov control

signal

as lov d.isfeed.through,

in ord.er to ensure pro-

charaeteristics

per audio svitching.

The last requirement is motivated by the fact that
)
when a sound is switched on or off, spurious partials
are generated which
may alter

the tonal

in connection vith
As Fourier

charaeter of the sound.consid.erably, as has been discussed

sound. enveloping.

analysis

ing sound switching

reveal-s, the a.mount of spurious partials

usually

increases with the rate

or d.ecays. Thus, unwanted svitching

ing gates vith
control,

l-ov switching

however, it

effects

speeds.

is desirable

From the viewpoint

requirements

Analog gates based. on solid-state,

sistors

or Vactrols

svitching

characteristics

application.
factor

that

usual-ly exhibit

up

reduced by enploy-

of sound novement

gates so that

switched around the performance space at arbitrary

tween the tvo confl-icting

at which sound builds

can be easily

to have fast

accompany-

rates.

sounds can be

A conpromise be-

can be d,etermined. experinentally.

electro-optical

predetermined

devices like

and highly

Ray-

asynmetrical

vhich rend.er these components rmsuited to the present

The cost of these d.evices at the time of design was al-so a key
contributed

to their

reJection.

Analog gates of the FE"I or MOS

TT
type must be ru.l-ed.out because of their
a sinple

and inexpensive

The specifications

circuit

high svitching

configirration

speed.s and the lack of

to slov them dorrn.

set forwarcl above ltave been raet rrith variable-trans-

conductance transistor

pairs.

vices are set to their

prescribed val-ues by means of simple RC networks, as

shown in Figure 2p.

The switching characteristics

To illustrate

circuit
pair

gate, which consists of transistor

The gain or transmission

$lq2

and., hence, the transmission

When the controf

and bi-asing transistor

foll-ower,

its

coll-ector

This vol-tage is in turn controlled. by current

is high,

input

Ql+.
current
current

of the gate, is nod.ulated by the voltage applied

Q3 is on and. its

a voJ-tage d,rop across D2 and. R2 in series,

controf

consid.er the first

of the gate is d.e+uermined

by the col-lector

of Ql+. Since q)+ is connected. as a.n emitter

to the base of Q\.

operation,

of these de-

input is l-ow, t:"ansistor

Q3 is off,

to tire absence of col-lector current

collector

switch QS.

current

d.evelops

which biases Ql+on al-so.

a.ndthis

When the

causes q\ to be off,

d.ue

from Q3 to keep the base netvork of Qh

bias ed.
Although Q3 is switched. from one state to the other at logic
voltage transitions

at the base of Q4 are sloved down by darnFing capacitor

Thus, gate transmission

acteristics

builds

of an RC element.

up and decays aecord.ing to the transient

The switching time-constant

C = L2 ms, vltere rO is the d.ynamic resistance of d.iode DI .

value represents
movement and that

a satisfactory
for

rapidly

Henee it

fast

sound

red.uction.

prevents the coll-ector

to zero when the voltage

char-

This tine-constant

compromise between the need. for

spurious partials

C.

equals (ne -+ rD)

Diode D1 compensates for the presence of the base-to-enitter

drop of Q\.

speed, the

current

of Q\ fron

voltage
falling

too

at the base of Q)+decays belov the value of

2 X 2N 3566

8AL ANCEO
O U TP U TS

TR A N S I S TO R A R R A Y S
2 x cA3054

Figure

29.

QuadruPle

Aud-io Gate.

--t

79
a Junction

voltage

Trinrmer RI is used. to adJust for

drop.

zero dc offset

at

the gate output.

The outputs
ing eollectors

gates are mixed. together

from the four

pairs

of the transistor

of a quadrupJ-e audio gate requires

The bal,anced outputs

in para}J.el.

