Power Starve - XOR - VC Comparator Pt. 1

YouTube via wonkythomas

"My riff on the Power Starve CMOS VCO. Two 40106s have their power pins fed by a combination of Pot, input & attenuated inputs. Each 40106 has 2 RC oscillators created from 4 of the 6 inverters. The 4 oscillators are fed into a 4030 Exclusive OR chip for digital Ring Mod. The module has 3 outputs being 3 differant combinations of XOR'd signals.

The only downside to the Power Starve CV input set-up is compared to other CMOS modules the output is quite low. So, I borrowed an idea from Tom BugBrand - run the output thru a comparator! This gets the levels back up to the rail-to-rail swing we know & love in out lunettas :D

In these vids I'm tricking the basic idea out a little... instead of a standard, static comparator I'm using a voltage controlled version, adapted from Ken Stones Gated Comparator module (which is an amazing piece of synth!) The VC input is what gives rise to the gated / tremelo fx we can hear, this especially great in the lunetta because everything is interelated; a clock, divider, counter & logic create the "CVs" to drive the VCO & I tap differant parts of the patch to feed the CV input on the comparator; noisy sequence fun!!!"

Power Starve - XOR - VC Comparator Pt. 2


"More of the same as the previous; the variable threshold comparator is great for breaking up the signal into shards. Super!"