Tuesday, April 26, 2011

EML 101 and MIDI

I've had several people asking me how I got a MIDI interface to work with my EML 101. I haven't answered the question yet because... well, to tell the truth, I don't remember exactly what I did, and unfortunately I can't remember which forum I posted the article where I did it. And Google isn't turning up anything.

I have the 101 on the bench now for calibration. While I've got it out, I'll reconstruct the mods that I made in order to be able to input a control voltage and gate. One thing I have to point out: I did not mod my 101 so that it will work with 1V/octave scaling! Several years ago I purchased a JKJ Electronics CV-5, which is scalable to the 1.2V/octave EML scaling, and that's what I use. Unfortunately the CV-5 is now out of production. I don't know whether other MIDI interfaces on the market can be scaled to 1.2V/octave or not. However, it would not be too hard to build a little circuit that would re-scale a 1V/octave control voltage to 1.2V/octave. I'll draw up one and post it.

It will probably be a few days because... now that I have my 101 on the bench, I can't get it to scale with its own keyboard. The linearity and scaling trim pots are all on the stops and it's still not close; I'm only getting a span of about 2 octaves across the keyboard. The really odd thing is that it's happening on both the KB1 and KB2 busses, which are almost totally independent circuits. Tomorrow I'll start by checking the 4.4V internal reference voltage.

4 comments:

Prosper said...

I use a Philip Rees MCV with my recently acquired EML 100. Works like a charm. Easily scalable to 1.2V and takes up very little space. I actually keep it right beside my 100. Can scale Hz/V or V/Oct. Very underrated convertor that's starting to shoot up in price.

Scott said...

Are you going in through the jacks at the patch bay on the top, or have you tapped into the 5-pin din for the keyboard input?

e:pp:ik said...

Whoa - I just stumbled onto this. I'm looking for help in the department as well! Pleas elet us know.

e:pp:ik said...

Whoa - I just stumbled onto this. I'm looking for help in the department as well! Pleas elet us know.