The circuit

tvo CA305l+transistor

from the gates are buffered

by common-basetransistors

Q5 and Q5.

of the gates near zero potential

the pover dissipated

by the transconcluctence pairs.

the primary

its

i"n a form of coupling

is particularly

grarnmedfor

fast

progralmed. for

d.c offset

Tire task of converting

single-ended signal

amplifier

vhen the d.istri-bution

of the locator

above, control

signal

is,

as vel-l-, resulting
Control

feed-

controll-er

is pro-

at the sane tine,

is progremmed.

are autonatically

off.

feedthrough is main-

from the buffers

into

to drive an 8Q-Ioudspeaker is accomplished by

The circuit

consists of the usual- dj.fferentiaL

and a power stage to boost 15s "mFlifier

of thermal

the

sienal- l-evel-.

the bafanced outputs

suitable

of Figure 30.

the prevention

constitutes

Ind.eed., when a gate is

to the output.

trisrrner shoirn is used. to adJust the quiescent

for

vhich

because, whenever the attenuator

illustrated

is to

minimize

This problem does not arise in connection vith

tained nore than 6O al be]ov full

the circuit

input

the transconductance pairs

With the precaution

as shorm.

Thls precaution i.s taken

sor.rndmovement a.nd loudness control

a rest.

arrays,

and, therefore,

is svitched. on or off

noticeable

progra.rmrable attenuator/Iocator
for a rest,

feedthrough.

of the eontrol

realization

to the subsequent stage

of the dc output offset

cause of controJ- signal

switched. on or off,

tlrough

variations

correspond.-

The purpose of these transistors

keep the coLlectors

to recluce temperature

by tying

nrnavay.

drive capability.

current

The

of the pover stage

Pover stage and loud.speaker are d.c

+ I5V

TO 8J}
LO UO SPEAKER

BALANCED
INPUTS

2N4898

* l,,tATcxED
REslsroRs

- l5v

Fi gure

30.

P ow er A nP l i fi er'

'(,,9 x ,refi \)

ezTs pr"plrB+s Jo prsoq lTncrTc-pe+uTrd

a18u1s uo pa?Epoumocc.t11sae aJts Ot prits 6Z sa.rn31g Jo s+TncJTc eq;

'uor+clrnJTu JeTJTldne lsule8e
sasrui-VT olr&

TA
LU

'.rolrcedec

ta:leadspnol eq+ +ca+o.rd o1 pasn aJ

Sulldnoaep .{q1nq E Jo asn eq? ?ue^a.rd o1 paldnoc

82

VII.

T.I

M us ic a l

P a ra m e te r

COMROL SYSTEM

C o n tro l .

presented so far has d.eal-t prinarily

The material

with circuits

and

techniques for the synthesis and processing of sound.s. To make musical paraneter control
digital

possible,

or analog control

progralnmed.externally.
cuit

modules encountered. respond to some form of

all

vhich allows their

equitempered pitch
d.igital
inputs.

alf

control

fi:nctions

are speci-

generators,

envelope generators and

d.uration controll,ers,
are already

equipped. with

progra.rnmable

digitally

needs to be clone, then, is to feed. these control- inputs vith

Al-l that

a strenm of binary

info::mation

as reflected.

of the proper word. length.

Most of the para-

however, are of a continuous, rather

meters of rnusical interest,

acteristics

vork,

Several of the sound modufes encountered., nnrnely,

form.

waveshape generators,

crete nature,

d.etail hov these cir-

progrannned.in order to prod.uce music.

As stated. at the beginning of this

digital

to be

characteristics

We shal-l nov examine in greater

paremeters are actually

fied. in purely

electronic

by tire fact

that

the correspond.ing circuit

are control-l-ed.by analog voltages instead. of digital

make these parameters accessible

to d.igital

than a d.is-

To

signals.

artalog sound modul-es

control,

must be preceded by a proper d,igital-to-analog

char-

interface.

This task is

accomplished by means of piece-wise l-inear function

generators of the same

type as those used. in the generation

Although these devices

of envelopes.

were discussed in connection with loudness control

their

most illustrative

far more general

application,

applicability,

piece-vise

in that

because that

function

is probably

generators are of

they can be used. to controf

the time

evol-ution of any analog parameter.

This generalized
tinuous

quantities

notion

results

of envelope for the uniforu

in a high d.egree of control

control

of all

con-

as ve1l as hard.a'are

8?

The use of this

standardization.

