WORNG Electronics SoundStage User manual
WORNG Electronics SoundStage manual
Thanks for purchasing a WORNG Electronics SoundStage module, we
hope it breathes new life into your system!
The SoundStage is the essence of a
stereo mixer distilled into a
powerful efficient package. It
includes twenty-one inputs which
pass through a combination of
twenty resonant analogue filters
for tonal control and mix down to a
voltage controllable stereo output
stage.
SoundStage forgoes level controls
on each input as this can be done
with the VCA stage of the voices it’s
being fed. Rather than having a pan
control per input, each input is
placed in the stereo field according
to its position left to right on the
panel. The horizontal rows indicate how the inputs are filtered into
overlapping Low, Low-mid, Mid, High-mid and High bands. The Depth
control allows you to control the depth of the filtering, from unfiltered
on the left to hard filtered on the right. Like the stereo output level,
Depth can be controlled with a CV.
The ideas behind the SoundStage have been developing for a few years
now. Before founding WORNG Electronics I worked for many years as a
sound engineer and learned a lot of tricks for getting sounds to fit
together in a mix. Early on I learnt that panning is a powerful tool for
separating instruments in a mix, likewise filtering instruments to they
sit in their own space in the frequency spectrum.
One of my favourite mix tricks is to use resonant HPFs on kick drum
and bass, tuned so the resonant peak of the bass filter is sitting in the
dip of the kick drum filter.
A few years ago I read a great article about the design of the E-Mu
SP1200
(http://privateprogram.blogspot.com/2012/11/sp-1200-pt-2-memory-a
nd-hagiography.html) which discussed how that machine has different
filters on the voices which help place the samples in the spectral field
so tracks made with that machine already start to sound mixed straight
out of the machine.
These ideas have come together into the module you’ve now got in
front of you, we hope that it helps your tracks step up a level and saves
you time panning, filtering and EQing things in a DAW so you can focus
on the fun stuff, making sounds with your modular!
SoundStage essential concepts:
Panning
Panning in SoundStage is simple, if you patch in on the left hand side of
the module your sound will be panned to the left, similarly patching in
on the right pans right. However no sounds are hard panned, even if
patched to a far outside input the signal will appear panned slightly
between the speakers to create a more natural soundscape.
The only inputs which are panned on top of one another are the centre
inputs of each row, the other inputs are arranged so that the upper
row has the widest panning, with panning becoming more narrow as
you go down rows. This is so that each non-central input has its own
unique space in the stereo field, which helps bring separation between
voices while still gluing them together nicely. The circuit uses equal
power panning to ensure the apparent level doesn’t change depending
on where the voice is positioned.
The human ear is more able to pinpoint the direction of a high
frequency sound than a low frequency one, so the high frequency row
has wider panning. Conversely, low frequency signals are perceived as
less directional and also require more energy to reproduce from your
speakers, so are panned more centrally. Also for people putting their
material out on vinyl it helps to have low frequency elements panned
centrally, to stop the needle being thrown out of the groove.
It’s worth noting that although SoundStage has 21 inputs it wasn’t
envisioned that they would all be used at once, which is why they’re so
densely packed together. The circuitry has been designed so that you
can use a lot of inputs at once (the actual number will vary depending
on the signals themselves) but you may find that you’re able to clip the
circuit. If this occurs and you don’t like the colour which the clipping
introduces it’s recommended that you decrease the levels of the voices
you’re inputting.
While the vast majority of recorded (and live) music has fixed pan
positions for the individual voices, some people may find the fixed
panning of the SoundStage to be a limitation. To patch voltage
controlled panning while also using the filtering of SoundStage simply
use a stereo panning VCA and patch the two outputs to the far left and
right inputs of a row of SoundStage. The pan position can now be finely
controlled with either a static offset or control voltage.
Filtering
Each frequency row goes through a stereo pair of resonant high pass
filters and then a pair of low pass filters, with specially selected cutoff
frequencies which interact to mix your voices together in a way which
emphasises the frequencies of that row, and filters out frequencies
outside of that range of emphasis. This is particularly useful with a lot
of the modern digital percussion modules which put can often take up
a lot of space in your mix by using a lot of the spectrum, which can lead
to a muddy indistinct mix.
The SoundStage filters are inspired by a few things, the SP-1200 voice
filters mentioned previously being one of them, also the way a guitar
or bass amp shapes the spectrum of the signal being fed into it in a way
which lets them sit together in a mix in a natural way. Lastly the old mix
trick of using EQ during mixdown to remove parts of the spectrum of
some sounds to leave room for others to occupy, for example using a
HPF on all drums apart from the kick so that the kick has all that low
frequency to itself. Likewise the technique of EQing the kick drum and
bassline so that each has a cut where the other’s fundamental
frequency sits.
