A-100 analog modular Website
The A-198 Trautonium / Ribbon Controller originates from Doepfer’s Trautonium project, which attempted to recreate the components of a Trautonium using modern A-100 modules. Compared to the console of the original, the ribbon controller is playable with significantly less nuance: the original was a fine metal string with several centimeters of pressure travel. Of course, … Read more
The module is inspired by Friedrich Trautwein’s Trautonium, a forerunner of today’s synthesizer. The Trautonium became particularly well-known through the work of Oskar Sala, who used it to produce the film music for Hitchcock’s “The Birds”. However, other composers of the 20th century also composed for the trautonium, such as Paul Hindemith. In principle, the … Read more
A fixed filter bank is a “distant relative” of the graphic equalizer. We find 15 frequency bands whose volume is individually adjustable. Behind this are 15 parallel bandpass filters (with 1/2 octave bandwidth), whose output signals can be faded in. In contrast to a graphic equalizer, the fixed filter bank does not have a linear … Read more
The A-170 Dual Slew Limiter smooths control voltages – abrupt changes are “smeared” in the process. Switched before the frequency control of an oscillator, this function causes the well-known “portamento”, which transforms a jump on the keyboard into a slurred note. The two sub-modules differ, the upper slew limiter only allows a simple adjustment of … Read more
The A-117 Digital Noise / Random Clock / 808 Sound Source module is a discontinued model and will no longer be produced in the future. Status: February 2024 The Digital Noise Generator A-117 creates random, short impulses. The frequency of these pulses can basically be controlled, namely via the “Rate” controller or alternatively via an … Read more
Like the A-117 Digital Noise, the A-118-1 is also a random noise generator. However, it does not work with feedback shift registers, but with the “natural” noise of transistors and thus generates a very typical “synthesizer” noise. Dieter Döpfer once explained to me that due to the component tolerances of these transistors, each A-118-1 sounds … Read more
Ratcheting controllers are still somewhat unusual tools in the modular world. Tangerine Dream already used them to create exciting sequences almost 50 years ago. What does a ratcheting controller do? Basically we have the opposite of a clock divider (such as the A-160-2): An incoming clock signal is multiplied, if possible in such a way … Read more
The A-149-1 Quantized / Stored Random Voltages is a lavishly equipped random generator that is based on the Buchla modules 265 and 266. There are two different sub-modules: Quantized Random Voltages provides random voltages whose level is within a “grid”, a quantization. These are then distances of 1 V at output “n+1” and distances of … Read more
The module is no longer in production. Unfortunately, the VC Frequency Shifter is no longer available because one of the components used is no longer manufactured. In principle, however, the task of the missing component could be taken over by an A-143-9 Quadrature LFO or an A-110-4 Quadrature Thru Zero VCO, so that this particular … Read more
The 18dB filter was created on the model of a well-known and popular small bass synthesizer: In principle, a transistor cascade is used here as in the 24 dB Moog filter, but only with three poles instead of four, and thus with a slightly lower edge steepness. The design may have come from a cost-related … Read more
