tannerin

really want to build or find a tannerin, or a way to make a ribbon controller with a sine wave oscillator. please help, i've been pulling my hair out for hours

Did you try a Google search on the following keywords:

"ribbon controller" build

The most helpful result would seem to be the first one, from the late John Simonton of PAIA (several of the other hits derive from it, and link back to it).

...have a look at the Doepfer-ribbon-controller at http://doepfer.de...

i've found all the links on the ribbon controllers, and i found an oscillator ic. but i'm trying to figure out how to put the two together succesfully. the ic i'm getting is the icl8038, which does square, triangle, and sine wave.

i found this link. http://www.geocities.com/tpe123/
folkurban/synthstick/synthstick.html.

will this work with the ic i'm using? or does anybody know how to make it work.

all your help is greatly appreciated.

You will have problems with the 8038, since it does a linear voltage to frequency conversion.

So the distance on your ribbon will vary from one octave to the other. That means that 50% of its length will give the first octave, the next 25% the next one, than 12,5% for the third, 6.25% for the fourth and so on.

So you should have at first an exponential converter circuit before controlling the 8038 in order to get equal spaced octaves.

where could i find such a circuit and how would i implement it.

thanks in advance.

You could try a "quick and dirty" approach.

Old HP sinewave oscillators are usually pretty easy to find. You might find old Heathkit oscillators even easier.

These had large vernier type knobs for frequency setting. You would need to replace the large knob with a pulley and create some sort of spring tension arrangement to "rewind" your "ribbon" ... maybe a watch spring or something removed from an old tape measure.

Don

i already have my oscillators, i am just trying to figure out how to make an exponential conversion circuit. i have been searching all night. i have figured out that they're simple, usually two transistors. what i really need to know is how specifically to hook them up, and which specific transistors i need.

Here's a site to explore ...

http://www.electronics.dit.ie/staff/ypanarin/Lecture%20Notes/DT021-4/6LogAntiLogAmplifiers.pdf

Don

>> Removed 08/June/08 as more useful links given in later posting.