JLR's Modular Synthesizers - System Breakdown #14 -

video upload by John L Rice

JLRs Modular Synthesizers - System Breakdown posts

"This is my fourteenth video breakdown/rundown, this time for my very smallest Eurorack system, just a single 4ms Pod20 case! This will be the last one for a while, thanks for enduring my unprecedented flood of breakdowns this month and for your patience waiting for the "big one" coming late 2024/early 2025 (hopefully!)

Index:
0:00 Beginning
0:20 Introduction
0:56 Module and Modifications
3:06 Final Words
4:14 Demo: "The Night Train Never Stops"
10:48 End

List of the modules in this system
Synthrotek: TST
Mutable instruments: Ears
Intellijel: Mult (modified)
Polaxis: Talko
4ms Company: Pod20 (modified)

Additional items shown and used for the demo:
Division 6: Business Card Synthesizer
Tall Dog: uClouds SE (clone of Mutable Instruments Clouds)
Tendrils Cables: patch cables
Strymon: BigSky and Timeline pedals
Lexicon: MX400

Train video clips licensed from Pixabay.com artists in the following order:
Coverr-Free-Footage
run2cross
AiVreaSaStii

DRUNK BABY IS DRUBK clips are from the "Woodsie TV" YouTube channel.

As always, thank you for watching, rating, following, subscribing, and commenting! 🥳 If you found the content of this video helpful, interesting, or entertaining, please consider showing your support so I can stay stocked up on coffee and cookies. 😋 https://buymeacoffee.com/johnlrice"

SPO phonetic test

video upload by Polaxis

"SPO vox now can read phonetics files from the microSD card.
Emy is also sending the label over USB so #touchdesigner can generate some cool displays. (inspired by ... Kraftwerk)
Sound effect : zoom v3 vocal processor
Check www.polaxis.be : I just uploaded a dictionary of 130.000 words in phonetic format to get you started. You just have to store the text like this :
1: \WW \AX \AX \NN1
2: \TT2 \UW2
3: \TH \RR1 \IY
4: \FF \FF \OR
5: \FF \FF \AY \VV
6: \SS \SS \IH \IH \PA3 \KK2 \SS
7: \SS \SS \EH \EH \VV \IH \NN1
8: \EY \PA3 \TT2"

SPO vox allophone CV control

video upload by Polaxis

"Demo to illustrate how the allophones from the SPO256AL2 can be chosen, triggered and processed in real-time

See this page for more info : https://www.polaxis.be/product/spo-vox/"

This board host the vintage General Instruments SP0256-AL2 aka SPO256-AL2 Narrator IC that was popular in the 1980s.

The SPO256-AL2 produces all the 59 phonemes of the English language.

It has a very recognizable 8-bit metallic sound.

These phonemes are individually addressable and can be chained together to create words or small sentences.

Our board adds two absent functions on the chip: pitch or inflection control and volume control.

The chip allows looping the last phoneme to generate interesting noise or steady MIDI notes.

MIDI control
MIDI note ON (first phoneme on note 36)
MIDI note OFF
Pitch Bend (can be used while the note is ON)
Velocity
Volume CC7 (can be used while the note is ON)
CV control

Phoneme
Volume
Pitch

CLICK FOR MORE »

Polaxis Terminal / Emy Speech Synthesizer

Note: Auction links are affiliate links for which the site may be compensated.

via this auction

You can find demos in previous posts here.

"Terminal is a standalone modular speech synthesizer containing Emy and a little PCB to provide power and extended connectivity.

It is powered via a USB connector. The casing allows adding any of the Vox modules inside just by removing four screws.

Terminal / EMY can be used in a CV-controlled environment or act as a MIDI instrument.

You can install the various firmware on the SD card before powering the device.

A pair of shunts allows the user to connect Terminal either as a MIDI USB unit or as a host for a USB keyboard for text entry. TRS jack MIDI Type B connector.


Emy is a versatile speech synthesizer that can host a hardware synthesizer on its back via a mikroBUS port. This port allows transforming Emy in a matter of a minute. TMS5220/TMS5100 / TMC0281 (Speak & Spell) included.

LPC data are read from the SD card so an infinite vocabulary can be loaded

Sound and vocabulary can be produced by concatenating allophones and prosody markers from the text file to affect rate, duration, and pitch. No limits here!

The OLED crisp display allows browsing amongst the files and the lines within files to pick the sound the user wants to generate.

Speech rendering can be tweaked in real-time to affect, rate, stretch, bend, pitch, and energy.

All the potentiometers have CV entries attached to them

Emy produces sounds in 3 major modes: Speech, Repeat, and VCO.

In Speech mode, the speech starts with a gate signal and is completed before waiting for a new gate signal. The speech has priority.

In Repeat mode, the speech starts and stops with the gate signal going high or low.

The gate has the priority, and the speech repeats while the gate is high. This mode is handy to create crazy rhythms.

In VCO mode, the LPC engine loops while the gate is high, producing steady notes."

