Menu
ELECTRONIC COTTAGE
  • HOME
  • REVIEWS
  • ARTICLES
  • COMMENTS
  • HOME
  • REVIEWS
  • ARTICLES
  • COMMENTS

Edition 6: Moduletta

1/15/2019

11 Comments

 
I got to know Klaus Rindtorff and the Moduletta in June 2016 during my workshop "Labor Sound" (University of Art and Design Linz) as part of the Festival Zukunftsmusik. Klaus Rindtorff is a certified computer scientist with many patents and a hobby electronics designer and technician. His work focuses on digital and analogue sound generation and colored light sculptures. Of particular interest is the digital sound generation inspired by the circuits of Stanley Lunetta.
Picture
Moduletta
Soldering the Moduletta is not a matter of two hours. It is a modular synthesizer with many inputs and outputs, eight CMOS-chips, countless resistors and LEDs that need to be soldered. The Moduletta synth is a crossover between modular synthesizers and Lunetta circuits. Through plug-in connections, the analog and digital modules can be combined for sound generation. Included are voltage controlled oscillators, filters and PWM, as well as counters and shift registers for sound and rhythm. At the university workshop eight students started with the Moduletta and all worked fine. One student is performing live with her Moduletta.
Picture
Klaus Rindtorff (Linz - Zukunftsmusik 2016
Interview with Klaus Rindtorff (January 2019)

Q: Klaus, when did you start designing autogenerative music machines and why?
Klaus: I guess it must have been the day when I discovered Lunettas on the electro-music.com forum. I always liked building circuits with digital logic elements, starting with TTL and later with CMOS chips. Lunettas use logic chips in a very creative way to generate sound. The fact that they are based on logic quickly leads to combining them with binary sequences to create patterns. The results are often surprising. 

Q: How long lasted the process from the first ideas to the final concept and to the printed circuit board of  Moduletta?
Klaus: I created many small Lunetta circuits in 2014 and 2015. Later I started mixing them with analog circuits using operational amplifiers as well. Early in 2016 I came up with the idea to combine them and create a small synthesizer that combines ideas from the Lunetta circuits with ideas from modular synthesizers, in particular the ability to create patches. It took me about three months to complete the design. That included a lot of experimentation to come up with a minimal, yet complete, set of modules to generate interesting sounds.

Q: Can you describe your Moduletta in some sentences. 
Klaus: The Moduletta is a cross-over between analog circuits for modular synthesizers and Lunetta circuits. Most of the modules are implemented with logic chips. A few of them also create or accept analog control voltages instead logic levels. To create sound you connect the modules using patch cables, just like in a modular synth. The whole design is deliberately minimalistic and has a focus on providing as many possibilities as possible rather than generating high-fidelity audio.
Picture
Q: The Moduletta is a tribute to Stanley Lunetta, a musician who has developed countless circuits with CMOS chips and has influenced many musicians and designers. How strong had you been inspired by Stanley Lunetta?
Klaus: That influence is certainly very strong. I had built a few TTL based audio circuits a long time ago. Discovering the Lunetta circuits taught me many new tricks that are possible with only a few CMOS gates. The most fascinating circuits to me are those that generate small tunes from a handful of logic chips. Some produce just beautiful noise, some surprise you with even a bit of musicality in the patterns they produce. Have a look at the Chip-Tune circuits for example. You wouldn't expect a few chips to generate melodic tunes that run for minutes without repeating.

Q: The Moduletta is the most beautiful instrument I've ever  
soldered myself? There is so much possible with it. Is the project complete for you or do you have any new ideas to further develop Moduletta?
Klaus: For now, the PCB boards are all gone and the project is at rest. However, I had a few ideas for additional circuits that could not fit on the board at that time. Plus a few new ones I came up with in between, like the combinatorial circuits to generate patterns, and oscillators that can be controlled by logic levels rather than control voltages to generate micro-tonal scales. Maybe even include a small micro-controller for some of the effects that otherwise would need a lot of hardware... And here we are again, the hardest part in the design is to limit yourself to the essential elements needed to achieve the goal you set for yourself. I would love to create a newer, bigger, version of the Moduletta that can contain them all, but first need to find the time for it.
Stanley Lunetta died March 3rd 2016.
Moduletta ein kurzer Patch video above is also available for viewing here
Links:
Klaus Rindtorff - Moduletta Forum
Stanley Lunetta homepage
Sound Sculptures by Stanley Lunetta
Lunettas - Circuits inspired by Stanley Lunetta
Zukunftsmusik - Wolfgang >Fadi< Dorninger
11 Comments
Rafael González
1/15/2019 13:54:25

Wolfgang, very interesting. I love knowing about these things, even though I am very clumsy. Thanks for discovering things in each article of yours.

