Sherman Filterbank vs. Skull & Circuits VCF-4 / a quick comparison (Standalone vs. Eurorack)

video upload by The Sound Convergence

Skull & Circuits VCF-4 was announced back in 2023.

"A quick comparison of the Skull & Circuits VCF-4 with the Sherman Filterbank - good times all around.

Thanks to Guillaume Dujat (and WEȽ∝KER) for the additional sound!
Check them out here! https://linktr.ee/gdujat

0:00 Intro
0:35 VCF-4 Sound Example - Piano Recording
1:15 VCF-4 Sound Example - Osc
1:41 Comparison setup
2:13 VCF-4 on Arbhar texture
3:10 Sherman Filterbank on Arbhar texture
4:04 VCF-4 on drum sample
4:40 Sherman Filterbank on drum sample
5:08 VCF-4 as oscillator
5:22 Final comparison VCF-4 vs. Sherman Filterbank
6:23 Filter sweeps - no commentary"

Belgian Modular Day 2024 Set for Saturday, June 15

via Belgian Modular Day

"Welcome to Belgian Modular Day II in Ghent on Saturday, June 15.

A well-filled day, starting at 1:30 pm and the last powercase will be turned off around 10:00 pm. Be there or be a square wave…

Modular Monster Jam
We start Modular day with the world record attempt for the biggest number of musicians jamming together with modular synths.

Demos & talks
We’ll serve up talks and demos from these Belgian creators: Joranalogue, Klavis, Skull & Circuits, ThreeTom, Voltage Vibes, Morphor and Alfa Delta.

Live acts
We close the day with concerts by Modtech (Frederik Strobbe), Dries Geusens, Halfgeleider (Maarten Voeten), Lieven Stockx, Tectonia (Ricardo Verschut) and ArkOdd (Vincent Vanesse).

Synapse workshop
During the day you’ll get synaptic waves from the Synapse workshop.

Meet & patch
You’ll find plenty of fine places to patch and catch up on bleeps and beeps.

Newbleeps
Newbleeps are very welcome, it is the ideal opportunity to meet our warm crackling community."

And via ThreeTom Modular:

"I’m pleased to announce the second edition of Belgian Modular Day, which will take place on the 15th of June in Ghent at the venue of Wisper on the site of Dok Noord.

During BMD I will be giving a talk titled “A wavefolder is not a wave folder”. This talk wil showcase how I use simulations in my design workflow. If there’s things you’d like me to specifically talk about regarding this topic (or another), please feel free to reply to this mail :)

I’m proud to contribute to Belgian Modular Day by sponsoring the performance of Dries Geusens at 20:40. Dries has a preference for self-built, analog modules, and live recordings. He approaches patches as “impressionistic snapshots of the temporary state of the system”.

Dries describes his latest release “Sakura Variations – 4 studies for modular synthesizer” as "4 pieces combined in 1 track serving beautiful sounddesign, fantastic harmonies, emotional-deep-calm layers, inspiring transitions, modular solos, energetic-relaxing-hypnotising rhythms and sequences with sometimes a jazzy flavor." My personal favourite track by Dries is “Variations on Sakura (live)”, a recording from his live performance during the previous edition of Belgian Modular Day.

You may also know Dries from the bands Nordmann, Knelpunt, and Elias, where he plays bass and synthesizer."

Skull And Circuits VCF-4 Switched Capacitor Filter & Metal-o-tron Metallic Percussion Modules

video uploads by Skull And Circuits

via Skull And Circuits

As if there are not enough filters in the Eurorack world. Yet, here it is, something new. A dual switched capacitor filter, equipped for CV on all the things. A dual filter core no less for stereo use or for all kind of serial filter configuration shenanigans.

VCF-4 is a unique filter in Eurorack land. It’s a switched capacitor design with a lot of bells and whistles, offering a unique sound and flexible sound-scaling capabilities.

2 x 12db switched capacitor filter core
Sweepable LP/BP/HP Mode
+BP/-BP adjustment
Self-oscillating filter
Filter linking ( 1:1, octave down, 2 octaves down )
Serial or Parallel setup possible
Resonance CV control per filter
Filter mode CV control per filter
2x Cutoff frequency CV control per filter
Big fat knobs ( 20HP )

It’s one of the modules I use a lot, so I thought it was about time to get rid of the prototypes I have in my rack and build one that looks more like the real deal. I’ve taken all good things from the first 2 versions, ditched all the bad stuff and add some new stuff. That’s a lot of stuff.

In short, It’s a percussion sound generator, with a focus on metallic sounding percussion. Cymbals, hihats, tin cans, gongs, cowbells, … you name it, it’ll do it. It doesn’t really stop there, it’s able to create quite some unique sounding percussion elements, as well as some interesting drone textures. So it’s quite a versatile thing to have in your rack.

So, how does it work. The basic sound properties are generated by 4 square oscillators going through a logic XOR gate, combined with a noise generator and external inputs. The whole lot goes through a filter to shape the frequency properties and then through a voltage controlled amplifier – still following? I’ve drawn up a little schema to clarify the whole lot a bit.

See Skull And Circuits for additional details.