4ms Company Matthias Puech Ensemble Oscillator User Manual
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4ms Company Matthias Puech Ensemble Oscillator User Manual

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When does the superposition of tones produced by well-coordinated instruments become a single voice with a complex
timbre subtly evolving over time? What are the boundaries between a rich timbre and a musically harmonic chord? From
traditional overtone singing techniques and Gregorian chants to Spectral Music, Helmholtz' resonators to modern-day
Fourier theory, or classical counterpoint to Xenakis' massive polyphonic clusters, the rich spectrum lying on the limit of these
perceptual illusions has been a constant source of fascination, scientific study and artistic inspiration.
Combining additive, FM, phase-distortion and wavefolding synthesis techniques in new unorthodox ways, the Ensemble
Oscillator allows you to explore this sonic boundary and exploit it musically. The eurorack-format module is a unified
polyphonic voice of sixteen complex oscillators sharing the same sine-based waveforms. The oscillators take their
frequency relationships from a selected scale, crossfading smoothly from one note to the next. The Ensemble Oscillator
easily creates a wide variety of sounds ranging from aggregates of pure sine waves to pulsar synthesis or pristine harmonic
tones and lush wide chords to rich dirty drones and rumbling glitches. Custom scales can quickly be "learned" and saved
using a CV keyboard or by manually entering notes with the controls.
The Ensemble Oscillator was designed by Matthias Puech and 4ms Company.
Ensemble Oscillator
4ms Company & Matthias Puech
User Manual 1.0 – January 10, 2020
5
6
4
7
Learn
3
8
2
9
12TET
1
10
Scale
Oct.
Free
Balance
Crossfading
Crossfading
Ramp
Pulsar
Crush
Twist
Freeze Mode
Freeze Mode
Pitch
Spread
1V/oct
Scale
Root
Twist
1V/oct
Balance
ENSEMBLE OSCILLATOR
8
1
16
Spread
# Oscillators
# Oscillators
Pitch
Fine Tune
Cross FM
Root
Add Note
Detune
Warp
Stereo Mode
Stereo Mode
Cross FM
Learn
Warp
Freeze
Freeze
Delete Note
Shift
Shift
Up
All
Down
Fold
Cheb
Segment
Out A
Out B

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Summary of Contents for 4ms Company Matthias Puech Ensemble Oscillator

  • Page 1 Custom scales can quickly be “learned” and saved using a CV keyboard or by manually entering notes with the controls. The Ensemble Oscillator was designed by Matthias Puech and 4ms Company.

  • Page 2: Features

    Features • A maximum of 16 sine-based oscillators, bound to intervals of a selected Scale • 30 factory-programmed, user-writeable scales organized in three groups: • 12TET: all notes quantized to equal temperament, repeating over octaves • Octave: unquantized notes, repeating over octaves •...

  • Page 3: Table Of Contents

    Table of Contents Features ......................... Getting Started Plugging in your Ensemble Oscillator ..............Basic Concepts ..................... Controls and Jacks ....................Tutorials and Patches Tutorial I: Create your own Scale in Learn Mode using the knobs ......Tutorial 2: Create your own Scale in Learn Mode using a keyboard ....

  • Page 4: Getting Started

    Getting Started Plugging in your Ensemble Oscillator 1. Power off your Eurorack system. 2. Connect the free end of the included power cable to a 16-pin Eurorack power header on your power supply distribution system. The red stripe should match the white line or -12V marking on the power distribution board.
  • Page 5 Freeze Usually, all the oscillators respond to all the controls. However, you can freeze the frequency of certain oscillators while the others continue to respond to controls. To do this, press the Freeze button or send a trigger into the Freeze jack. The button will turn blue and some of the oscillators will be frozen.

  • Page 6: Controls And Jacks

    Controls and Jacks Root knob and jack The Root knob controls the pitch of the lowest (root) oscillator before quantization. As you adjust this knob, the oscillators move up or down in frequency, crossfading between notes in the selected scale. The Root jack has the same function, with a 1V/oct response limited to voltages between -2V (two octaves down) and +6V (six octaves up).
  • Page 7 Cross FM knob, jack, and switch The Cross FM feature controls how much the oscillators modulate the frequency (FM) of each other. When the knob is fully down, there is no modulation. As the knob is turned up, complex sets of harmonics arise.
  • Page 8 Learn button The Learn button is used to create and save custom scales. Pressing this button enters Learn mode, indicated by the button turning red. If you enter Learn mode by accident, just press the button again to Learn exit with no changes. Learn mode allows you to create a new scale and save it into one of the 30 scale slots.

