"After my first patch video here's the next in the #FumanaFridays series of videos with the Frap Tools Fumana. Here I go in depth with the parametric scanning options with single inputs, stereo inputs (going left to odd band input and right to even band input), mono outputs (all out), stereo outputs (not really stereo but hard panning the odd and even band outputs), modulating amplification or attenuation of one of several bands depending on the frequency and Q/width settings. It's a gorgeously smooth and buttery sounding unit that makes complex tonal shifts and sounds really easy."
2. Frap Tools - Fumana *First Patch*
"God this Fumana is gorgeous! It's several bands of fixed filter banks (band pass filters) that isolate the sound and let you pan, scan, morph and tilt your way around the filters beautifully. It's got a great set of fixed frequencies that really make basic waves speak very vocal and formant like. Enjoy my literal first patch with just an AJH Synth MiniMod VCO saw wave into it and some LFOs modulate through the bands. Full demo in the near future. Cheers!"
"USTA is the new sequencer from Frap Tools that offers 4 channels and 4 outputs per channel. Those 4 outputs are 2 CVs (definable pitch or unquantised voltage) and 2 gates (triggers, gates, ratchets etc). It looks like a simple interface for potential complex and musical patterns, chain patterns, variations, musical random with probability and variance control ... it looks great! Frap Tools call it the "voltage score" and with musical notation examples on the site I'm excited to see this unit out in the wild."
"Here's a couple of cool FX that Simone from Frap Tools shared with me. Using the tilt function you can mimic side chain compression / ducking style FX with a different "tone" shifting through harmonics rather than level control. You can always (as a user pointed out to Simone at Frap Tools) get LPG-like sounds by "plucking" the tilt with a tight envelope. You'd still need a VCA at the end but it can be really cool and a bit more robotic and vocoder like. More videos for #FumanaFridays coming soon!"
"Simone from Frap Tools gave us a great walk through the Sapel random generator. Lots of random, lots of control and lots of output. The new module is Fumana which sounds great but I thought it was another 16 band fixed filter bank. However, it's a 32 band filter bank as there's a second hidden layer you can input to which allows full 16 band vocoding. Nice!"
"fumana / ˈfuma:na / s.f. [dialect of Modena, from fūmus, ‘smoke’] – ‘fog’. Like spectres use to lie into the thick fog (which the Modenese countrisyde is pretty rich of), so many spectral capabilities and functions do within the thick bands of the ‘fumana’.
The FUMANA is an all analog dual filter bank with various control to access dynamically these bands. Each filter bank is composed of an array of 16 independent 48dB/oct bandpass filters. Having two identical filter arrays, allows you to use one of those for spectral analysis (of a modulator signal) and the other for spectral re-synthesis (of the main signal). Each array is sub-grouped in odd and even bands (numbering these increasingly from 1 to 16 from left to right). It is possible to apply different signal to odd and even bands, both for main and/or modulator arrays. This, together with the 16 envelope followers connected to each band of the modulator filterbank, and the 16 VCA connected to each band of the main filterbank, allows the FUMANA to perform a single 16 bands or a dual 8 bands analog spectral transfer.
While the upper section provide access to each main filter’s direct output, the lower section has 4 voltage controllable parameters to manage two independent functions for further spectral editing: tilt and scan.
The tilt, as the name suggest, tilts the spectrum, adding and subtracting amplitude to the 16 bands, emphasizing lower or high bands, and attenuating high or lower bands: this is managed only with the green potentiometer.
The scan, instead, works with three parameters: peak/notch, band selector and width. Like in a parametric equalizer, where is possible to set peak/notch gain, frequency and slope, the FUMANA uses three parameters to set which is the center band to perform this manipulation, then if that band should be emphasized or attenuated, and how this action is extended to nearby bands.
In addition to the 16 bandpass outputs, there are other 4 outputs provided: the all bands output, the all envelope followers output, the odd bands and the even bands output. These two have the options to be inverted in phase with two switches, in order to obtain even more combination when summed together, maybe/also with the “all bands output”, using, for example the 333 module.
Since a spectral transfer tool may be used as a “vocoder-like-effect”, the FUMANA provides an input for an external noise which may be used for unvoiced (fricative/sibilants) sounds as words containing or starting with s, f, z, ch and other fricative sounds ([s] [z] [ʃ] [tʃ] [dʒ] [ts] [ʂ] [f] [v] [ɸ] [θ] [ʒ] etc etc)."
"Simone from Frap Tools takes us through FALISTRI their new 'Movement Manager' which will come later in the year. It's a new take and development on the familiar slope generators of the past and present which can be envelopes, LFOs, oscillators, slews, filters and more! There's also a processing section with Ring Mod and VCAs to control those 'movement' signals even further.
We're proud to have our Superbooth 2018 content sponsored by www.thonk.co.uk"
"So here's my first patch with the Falistri from Frap Tools. It's always nice to share my literal first patch and experience with modules before doing more in-depth demos and explanations. This first patch is using both function generators in looping mode, at audio rates, to create a dual oscillator and complex oscillator series of sounds. The Ring Mod and VCA section below takes normalled versions of the oscillator outputs and I have FM patched between both oscillators (function generators as oscillators) for some cross mod / x mod."
"Here's more action with the Frap Tools Fumana for my #FumanaFridays series of videos looking at this big beautiful beast of a module. Here we're vocoding stacked oscillators and polyphonic modular against drums and vocals using Fumana for the vocoding but also using the analysis to layer up extra in sync / in time drums and extra related modulation."
"In this video with the Frap Tools Fumana I take a look at vocoding and spectral transfer. I have 3 analogue oscillators going into the main inputs and a drum loop into the modulation input. We can do full 16 band vocoding with this thing and it's amazing. A little modulation of tilt and adding extra amplitude to some bands sounds great as does taking one of the envelope follower outputs from the mod section and using that to clock a sequence."
"In my second video with Fumana for the #FumanaFridays series YouTube channel 'Voltlife' commented with another tip and expansion on the LPF/LPG style ideas you can apply to Fumana. Frap Tools did an amazing job of this, visually, functionally and most importantly sonically. Check out a live chat with Simone and Antonio discussing the design with me and Chris Meyer" [posted here]
"God this Fumana is gorgeous! It's several bands of fixed filter banks (band pass filters) that isolate the sound and let you pan, scan, morph and tilt your way around the filters beautifully. It's got a great set of fixed frequencies that really make basic waves speak very vocal and formant like. Enjoy my literal first patch with just an AJH Synth MiniMod VCO saw wave into it and some LFOs modulate through the bands. Full demo in the near future. Cheers!"