Summary of the content on the page No. 1
Oakley Sound Systems
5U Oakley Modular Series
VCO Controller
1U wide oscillator master module
User Manual
V0.0.04
Preliminary Version
More Information to follow
Tony Allgood B.Eng
Oakley Sound Systems
CARLISLE
United Kingdom
Summary of the content on the page No. 2
The suggested panel for fitting to an Oakley modular system with the Oakley CV/gate buss. The twin keyboard control voltage (KCV) signals that this module generates are connected to the VCOs behind the front panel. If you do not have the facility for this you can make two of the front panel sockets carry the two KCV signals instead. 2
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Introduction This is the User Manual for the issue 1 VCO Controller 5U module from Oakley Sound. This document contains a basic summary of its operation, how our Oakley Buss works, a guide to the front panel controls, how to connect it to your modules and finally calibration procedures. For the Builder's Guide, which includes the parts list, schematic description and testing advice, please visit the project webpage at: http://www.oakleysound/cv-cont.htm For general information regarding wher
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Also available are two octave switches. These affect the two keyboard control voltage (KCV) outputs of the module individually. This each VCO, or VCO bank, can be raised or lowered by one octave at a flick of a switch. Each KCV output uses a low impedance cable driver to ensure no droops with long signal runs and multiple loading. Although this module was designed to work with the Oakley buss, which pipes around KCV and gate signals around your modular, the input and output sockets on this m
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The Oakley VCO has a Oakley Buss input header on its socket board. Pin 1 of this header is connected to the NC lug of the 1V/octave input socket. So any voltage on pin 1 of this header is automatically connected to the module's 1V/octave input unless as jack is inserted into that socket. Normalising is frowned upon by some people, and loved by others. Most modulars do have some form of normalising. The Roland System 100 probably has the highest degree of normalising. You don’t even need a p
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Front Panel Controls [more to come here] 6
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Calibration The unit has seven trimmers and thus may seem a little daunting to trim correctly. However, the unit has been designed so that it is easy to set up and no special equipment is required other than a guitar tuner or a decent set of ears. Once the unit has warmed up nicely I recommend setting up the unit in the order that these are presented here. I will assume that your VCOs are already in tune. If not do not attempt to trim the VCO Controller first since it requires the VCOs to be
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SCL2 – This trimmer sets the scale of the KCV2 output Repeat the above but with your second VCO and use the Key-CV2 output. The purpose of both SCL trimmers is to ensure that the VCO Controller adds nothing to the CV signal when the two depth pots are at their minimum settings and the switches are in their middle positions. +OCT – This trimmer determines the note played when any octave switch is set to +1. Play a note somewhere in the middle of the keyboard, say a low A at 440Hz. It should be
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Final Comments I hope you enjoy using the Oakley VCO Controller. If you have any problems with the module, an excellent source of support is the Oakley Sound Forum at Muffwiggler.com. Paul Darlow and I are on this group, as well as many other users and builders of Oakley modules. If you have a comment about this user guide, or have a found a mistake in it, then please do let me know. Last but not least, can I say a big thank you to all of you who helped and inspired me. Thanks especially t