Indeed., had the inter-

meters to be control-J.ed are the enve}ope breakpoints.

the quantities

face consisted. of straight

D/A converters,

vou-ld have been individual

envelope samples, a task that

treated. as progrpmmabfe devices that

Regardless of their
trol

nature,

respond to purely

significance

binery

sequences.

series of binary

As inplied

by its

uniform,

of a

sequence consists

narne, a control

spaced in time at determinate,

This control

time intervals.

tended to be of enough generality

the dynamic con-

in a uniform manner by means of

vord.s which are successively

but not necessari-ly

control-.

d.igital

and vord-Iength,

of mrlsical- parsrneters is acconplished

a much

involves

sound modufes may nov be

of the above d.iscussion, all

In the light

to be specified

of breakpoints.

than the mere specification

higher data-rate

si.nce the para-

reduction,

data-rate

modufes al-so resul-ts in a significant

analog

to control

type of interface

in-

approach is

as to leave the progrpmming of solrnd

systems end techniques for

modufes open to a broad choice of digital

1ts

iurplementat j-on.
Binary

sequences are generated. by progra.mable

the human operator.

Depend.ing on the structural

sequences are cI&ssified

music, control

Microstructural-

hr:nan control
word generators

at vhich

as microstructural

changes ancl, hence, are the sequences that

change at rates

level

control

as shown in Figure 31.

and. by

they affect

or macrostructural.

ind.ivid.ual para^neter

sequences are those effecting

sound. modufes d.irectly,

vord generators

the characteristics

Since perceptual

of

parameters

in the range of 1 to 100 Hz, these sequences are too fast

in rea-l-tine.
that

Macrostructural

are built

Hence microstructural
into

sequences are generated by

the system.

seouences an'e used to manipulate microstructural

ouences for the creation

of more complex nusical

for

structures.

se-

To meke this

P R OG R AM M ABLE
S EQ U ENCE
G ENER ATO R
( MAC R OSTR U C T URE
)
P RO G RA MMA B LE
S E Q UE NCE
G E NE RA T O R

INFORMATION
STEERING

( Mr c Ro s r RUCT U)R E

O PER ATO R

Figure

31.

Bl-ock Diagram

of

Sound' Module

Contror'

SOUND
MODULE

8>
possible,

lxenipulation

selves external-l-y prograJmabl-e.

l-ower tining

which nay typically

rates,

These are rates

the control

music at a higher l-evelby

be of the order of .01- to 1 Hz.

perform control

can conforbably

Hence, the generation

of microstructural

are them-

sequences are characterized

at which a hunan operator

in real--time.

actions

Since they affect

mFCTostructural

complexity:

of structural

sequence generators

microstructural

alI

of macrostructurnl

sequences for

sequence generators is mad.eaccessible to the

operator.
the operator earr delegate the generation of macrostruc-

so desired,

If

also provid.ed. vith

generated. by the operator

information

nacrostructuraf

control

the information

To al-l-ow higher
erators
operator

steering

l-evels of control

to the

associated. witb

The specification

of

is to be generated manually or automatin terms of one-bit

sequences to

device, vhich consists of data selectors.

complexity,

are al-so programrnable. However, their

macrostructural

sequenee gen-

progra.nming,is done by the

exclusively.

Prograrnnabl-e Binary Sequence Generation.

A device that

tion

which is call-ed manual.

is expressed. by the operator himself

ically

J-n addition

The information

is

the latter

sequences is calJ-ed autornatic, as opposed to that

these macrostructural

vhether

task,

sequence generators,

macrostructriral

ones alread.y discussed..

rnicrostructural-

'f .2

To harrd.l-ethis

sequences to the system itself.

tural

of binary

has proved to be particirlarly

controf

sequences, both in terms of simplicity

the feed.back shif"b-register.

vord. sequences, this
circuit

vhich

for the genera-

attractive

'As

and cost,

is

shovn i.n Figure 32 for the case of \-bit

device consists of a shift-register

computes the next value of the serial- input

and a conbinational
as a funetion

of

86

P A R A LLE L

F i g u re

32.

OU TP U TS

Feedback S hi ft-regi ster.

P AR ALLE L OU TP U TS
SE OUEN C E
TIMING
CK

PARALLEL
I
LoAD 1

Q^

rNPUrs
t

c
0t

7 4 t9 4

MODET
CONTROL
I
,

Qc

so

0o

tl Y'

FE E D B A C K FU N C TION
S E LE C T

Figure

33.

Progrq,rmable Sequence Generator.