  • Page 9: Tutorials And Patches

    Tutorials and Patches Tutorial I: Create your own Scale in Learn Mode using the knobs Creating your own scale is easy. With the Ensemble Oscillator, the process of creating a new scale is called “Learning”. There are two ways to do it: with the knobs, or with an external CV and gate source. This tutorial covers the former. 1.

  • Page 10: Tutorial 2: Create Your Own Scale In Learn Mode Using A Keyboard

    Tutorial 2: Create your own Scale in Learn Mode using a keyboard A fast way to enter a scale with specific notes you want is to use a CV/gate keyboard or sequencer. 1. Patch the CV output from a keyboard or sequencer into the Pitch jack and the gate output Tap to enter Learn Mode into the Learn jack, unpatching all other cables except the Out jack(s).

  • Page 11: Detailed Concepts And Usage

    Detailed Concepts and Usage Scales and Oscillators The concept of scales is central to the Ensemble Oscillator. In western music, a scale is a series of notes with the last note being an octave higher than the first note. The spacing between the notes is always one or more semitones (i.e., half-steps, whole-steps, minor thirds, etc.) Scales in the Ensemble Oscillator are similar in concept but don’t have to adhere to this form: the notes don’t have What’s an interval?
  • Page 12 In the fourth box, Root has been turned back down, and the Pitch knob has been turned up. The result is exactly the same as the first box except everything has been transposed (or pitch-shifted) upwards. Even the allowed notes of the scale have been transposed (notice the names of the notes went from C C# G B to G# A D# G).

  • Page 13: Scale Groups

    Detuning After quantization, the Detune feature is applied. The first (root) oscillator is not detuned at all. The other odd-numbered oscillators are detuned upwards, and the even-numbered oscillators are detuned downwards. Going from lowest to highest, each oscillator is detuned a little more than the previous one. If an oscillator is outputting two pitches because its pre- quantized frequency is between two notes in the scale, both pitches will be detuned by the same amount and in the same direction, regardless of whether they are odd or even-numbered.

  • Page 14: Learn Mode: Advanced Concepts

    Free scale group The Free scale group imposes no restrictions on the allowed intervals. Like the 12TET group, the scales don’t have to repeat every octave. This group can contain any type of scale, including microtonal and experimental scales. Intervals Comments Free group factory scales Slot 1...

  • Page 15: Shift Features

    Scale Groups and Learning When you Learn a new scale with the Scale switch set to 12TET or Octave, the constraints described in the Scale Groups section (page 13) will be applied automatically to the notes you enter. To demonstrate how the choice of the Scale Group will effect a new scale, we’ll take a simple example of a scale and show how it would behave differently if it were added using each of the three Scale Groups.

  • Page 16: Crossfading

    Crossfading Crossfading controls what happens when an oscillator’s pitch before quantization falls between Freeze two notes of the scale. To understand this feature, you must first understand how the oscillators and scales work. See Scales and Oscillators section and diagram (pages 11 to 13). Hold the Shift (Freeze) button and turn the...

  • Page 17: Stereo Mode

    Stereo Mode Freeze There are two output jacks, Out A ,and Out B. If you patch into Out A and leave Out B unpatched, then all oscillators will be routed to Out A. However, if you patch into both jacks, the oscillators will be panned between the two jacks.

  • Page 18: Calibrating 1V/Oct Jacks

    Calibrating 1V/oct jacks For maximum accuracy, it's recommended to calibrate the Pitch and Root jacks to your keyboard or sequencer. There are many factors that could cause incorrect tuning when using external equipment even if all the equipment is nominally 1V/oct. You also can calibrate your jacks if you want to use an external device that runs on 1.2V/octave.

  • Page 19: Electrical And Mechanical Specifications

    Electrical and Mechanical Specifications • 16HP Eurorack format module • 0.98” (25mm) maximum depth (including power cable) • 10-pin to 16-pin Eurorack power header • Power consumption +12V: 114mA maximum • -12V: 45mA maximum • +5V: 0mA (not used) • •...

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