The frequency bands are, from top to bottom, High, High Mid, Mid, Low
Mid and Low. As a rough guide to describe the voicing you can think of
them as follows:
High for the sizzle of cymbals
High Mid for the bite of a lead line
Mid for a full pad
Low Mid for a tight bassline
Low for the thump of a kick drum
Note that while there are five inputs for the Mid to High bands there
are only three for the Low and Low Mid. This is because too many low
frequency elements can make your mix sound muddy and indistinct, so
fewer inputs are needed.
Filter Depth
The filter depth control blends between the unfiltered signal (fully
counter-clockwise) and the filtered signal (fully clockwise) using a
number of VCAs. Because using filters in a mixdown can be quite
extreme it’s useful to blend some of the unfiltered signal in to the mix.
Because all the filtering occurs in the analogue domain there are
interesting phase relationships between the filtered and unfiltered
signals to explore so we recommend listening closely while you adjust
the filter depth control to find the perfect balance for your mix.
The filter depth also can be modified with a control voltage, through
an attenuverting input. This allows for some exciting creative uses of
the SoundStage’s filters, for example rhythmic chopping of the
spectrum by controlling filter depth with gates or LFOs, or more
extreme effects such as patching bass voices to the upper inputs so
they’re completely high passed when the output is fully filtered.
Output Level
The output level control is primarily designed to trim the master
output level so you have a usable signal whether you’re inputting four
voices or fourteen. However it’s actually the bias control of a stereo
VCA so when using it with the attenuverting CV input it can be far
more creative than your average mix bus master fader.
Patching ideas:
Mixdown
The “standard” use for SoundStage is as a spectral stereo mixer to give
your voices their own position in the stereo field and also in the
frequency spectrum. Patch your voices in depending on where you’d
like them to be panned from left to right, and where you’d like them to
sit in the frequency spectrum from Low to High. Once you’re patched
in, adjust the output level control so you’ve got a good level to feed
the next stage of your signal path, then adjust the filter depth so that
it sounds good to you. In testing we’ve found our favourite settings are
often around 1 o’clock to 3 o’clock on the depth control, but your ears
will tell you when you’ve found the right spot.
Sidechain compression
This patch expands on the Mixdown patch and adds sidechain
compression functionality. Patch your voices as per Mixdown, then get
the signal you want to use as your sidechain and patch it to an
envelope follower. Patch the envelope to the Level CV input on
SoundStage and then turn the attenuverter to the left so the sidechain
signal is reducing the output level. For a more advanced compression
with an adjustable threshold, use channel 1 of Maths as your envelope
follower. Take the OR out of Maths to the Level CV input and use the
channel 2 pot to set your threshold, turning clockwise to increase the
threshold. You’ll have to apply more output level on the SoundStage to
make up for the level decrease of the compression, but this is a great
way to get width and space and pumping for your pads or any other
voices.
Rhythmic filtering
Patch an LFO or envelope generator to the Depth CV input to
rhythmically control the depth of the SoundStage filtering. Because
the filters are all analogue and resonant there’s sonically interesting
interactions of the phase relationships of the filtered and unfiltered
signals around the cutoff points, which sound great when being
modulated.
Wide stereo voice
If you’re using one of the new breed of stereo filters in your system
such as the Stereo Dipole or QPAS you can use SoundStage to help
make wide stereo signals to feed them, to take full advantage of
working in the stereo realm. Patch your oscillators to SoundStage and
let it add depth and variation to them. Try multing an oscillator and
patching it to both a High Left input and a Low Right one, or vice versa.
As well as filtering, SoundStage can change the phase relationships
between the signals which can give your stereo filters something more
to bite onto.
Tuned feedback/distortion
A great way to get more dirt into your mix is to mult the output of
SoundStage and then feed it through a VCA and back to one of the
inputs. The filtering will tune the feedback so you can decide where
you want it to sit in the mix and not have it overpower everything else,
and going through a VCA will allow you to have precise voltage control
of the feedback. The SoundStage signal path is designed to saturate in
a pleasant sounding way, but it can also be pushed into harsher
overdriven tones. Experiment with crossing over the left and right
signals and feeding back to their opposite sides, because SoundStage
is 100% analogue there is no latency so stereo feedback of signals is
possible and sounds natural.
Stereo Spectral Scanner
This patch uses the WMD Sequential Switch Matrix to flip voices
around the stereo field and the frequency spectrum. Patch your voices
or oscillators to the inputs of the SSM and then patch its outputs to
four differing inputs of SoundStage. Switching between different
Matrices in the SSM will give your signals movement, and these signals
can be moving around other static voices for some really interesting
creative effects.
These are just a few ways you can use your SoundStage to get more life
and music and sound from your modular system, there are many more
which you can find by exploring with your patches. If you come up with
any cool patches be sure to let us know, we love to hear what people
come up with using our modules!
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