A'T

vl

the present

state of the register.

goes a transition
ries

from one state to another,

the register

.l i r-n+'l
s4f
ev

vrJ

through an entire

so that

at the output

lines

car-

Thus, by using a

musical- para.meters

rr .

and vil1

not be discussed.in detail here.

out that,

in general,

a whole fanily

of different

than a fixed

a register
d.ifferent

Once a particuJ-ar

l i tera-

can genfeed.back

Thus, the versatility

can be consid.erably expanded if

feedback function

the

ft nay suffice to point

sequences, and that

famil-ies of sequences.

a feedback shift-register

in

i nvesti gated

with a given feed.back function,

yie1d. different

firnctions

rather

a series of shifts

can be used to control

s e q u e n c e s h a v e been vi del y

erate

und.er-

the sequence of words

S hif t - r egis te r

,3\
ture-

the register

sequence of states.

with paralJ.el output facilities,

shift-regi-ster
appearing

At every shift-pulse

of

a progra.umrable

is used.

feedback function

has been prograJmed, the register

can be initialized.

to any one of the sequences of the correspond.ing family

by loading

a r,rord.of that

register
tional

it

with

sequence.

is provid.ed. with parallel-load

shift-register

right

from left

ture of being periodic.

for a different

the

The use of a bid.irecof this

are generalty

d.evice, since

different

from those

sequences enjoy the musically

This means that

itself

after

a sufficient

over and over again, until

attraetive

fea-

number of shifts,

the system is programmed

seouence.

A convenient

way of inplernenting

means of a modulo-2 ad.der vith

can be easily

shifts

possible,

shifts.

Feedback shif'b-register

a sequence repeats

facilities.

also increases the versatility

the sequences resulting

obtained vith

To nake this

"ho*2?

that

a prograrrmable feed.back flrnction

prog3nnrmabfs patterns

the periodic

lengths

of active

inputs.

is by
It

of the sequences obtained.

88
with this

class of feedback functions

shift-register

length.

are bound.edUy 2n-t,

where n is the

of a l+-lit

Figure 33 shovs the real-ization

word se-

quence generator based on the above ideas.

By exploiting

the options made avail-abl-e by the various

inputs,

control

the same device can be progremmedto generate a broad class of control

quences.
own.

In general,

each sequence posesses a musical significance

Hence, the generator offers

se-

of its

a set of basic composi-tional elements which

can be easiJ-y nanipulated. by the improviser

to create more complex musical

structures.
In ord.er to satisfy
is necessary that

musical parameters be progrnmmable over vide

Ilowever, in defining
use only ]imited

a class of musical need.s as broad as possible,

a particular

portions

quences can be musically

can be constrained

musieaf context,

within

appropriate

Since feedback shift-registers

biasing

as such, this

achieve this

and a l-east-significant

separately,

the first

microstructural
within

l-inits

vith

sequence.

Thus, control

se-

or wind.ovs.

do not offer

the bits

significant

to

the associated strearn of information

facilities

task nust be handled ind.ependently.

goal is to partition

dynanric ranges.

the composer is 1ikely

of the d.ynamicranges available.

useful- only if

it

of a control

for

information

A simple vay to

word into

a most-

group, and to handle the two groups

a macrostructural

sequence and the second with

This causes the resul-ting

information

to be biased

wind.ovs vhose width is d.eternined by the tength of the least-signifi-

cant portion
trol}ed

of each vord., and vhose position

by the most-significant

strained

enough for

others,

to be of fixed vid.ths.

the total- range is con-

d.ata.

Although adequate"for the control

not sophisticated

vithin

of certain

parnmeters, this

due to the fact

that

scheme is

vind.ows are con-

89
A more flexible

seheme of inforuation

biasing

relies

on progremmable

windov d.etectors, as shovn in Figure 3l+ for the case of 4-bit

d.etector output
within

results

the linits

in an assertion

prescribed. at the control

be incorporated- into

readily

of entire

control

sequences within

iffustrated.

only a centralized.

write

inputs.

that

arbitrarily

infornation

Hence, this

falls

scheme for the biasing

progrnrnmable vindows.

are equippeci with

set of devices of this

The

d.evice carr

all- the progra.urning

above possess a substantial- number of control

quences are then transferred

for

the input

an inforuation-fil-tering

Since sequence generators

facilities

only if

worcis.

type is used.

The related

inputs n
se-

to loca.l memories, where they are recirculated

dynamic paremeter control.

These peripheral

memories consist

IC memories ad.d.ressed.by progrFmmgble-nodulus counters,

i].]-ustrated in connection vith

the controf

of read/

in the manner

of percussion sowrds.

