Neutral Labs Queen Elmyra – Kickstarter is live

I expected as such, 12AU7 is such a different tube. I may try 12AV7 just for the sake of knowing, since those are about in-between U and T for gain and current, but if the 12AU7 can already get into nasty evil territory in that circuit I probably won’t worry about it.

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I’m surprised no one has asked about the little points at the top (there must be a technical term for these, but I don’t do electrical stuff) where you can stick various components. What do they connect to, and what sort of components will do what sort of things?

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Both of us, brother. Or sister. Kitty. :smiley:

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Good question!

I’ve called them modifier ports before, but since it’s kind of a rare thing, there’s no established nomenclature. Maybe that will change with the soon-to-come resounding success of the Queen. :wink:

I’ve used a similar concept in Elmyra 2, where it modifies the distortion/filter circuitry, in Nijel (a distortion module) and in Scrat (a VCF module).

With Queen Elmyra, the ports expose part of the main filter circuit on the front panel. The filter is based on the Synthacon VCF, and the ports allow you to put components in parallel to the resistor that goes from the feedback loop to ground.

Basically this means whatever you plug in there will determine what parts of the signal bleeds off from the feedback path, and by how much. You can also plug in several things in parallel. Because it’s negative feedback, anything that’s bled off will be amplified in the output.

So each kind of component imparts a specific characteristic on the sound, some of which I guess you can hear in the videos. I’ll upload more to show a few different examples. It’s really quite rewarding, especially since you use slightly different components and/or resonance settings between both stereo channels.

Oh, and did I mention that LEDs will light up in sync with the sound if plugged in there? :smiley:

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I meant, really, the name for the little squares, like the ones found on breadboards. I guess “tie points” or “contact points” (if I can trust Wikipedia)? “Modifier ports” makes sense in the context of the specific use on QE. (And, now that I’ve used that acronym… you really are going to have to make a QE2, you know.)

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Ah, got it. They’re called socket headers.

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Thanks, that would be great and makes me more keen to buy one.

Do you think you’ll release more videos of the synth’s sounds before the Kickstarter ends?

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Yes, apparently that’s needed. “More videos” is basically all I keep hearing. :smiley:

It looks like there are quite a few people now holding back their pledges while waiting for more material to come out. So yeah, ask and ye shall receive. I’ll try and upload something soon.

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Blockquote
…you really are going to have to make a QE2, you know.

With four stacks! (Or are they funnels? Anyway, those big things. Four of 'em!)

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Babe, wake up, new short clip of some filthy Queen sounds just dropped. Check it out on the short term dopamine spike provider of your choice:

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Some quick sketch without distortion and harsh resonance.

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A few questions:

  1. Are the oscillators on QUEEN the same as on elmyra2? If not can you mention extra features that these queen oscillators posses ?

  2. Are there dedicated LFOs or I need to waste a voice as an LFO.

  3. If there are LFOs are they “pre-patched” internally. Actually does Digital Matrix exists on this device.

  4. Are the envelopes snappy to be used for percussive sounds ? Elmyra 2 had digital envelopes via firmware that were not too snappy.

  5. If External/Internal clock is used, is there a clock divider per each voice or one for the whole box.

  6. How many modulations slots are there per Effect ?

  7. Are there mults/dividers or attenuators built in ? So I don’t need an external 54-108Hp utility eurorack modules. Can you configure a voice to become an utility module/device such as mult/attenuator/Binary counter etc ?

Thank you!

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  1. Are the oscillators on QUEEN the same as on elmyra2? If not can you mention extra features that these queen oscillators posses ?

They’re similar in spirit, but much higher quality. Completely new wavetables too, and more of them. There are some ideas for additional oscillator types, which are possible due to increased processing power, but I don’t want to promise anything that may not be ready at launch. In any case, such things will come via firmware update if not at launch.

  1. Are there dedicated LFOs or I need to waste a voice as an LFO.

I wouldn’t say “waste”, but there are no LFOs other than the voices in mod mode. In this mode, they can be much more than a simple LFO though. Also, don’t forget about chord mode or detune, where you have 3 oscillators per voice. In most cases, 24 oscillators at the same time will be too much anyway, so it’s no problem to have 2 or 3 voices on modulation duty.

  1. If there are LFOs are they “pre-patched” internally. Actually does Digital Matrix exists on this device.

There are ideas like this, but again, I won’t promise it for the initial firmware version. It’s certainly possible on the hardware. Something like a simple internal LFO per voice is almost certain.

  1. Are the envelopes snappy to be used for percussive sounds ? Elmyra 2 had digital envelopes via firmware that were not too snappy.

Yes, they’re much shorter.

  1. If External/Internal clock is used, is there a clock divider per each voice or one for the whole box.

Per voice.

  1. How many modulations slots are there per Effect ?

One or two. You have 2 controls per voice, CTL1 and CTL2, which can be changed via knob and/or CV. In most cases, CTL1 is mapped to an oscillator type effect, such as sub osc, chord, detune or noise, and CTL2 is mapped to an audio effect like wavefolder, bitcrusher, distortion or various filters. In this case you’ll have one control per effect. But you could also select something like a resonant filter, in which case CTL1 will be the resonance, and CTL2 will be cutoff.

  1. Are there mults/dividers or attenuators built in ? So I don’t need an external 54-108Hp utility eurorack modules.

A couple of 0HP mults (plus patch cables) will come with the unit. The AMP control changes the volume if the voice is set to audio, and it also changes the amplitude of the mod signal if set to mod mode.

Can you configure a voice to become an utility module/device such as mult/attenuator/Binary counter etc ?

Some of these things are possible, some would be hard or awkward. The voices have a single audio (or CV) output each, plus the ENV output, but that’s analog. The voice itself could only output a gate. So for mult it would need several voices’ outputs. But things like counters are definitely possible. Attenuators too, but we’ll have to see how to best make that work in practice. The priority right now is to finalise an initial firmware that will cover the most desirable use cases at launch. We are prepared to deliver a lot more later via updates, as we’ve done for Elmyra 2.

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Thank you for prompt answers

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The Queen on LEDs.

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Do the Queen’s modifier ports work the same way as Elmyra 2’s?

Guess not (just looked at the home page).

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The same in spirit, but not exactly the same when it comes to the circuits behind it.

Elmyra 2 has a combo of a very peculiar distortion circuit with a sort of low-pass filter that does weird things to phase and such. With its modifier ports, you have access to one of the circuit’s feedback loop in two ways: You can plug in things in parallel with the feedback resistor, and/or things that go from there to ground.

Queen Elmyra just exposes the VCF’s feedback loop to ground part, but you can plug in 3 components in parallel to each other, which both simplifies things and makes the function more flexible within that scope. It’s a completely different circuit too, a filter loosely based on the Synthacon VCF, with pretty insane amounts of resonance.

Mind you, there’s also Scrat and Nijel with that same idea, but neither of those two shares any circuitry with Elmyra 2 or Queen Elmyra.

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I call this piece: Noisy frogs in the pond, some of them waiting to be kissed.

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Thanks, and I’ve backed the Kickstarter! I’d like the small Erica Synths style knobs instead please.

Thanks for your support! :slight_smile:

Those knobs have a larger diameter though, and they would cover some of the text. Would you be fine with that?