Notes on programming

With apologies to Paganini

This is what happens when you feed a MIDI file of Paganini's Capriccio no. 24 to a monosynth built with MRG modules:

I find that violin, viola and cello compositions are perfect to test a simple monosynth, as they are mostly monophonic and they range across many octaves.

The Capriccio n.24 is perfect in this, and it actually overstretches the octaves over the limits of my 2HP MIDI module: unfortunately all sounds above C7 are flattened to C7. But it's still a good demo of the MRG 3340 VCO's excellent 1V/O tracking.

I played a lot with the envelope generated by the MRG 3310 ADSR module. The envelope is actually fed to the 24db MRG LPF, that acts as a low pass gate. You can see me tweaking the filter as well. The output of the filter is then passed to the MRG VCA, that amplifies the signal controlled by the MIDI velocity, and then to the output.

I use two MRG 3340 VCOs here, both sawtooth waves. They start being tuned at the same frequency, but around 2:09 I detune the second oscillator to an octave lower.

I feel extremely dirty for having destroyed one of classical music's masterpieces, and I am probably in danger for having offended a composer who liked to spread the rumor of having sold his soul to the devil, but I admit that recording this was a lot of fun!