U 1 U2 U3 U4

Bt

82

83

84

74 8 5

A >B

At

A2

A4

At

A2 A3 A4

A3

xt
x2
x3
X4

74 8 5

A<B

B1

82

84

Ll

L2 L 3 L 4

83

W = 1<=+L SX

Figure 34.

Digital

Windov Detector.

9t

VITI.

CONCLUSION

A hardware system has been presented. vhieh allows for the conposition
Real--time operation is achieved by a

of el-ectronic music in real--tirne.

partition

proper functional

assigns analog hardvare to the synthesis

vhich

hardvare to the control

of sounds and digital

and processing

Throughout the d.esign of the system partieular

parameters.

been placed. on assuring wid,e ranges of sound quality

of nusical
emphasis has

as vell- as flexibility

of parameter control.
The use of sophisticated

hardware made available

has ]ed. to the devel-opment of sound modufes that

of tonal- and instn:mental
analog synthesizers.
of loudspeakers

d.istributed

throughout

i'nmersion and involvement

afford

technologl

a much richer

range

than obtainabl-e from present-day

the output

F\rthernore,

new approach to the spatial-

tivety
total-

possibilities

by recent

configuration

based on a system
a rela-

the performance space offers

of sound.s and ensures a

characterization

with the sor:nd/space environ-

of the listener

ment.
of generalized. envelope functions

fhe adoption

of continuous musical quantities

formity,

in tirat

lO0 Hz or less.

While involving

nization

of control

by clocking

low d.ata-rate,

a reiatively

as not to put definite

systems to be used. for the control

The structriral

uni-

can be

Parnrneter control- is based on the notion

sequences, which are characterized

is afso of enough generality

of digital

introd.uces a high degree of controf

a1l para.neters, be they d.iscrete or continuous'

handled in the same m&nner.

crete control

for the dynamic control

nature of music allows

which is particularly

rates
this

constraints

of d.is-

of about
approaeh

on the type

of sound noduies.

a correspondingly
significant

structured

in the real-time

orga-

a2

between

interaction
general

composer/perforuer

d.istinction

between

s pons ibilit ie s

that

inc r eas in g

ef f ec t

technolory

c o mp l e x i ty

on e l -e c tro n i c

m ic r oc om pu te rs ,
of

t iies e

control-

t al1y
f ar

it

devices
system

is

to

or ien te d .,
m or e a c c u ra te

of

it

t ir e nex t

c ont r of f ing
is

t he

it

is

since

continues

d esi rabl -e

s y nth e s i s

cost

is

v i l -l
of

analog

to

vi th

the

so that

that

the

ci rcui ts.

speculate

that

of

appearance

to

of

use one or more

sophi sti cati on

hardware

of the

Technolory

and techniques.

property

i ntri nsi c
In the
the

l i ght

efectronic

of bei ng
of

these

music

general -purpose

speci al -purpose

sound.s

,systems

sound modul es become more di gi -

enal og

p e ri p heral ,

re-

have a si gni fi cant

recent

feasi bl -e

b e based. on a central ,

a n d p ro c e s s i n g

se-

and digital

bound to

s y stems enJoy the

d i g i ta l -

seems appropriate

a c o l l e c ti o n

market

al.so sorrnd. processing

highly

control

work can be expand.ed further.2S

this

a n d s ta b l -e th a n

g e n e ra ti o n

to

s o u nd modul es,

affect

between operator

bafance

n o w b e c o m i ng economi cal l y

in

respect,

can be achi eved..

F o r i nstance,

p ro g rn m

outl-ined

r es p e c t,

remarks,

a proper

a n d c o mpeti ti ve

mu s i c .

advartces are bound to

I n t ir is

so that

a n d m a c h i n e re s p onsi bi l i ti es

The fact
of

and macrostructural

microstructural

quences has been emphasized

In this

and instrument.

computers

systems

computer
vhose task

93

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Moog, R. A., "Electronic Music: Its Composition and Perfoma,nce t "
Electronics World, February )-967.

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Friend, D., I'The AIIP Synthesizer:

A New Instrument for Musical- Cornposition and Performance,rr A-ESPreprint #T\2 (B-3), Audio Engineering
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Chowning, J. M., "The Synthesis of Complex Audio Spectra by Means of

Frequency Mod.ulationr" J. Aud.io Engineering Society, VoI . 2I ,
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t - ^a

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lt-.