SpeakJet effects demo

video upload by Polaxis

"Just sequencing the sounds effects and playing with the phonemes groups"

Follow-up to SpeakJet first test

Radio FM vox on Polaxis Emy

video upload by Polaxis

"A little demo to show the Radio FM vox in action

The module is built with the RDA5807 FM radio chip and hosted on Emy"

SpeakJet first test

video upload by Polaxis

"Working on a new prototype: Speakjet vox, hosting the almost vintage chip of the same name. Here hosted inside the Terminal. I am playing with different modes: priority to the gate, priority to speech, and queuing phonemes. While queuing phonemes, the chip it triggering the snare when the buffer is half full, giving a nice feel to the beat"

Also see this post with Speakjet on Emy in 2018. The chip was also featured in the FLAME Talking MIDI Talking synth. You can find SpeakJet posts here.

Emy VAX as talking printer

video upload by Polaxis

"Emy/ VAX firmware update.
It can now behave like a talking printer.
Use a standard USB port to 'print' to Emy and have VAX vocalize the text.

Here an infinite text generated by markovify a Markov chain algorithm in python using a text from Project Gutenberg: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Arthur Conan Doyle"

Polaxis Testing some glitch sounds

video by Polaxis

Glitch looping fun

video by Polaxis

"Looping through some glitch sounds with a sequencer
Download link : https://www.polaxis.be/download/glitch/"

Polaxis Mea MIDI

video by Polaxis

Playlist:

1. Mea MIDI

Mea vox now behaves as an external MIDI instrument :
- MIDI note assigned to 39 phonemes.
- Velocity and Pitch bend supported.
- Can hold the note for singing effect.

I renamed the notes with Ableton Live MIDI Effects rack to help in sequencing phonemes by their sound. It is very easy to build a sequence!

2. Mea numbers

Emy with Mea-vox addon board. Testing the new version of the code with number grouped (0-1,0-9,0-20) Emy's Usb port is connected to a computer to render the video. (driven by the speech) inspired by Alva Noto & Anne-James Chaton

3. MEA now with phoneme groups (video done with Processing)

Emy hosting the vintage MEA8000 french speech synthesizer chip.
New Phoneme groups (Voyelles/Consonnes/Syllables/Tous)
Playing with phonemes, inspired by Alva Noto & Anne-James Chaton
Emy’s serial port connected to Processing to display the phonemes in sync.

Robovox Numbers demo

Published on Apr 4, 2020 Polaxis

"Robovox installed in Terminal, the standalone version of Emy
Sequenced in MIDI, white noise as an external carrier for the growling vocoder effect."

VAX new SD TTS modes

Published on Dec 30, 2019 Polaxis

"Now 3 mode for the VAX DECtalk submodule (using the mode switch):
1) normal mode where the CV or the Sound pot gives access to a specific line of the file (like it uses to be)
2) reading all the lines of the file, the gate triggering the next line of the file. (endless loop)
3) Endless random access on each gate trigger

in this demo, it's looping through the DNA codons table (mode2)
Emy/VAX USB connected to Processing to display the text being uttered"

Polaxis VAX DECtalk

Emy new firmware loader

Published on Dec 23, 2019 Polaxis

"You can now keep various firmware on the SD card to switch from one version to the other from the main menu.
Useful if you have an add-on board or you want to play with the MIDI version of the code."

MEA now with phoneme groups (video done with Processing)

Published on Dec 7, 2019 Polaxis

Emy hosting the vintage MEA8000 french speech synthesizer chip.
New Phoneme groups (Voyelles/Consonnes/Syllables/Tous)
Playing with phonemes, inspired by Alva Noto & Anne-James Chaton
Emy’s serial port connected to Processing to display the phonemes in sync.

VAX reading the complete Apollo 11 Mission transcript.⁣

Published on Nov 27, 2019 Polaxis

"Various DECtalk voices are used to mimic the dialog between Eagle and Houston.
End of lines are used to trigger beeps via the Aux signal.
Morse message is done with Emy in keyboard-Morse mode.
Audio Ring Modulation processed by the Zoom MS-50G.
(the VAX file is available here: https://www.polaxis.be/download/apoll...)"

VAX singing compilation

Published on Nov 16, 2019 Polaxis

"In action: VAX the DECtalk speech engine for EMY in singing mode, reading song files from the SD card.

These files are just text files with phonemes duration and pitch. Many songs are lying around on the web. Check for 'DECtalk' singing or Moonbase Alpha songs...

Can you recognize them?"

Funny, almost thought someone was singing through the system. You can find more posts featuring the Polaxis EMY here.

Polaxis VAX new firmware : reading long text file

Published on Oct 25, 2019 Polaxis

"VAX now can read any text file line by line without intervention.(here connected via the USB to display each sentence - for fun).

Great to add « lyrics» to your music.

Users can choose between one read or an infinite loop.
The Sound pot is used to adjust the delay between characters.

Here playing Greta Thunberg's Speech At The U.N. Climate Action Summit"

Emy firmware update: now with the Speak & Spell sounds

Published on Oct 16, 2019 Polaxis

"Added the beeps and the voice from the Speak&Spell to Emy’s latest firmware. Here in the standalone Terminal version with wireless keyboards.⁣"

Polaxis Emy USB Qwerty Keyboard Demo

Published on Jan 30, 2019 Polaxis

"Emy can now be connected to a USB keyboard and render sounds in 4 modes : Single key, Spell, Speak and ... Morse code"

Emy + VAX : testing the voices

Published on Jan 4, 2019 Polaxis

"Demonstration of some of the voices that the DECtalk engine embedded in the VAX-vox can produce"