Xenotron kit

The building process was very enjoyable. I had some extra fun because i soldered the 3PDT board upside down : I really thought that everything was over before it was even started... Some simple and straighforward spaghetti wiring was required to make it work, it gave me lots of fun and so many doubts about the outcome.
Ive learned to be extra careful with big pcb with many parts, so i made sure every components were all right before soldering. I tried to do the full houp-la-boum exemplary building process, eyes wide open, and many cofee cups to avoid any troubleshooting later.

On the BBD sub-board, the connector pads are slightly harder to solder than usual, they are a bit tiny, there is quickly too much solder. The position of the bigger parts also matters, like the 10uF electro cap on the BBD pcb, in order to connect the small pcb on the main board.
If something protrudes too much, it wont fit.

Xenotron was a disappointment at first. As long as i tried to use it as i would use any other modulation, it felt less interesting and less effective than many other modulation circuits. Once carefully calibrated, it is able to do some chorusing/flanging/phasing effect, but i dont think thats its strong suit.

Even the controls were surprising for me. A few of them are like fully CCW when set in the middle of their rotation. A friend who built his own modular synthetizer told me that it was a pretty common thing in the modular world. It is called bipolar controls.

I only started to see a small portion of Xenotrons potential once i used it without any signal input. I put down the guitar and started using the xenotron like a signal generator. I played with feedback, depth, rate and the Manual controls to make the device self-oscillate. Then i used a delay in the loop section, another analog modulated delay after the xenotron, and a reverb at the end of the signal chain. Thats where things got really interesting. It creates some sorts of bird sounds from an other world. It reminded me of Klaus Schulze music style. I could almost hear some strange unknown creatures singing.

These bipolar potentiometers seem to be designed to be able to get the most of the self-oscillating feature. Xenotrons Reaction pot is probably the most interesting feedback control i have ever tried.

These sounds could be interesting on their own, but they could also be used as some sort of background noises with other instruments, to give some dreamy, psychedelic, out of space and psycho-active touch.
I intend to do some more experiments on these self-oscillating noises, combined with various circuits.

If you are looking for some flanger even better than A/DA flanger, i dont think its possible, as far as i know.
A chorus better than MXR Stereo chorus, or some Boss chorus ? not possible neither.
Something unique, able to do its own thing ? Something inspiring that will lead you on a new experimental musical path ? Yes, thats it.

justin a., 28.12.2023