Gibbons, J. F. and H. S. Horn, "A Circuit vith Logarithmic

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t_4.

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Applica-

Gil-bert, B.,'rComment on tsingle-Ended.-fnput Single-Ended-0utput FourIEEE J. Sol_id.-State Circuits, Vol. SC-],

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lb.

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l- 7.

B r ut o n ,
L.
T ra n s .

-a

l l Yr '- .i

ll

R esi storsr"

S i l i coni x,

Inc.,

^ ' -.

T ., " El e c tro n i c al l y
Tunabl e A nal og A cti ve Fi l tersr"
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C i rc u i t

fE E E

16.

IEEE
Sparkes, R. G. and A. S. Sedra, "Progra.nmabl-eActive Filters,"
J. Solid-State Circuits, Vo1. SC-8, pp. 93-9r, February 1973.

l-9.

Kaehler, J. A., "Periodic-Switched Filter Networks - A Means of Anplifying and Varying Transfer Functions," IEEE J. SoIid-State Circuits,
Vol-.SC-l+r pp. 225-230, August L969.

20.

2I .

tt!1

tt

---n

s.

#
.:r
'i

''!f

.L

Kerwin, W. J., L. P. Huelsman, and. R. W. Nevcomb, "State-Variable Synthesis for fnsensitive Integrated Circuit Transfer Functions,"
IEEE J. Sol-id-State Circuits, Vol. SC-2, pp. Bl-92, September t96'1.
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May 197I.

23.

Geffe, P. R., "Toward High Stability

Vol-. 7, pp. 5Z-65, May 1970.

24.

Oneil, B., "A Precision Four Quadrant l{ultiplier,"

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25.

Wil-son, G. R., "A Monolithic Junction FET-NPNOperational Amplifier,"

t96B Internatfl.
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pp. 2O-2I.

^a
26.

.
lt^
^^^^6^
- ,.
W it t l i n g e r,
H . A., " Ap p l- .i cati ons
of the C
A 30b0 H
i gh-P erformance
ti o n a l
T ra n s c o n d .u c ta n ce A mpl i fi ers
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27.

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IEEE J. So1id.-State Circuits, Vo1. SC-T,
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22,

^t

tt

"

G olo m b , S. W ,,
t o Az
+/v

in Active Fil-ters,"

Sh j -ft

R e g i ster

S equences,

tt

IEEE Spectnrm,

Intersil,
-

H ol d.en-D ay,

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ii

Inc.,

,^
:

OperaC i rcuit s

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{
:;

i;

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Franco, S.,
Internal

"The Oberlin Hybrid. ProJectr"

Memo, June l-9?]+.

Oberlin Conservatory of Music

4
M

tr
1tr'

VITA

Sergio Franco was born in Capriva del" Friuli,

eastern Italy.
taught

After

Fel-l-owship to continue his

of north-

of Rome, he

tn I95T he was awarded

stud,ies in the USA.

the Department of Physics of Clark University,

lforcester,

He first

Joined.

Massachusetts, as

vhere he earaed. a M.A. degree in Physics in the area

a teaching assistant,

of tlre Mcjssbauereffect.

Il-linois

village

grad.uation in Physics from the University

high school- Mathematics and Physics in Rome.

a Fulbright

ac III

& rural

In 1968 and 1959 he rras associated vith

the I11i-

ProJect at the Department of Computer Science of the University

at Urbana, vhere he designed the analog circuitry

play System. After

Uni-versity

attending

of

of the Scan/Dis-

graduate courses in Conputer Science at the

of Toronto during the years 1970 and ]-9TI, he returned

to the

Urbana ca.mpus,vhere he becane associated with the Coordinated Science

Laboratory

and. the School- of Music.

in the area of electronic

composer, Salvatore
scribed in this

music.

Martirano,

thesis.

Since then,

his main interest

During 1971 and L972 he worked with the

in the d.evelopment of the musical

In f973 he joined the Oberlin

Music vhere he teaches courses in analog and digital

Music Systems, and is currently
computer controlled

has been

system d.e-

Conservatory of

d.esign of Electronic

developing the Oberlin Hybrid. Project,

systen for the corrposition of music in real-time.

Mr. Franco has published a number of articles

in Physics and in Electronics.