R PENFOLD "guitar tracker" article?? anywhere?

[loss1234]

there a few penfold circuits i have been reading. (really lately i have been reading a lot of articles line line by, following along on the schematic and trying to understand how the circuit works)

anyway, i feel ripped off, as a few of his articles refer to this other article called "guitar tracker" from Popular Electronics and instead of explaining how the circuit works piece by piece, he instructs you to go read the OTHER ARTICLE! and its a super important part of the circuit that he just brushes over.

anyone know where this article might exist online? thanks a lot

[StephenGiles]

Isn't it on Mark Hammer's site?

[loss1234]

nope
thats the first of articles that REFERS to guitar tracker.
if you look in the text, he gets to the P TO V circuit and basically says, oh, i am not going to explain this part because its already been talked about in the other article. HE does not do a part by part analysis for that section.

(he just says how a few parts differ)

i am really looking for the breakdown of the circuit. if anyone has the article, the text would suffice.

thanks

[demonstar]

Does this thread cover the circuit everyone is refering too...

"http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=62574.0"

...or is this a different circuit?

Hopefully that thread may help.

[StephenGiles]

I know I have the Guitar Tracker article but it's still in paper form - possibly in pile 6D I'll have look for it.

[StephenGiles]

http://www.4shared.com/file/47739303/acf55800/Gtracker1.html
http://www.4shared.com/file/47739302/dbf26896/Gtracker2.html
http://www.4shared.com/file/47739301/42fb392c/Gtracker3.html
http://www.4shared.com/file/47739308/3b278188/Gtracker4.html
http://www.4shared.com/file/47739307/ab989c19/Gtracker5.html
http://www.4shared.com/file/47739304/3291cda3/Gtracker6.html

Wrong - it was in pile 4H

[Papa_lazerous]

Hmmm the guitar tracker looks appealing at first impression, anyone know about it ie if its worth making?

[StephenGiles]

I expect that it works after a fashion, but I would breadboard it first.

[loss1234]

wow

thanks a ton

as usual

now its time to take this and the EH circuit and try to figure out what i can and cant handle, and try to make soemthing work.

but first i have been looking for an article like this that will explain the p to v ideas.

thanks

[Mark Hammer]

Viewers will note the presence of a component layout in the article, but no PCB mask anywhere to be seen.  Is anyone aware of where such a beast might be found?

[frank_p]

The traces are in light gray on the layout and they are well spaced appart.  Could be done by hand and copier I suppose ?

[StephenGiles]

Viewers will note the presence of a component layout in the article, but no PCB mask anywhere to be seen.  Is anyone aware of where such a beast might be found?

I'll do a higher resolution scan of that page this evening, and do a mirror image in Paint Shop Pro. Someone will then need to delete the components - MS Paint is good for that.

[StephenGiles]

I suspect that Practical Electronics in their infinite wisdom deliberately made the pcb tracks feint to make folks buy their pcbs!!

[Mark Hammer]

I'll do a higher resolution scan of that page this evening, and do a mirror image in Paint Shop Pro. Someone will then need to delete the components - MS Paint is good for that.

I've done that in past, only with Paint Shop Pro.  A LOT of work, I must say.

During the era that article is frpm, Practical Electronics would often have all the PCB masks for that issue on a common page near the centre of the magazine.  Does anyone have access to such a page?  Steve doesn't need to be driving himself crazy with all that digital touching up.

[frequencycentral]

My 2 pennies on this subject:

I used to have a Korg MS20 synth with a PV convertor section - I found it a pain to set up, a hassle to play, with limited range, huge demands on you playing style and fingering technique and plenty of glitches.

I had more success using a MIDI pickup equipped guitar firing into an analogue monosynth via a MIDI to CV convertor.

However. I think it was Robert Fripp who said 'why would a first rate guitarist want to sound like a third rate synthesist'. Or was is 'third rate saxophonist'? But check out the (early) guitar synth work on King Crimson's Discipline album - awesome!

I play guitar and keyboards - so maybe the attraction of a guitar synth is not that great for me.

I do love synth mangled guitar tones - filtering, envelopes, ring mod etc - I just think the PV method sucks. Prove me wrong?

Controversial enough???

But hey, one man's axe is another man's firewood...........!!

[Mark Hammer]

The MS20's external input module was not likely optimized for guitar.  Having pored over the schematic many hours, there seems to be some useful signal conditioning with respect to filtering out extraneous content in the signal so you can more easily identify the fundamental, but it didn't strike me as having enough at the front end to make tracking reliable.  I suspect a lot of generic P-2-V convertors are like that.

I've made up a board for Harry Bissell's P-2-V design ( http://electro-music.com/forum/phpbb-files/pv1_611.pdf ), which looks like it could be good since he puts a lot of thought into things.  Only partially populated at the moment so no build/user comments yet.

[frequencycentral]

The MS20's external input module was not likely optimized for guitar.

It wasn't likely optimised. Period! For any instrument.

[StephenGiles]

I'll do a higher resolution scan of that page this evening, and do a mirror image in Paint Shop Pro. Someone will then need to delete the components - MS Paint is good for that.

I've done that in past, only with Paint Shop Pro.  A LOT of work, I must say.

During the era that article is frpm, Practical Electronics would often have all the PCB masks for that issue on a common page near the centre of the magazine.  Does anyone have access to such a page?  Steve doesn't need to be driving himself crazy with all that digital touching up.

I've tried and my scanner will not produce anything useful. If anyone lives near the British Library in Kings Cross London, I'm sure they will have a copy of the June 1986 Practical Electronics.

[loss1234]

mark-i would love to know more about the board you made....is it press n peel ready??i think p to v and even just using plain old counters can be fun for creating noise or for mangled sounds (which i like)



i also build modular synths so i am more interested in something that creates CV than midi.

i like happy accidents and while these things might not track well, they certainly provide new areas to explore.

[StephenGiles]

If I can locate a sheet of carbon paper, and that's a big if, I can draw the pcb on to the carbon so that it appears the right way round on the back of my print from the article. Is there any alternative to carbon paper?