Reply
Wolfgang Dorninger link
1/16/2019 04:08:10

thanks a lot Rafael for the feedback.

some people asked me how long did you and your students solder? experienced solderers needed 5-6 hours and starters 8-9 hours. but best all worked at the end.

Reply
Rafael González
1/16/2019 10:00:11

My pleasure, really! You have been lucky that I was not there soldering ... we still would not have finished!

Reply
Eduardo GOZNE
1/17/2019 21:40:04

Very beautiful. I am an admirer of Stanley Lunetta and inspired by his work with CMOS I am building my modular synthesizer. If Klaus returns to have PCB boards I will be the first to buy and solder my own Moduletta. Greetings.

Reply
Wolfgang Dorninger link
1/18/2019 06:05:14

Dear Eduardo,
thanks for your feedback and great to hear about your plans to build your own modular.

Klaus was already a bit afraid of the question "When will Moduletta-PCBs available again?". In a mail, he wrote that he is already thinking of an upgrade. He has already sent me some ideas and they are all screaming for a Moduletta Mk.II.

Maybe Klaus finds time to add some news in this thread.

Reply
John Wiggins
1/18/2019 13:11:45

Wolfgang - I felt a constant energy vibrating under "Slide To Glide" - a teetering and a balancing. "Unused Film Score" is a masterpiece I think. The distant din, the expanse of sound far away, these are textures to you and you composed with them.
Beautiful man - thank you!

Reply
Wolfgang Dorninger link
1/19/2019 11:35:47

Dear John,
thanks a lot for your encouraging feedback. I worked really long and intense on "this movie", but the director decided out of a sudden mood to chance the direction totally. After two years of frustration I had found enough passion to do a mix out of the whole score. Great that you like the result. I feel honored

Rafael González wrote a review and conducted an interview on "Slide To Glide". Here is the link:
https://www.electroniccottage.org/rafael-gonzaacutelez/slide-to-glide-by-wolfgang-dorninger

I will send you some more downloadlinks. Don't feel spammed.

Reply
Nona Grant link
1/18/2019 15:07:46

Hi! Thank you, Fadi, for posting this : )
I was so happy to be one of the lucky ones being part of the workshop at Zukunftsmusik! As Fadi wrote, I started a synthie-duo with the moduletta last summer.
you can listen to the sounds of Nona Grant on soundcloud:
https://soundcloud.com/nonagrant
the second synthie is an 0-coast!

Reply
Wolfgang Dorninger link
1/19/2019 11:40:12

I am so happy that you use the Moduletta on stage! And I like your live set a lot. Hopefully I can see you soon on stage in Linz or elsewhere.

If you have new recordings with the Moduletta feel free to post the results within this thread. Electronic Cottage is the perfect space for thoroughgoing arts of all kind.

Reply
Marco Forniz
3/13/2020 13:14:42

Hi!
When new board?
Thanx
Marco

Reply
Svann
1/20/2021 10:03:03

Lieber Klaus,

wird es Moduletta PCBs im Versand geben? Oder kannst Du das PCB Layout in Creative Commons veröffentlichen?

Tolles Gerät.

Grüße, Svann

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Picture

    Wolfgang Dorninger

    Soldering is the new hometaping
    ​
    I live and work in Linz, Austria as musician, producer and sound artist. I compose music for movies, theater and create sound installations to make a living. Sound is the main focus of my artistic work, as musician (The Smiling Buddhas, Wipeout, Dorninger, ...), label-owner (base), sound artist or lecturer at the Art University of Linz. In the 80s and 90s I ran the cassette label DIE IND.

    My sound works oscillates between musique concrète and digital sound-production in a range spanning sound installations, multi-media performances, music for theater and techno

    email
    Wolfgang Dorninger site
    base[records]


    Archives

    April 2020
    September 2019
    August 2019
    May 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    October 2018
    August 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018

    RSS Feed