PHONOGENE
Limited WARRANTY: Make Noise warrants this product to be free of defects in materials or construction for a period of one year from the date of purchase (proof of purchase/invoice required). Malfunction resulting from wrong power supply voltages, backwards power cable connection, abuse of the product or any other causes determined by Make Noise to be the fault of the user are not covered by this warranty, and normal service rates will apply.
Installation: The Make Noise Phonogene is an electronic signal processor/ generator requiring 70mA of +/-12V regulated power and properly formatted distribution receptacle to operate. It is designed to be used within the euroformat modular synthesizer system. Go to http://www.doepfer.de/a100_man/a100t_e.htm for the details of this format.
OVERVIEW The Phonogene is a digital re-visioning and elaboration of the tape recorder as musical instrument. It takes its name from a little known, one of a kind instrument, used by composer Pierre Schaeffer. While it is not an emulation, it does share the primitive, tactile nature of its namesake, and expands upon the original concepts.
3 4 5 1 2 22 6 23 7 8 24 5 25 9 10 11 12 26 7 27 9 28 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 PHONOGENE Panel Controls 1. Signal IN Rotary Level Control: For Line Level set at 70% CW, and for 10Vpp at set 30% CW. Faceplate is marked accordingly. 2. Signal IN: Line Level or typical Modular Synth levels acceptable. AC Coupled. 3. Sound On Sound CV IN: sets mix of previously recorded Loop with Live Signal input when recording, to allow for Sound on Sound type “overdubs.
PHONOGENE Panel Controls (cont’d) 8. VARI-SPEED CV IN: bipolar speed and direction control where 0V stops playback, positive control signal increases playback speed in forward direction, negative control signal increases playback speed in reverse direction. Range +/-4V. 9. VARI-SPEED Bipolar Panel Control: manual bipolar speed and direction control.
PHONOGENE Panel Controls (cont’d) 22. SLIDE Bipolar Panel Control: manual bipolar panel control for scanning the pieces of sound that result from setting Gene-Size to greater than 10%. Moves/ slides through the Genes (aka grains). Allows for scrubbing of the recorded material and is always dependent upon the GENE-SIZE setting. 23. SLIDE CV IN: bipolar control input for SLIDE. Range +/-4V. 24. SLIDE CV IN Attenuvertor: bipolar attenuator for SLIDE. 25.
GETTING STARTED Erase Routine It is best to start with a cleared memory. To Reset the Phonogene and start fresh you need to enter the Erase Routine, where you may erase Splice markers and the Audio Buffer (aka Loop, aka Recording, aka Sample). To erase all Splices, press and hold SPLICE button (18) until the REC LED (17) starts flashing. All Splices are erased once the REC LED begins flashing.
Recording Process The RECord control toggles record on/ off. Starting with a Cleared Memory, pressing the RECord Button (16) once (or sending a single Pulse to RECord Pulse IN, 15) starts the recording process, and pressing RECord Button again (or sending a second, single Pulse to RECord Pulse IN) stops the recording process. If the end of the Audio Buffer is reached before the user stops recording, RECord automatically stops.
It is possible to manually Splice into the microsound range (down to about 10ms). This is an excellent technique to experiment with since it allows for many different sizes, where as GENE-SIZE parameter sets a uniform size for all pieces. Additionally ORGANIZE treats Splices differently than the SLIDE treats the Gene, since ORGANIZE will wait until the current Splice reaches the end before moving to the next selected Splice. This often has less glitches as the sound is traversed.
Microsound Microsound includes sounds shorter than musical notes, and yet longer than single samples. The sound is essentially a cluster of samples contained in an amplitude envelope. The Phonogene offers two methods “Micromontage” and “Granulation.” Micromontage is done manually using the SPLICE function to cut the sound into pieces, and the ORGANIZE parameter asynchronously plays through those pieces. It is possible to splice sounds down to 10ms.
Chronological Inspection of the Sound DNA Using the GENE-SHIFT Clock/ Pulse IN (27) it is possible to play through the Genes in Chronological order. This is Synchronous Granulation. At the rising edge of each Clock or Pulse, the Phonogene will jump to the next Gene, and will play that Gene at the rate and direction determined by VARI-SPEED, until the next Clock or Pulse arrives at the GENE-SHIFT IN. Modulating VARI-SPEED and GENE-SIZE while clocking through the Genes is very pleasing.
Phonogene v.372 update Note: All new Phonogenes shipped after July 2013 will be loaded with firmware v.372. This update includes the following improvements: -Improved Audio Fidelity -Improved Vari-speed Response (shorter scale, greater resolution) -End of GENE Pulse: EOS outputs pulses for both Splices and Genes. Turn up Gene Size to see this in action. -Longer Record TIme: Improved memory management and fidelity, making longer recordings possible.
HIDDEN FUNCTIONS/ ROUTINES “Mid-Fi” Record: this setting may be achieved, by setting VARI-SPEED at around 50%, so that BOTH VARI-SPEED and Splice Indicator LEDs (6 & 7) are OFF. This records with good quality and a 2 second record length, which is great length for venturing into a Microsound opus. Erase Routine: to erase all Splices, press and hold SPLICE button (18) until the REC LED (17) starts flashing. All Splices are erased once the REC LED begins flashing.
Sliding Phonogene: with a sound already recorded into the Phonogene, set VARISPEED to 50%, so that playback is stopped. Patch the Press CV from column 1 of Pressure Points to Channel 1 of MATHS. Patch the Press CV from column 2 of Pressure Points to Channel 4 of MATHS. Set the RISE and FALL of both CH. 1 and 4 to around 65% and VARI-RESPONSE of both channels to “loggish.” Set MATHS CH. 1 scaling full counter clockwise so that the resulting signal is inverted. Set MATHS CH. 4 full clockwise. Null MATHS CH.
Recycler: Record. Mult the Signal out, and patch to Signal IN MATHS Channel 1. Set MATHS Channel 1 RISE and FALL so that the Activity LED is Flashing in time with the transients of the recorded sound. This will usually put RISE at around 60% and FALL at around 50%. Patch a dummy cable, or a manual gate, such as Pressure Points Gate OUT, to Phonogene PLAY Pulse IN (14). Let Phonogene play to end of recording.
