The Circon |
The
Circon is a
continuous controller, not an instrument. I built
it originally in 1978, when Rachel and I had been asked to
score Kubrick's The
Shining. We
were still assembling musical ideas, trying to come up with
a novel, haunting melodic sound. The Moog Synth, with its
keyboard controller, was poorly suited for the kind of color
we were looking for. Circon, front view Got
a cute little digital camera early this year
(this
was in 2001). It's
perfect for taking those off-the-cuff shots and odd closeups
of things you are trying to describe on the web. So I
thought you might enjoy seeing some new views of the Circon
as it appeared at the start of 2001. First, here it is,
sitting on the oak kitchen stool that I usually place it on
when I'm recording with it (or even just when practicing).
This image is much better illuminated than the original
flash snapshot, so you can study the device better here than
the photo at the top of this page.
(As
usual, click each of these images for a large, much clearer
view.) Circon, side view Let's move in closer to the
left side of the Circon. This is the domain of the left
hand, which "plays" a pivoted short arm for control of
volume and expression (your fingers press it down and let it
spring back up quickly for each detached note, and/or ease
it up and down musically for a more singing passage). You
can clearly see that I used the very expedient device of a
rubber band (you may know it by it's more technical name:
"elastic polymorphic potential energy temporary storage
device"). A simple push-pin from an art shop (now long gone,
alas) holds the upper end, while the lower end slips around
the arm, about a third of the way up, as shown. Circon, interior view If you were to invert the Circon and look at the bottom, you'd discover this opening access to the internal wiring. To the right top is the precision potentiometer for the main pitch control, a short gray shielded wire coming from it. Most of the circuitry itself is contained on this simple "vector board", which I wired to resemble a printed circuit board, following the schematic Bob Moog designed. It's not an elaborate circuit, but is efficient and has proven itself with trouble free operation for nearly two dozen years, as this is written. I sometimes worry if our latest digital wonders will reach such a longevity. I guess the better ones will. My earliest GDS and Synergies are still fully functional, for example. Then again, so is the Circon, thanks so much, Bob! (And see more about Bob's contribution to the Circon recently added just below.) © 1996-2012 Wendy Carlos -- All Rights Reserved |
During my search for some other early technical papers recently, I came upon the original docs from Bob Moog, a key part of the story behind the Circon, some of which I've attempted to describe above. Without further ado, here are the two important pages for your perusal. (As usual, click each of these images for a large, much clearer view.) Letter from Bob Moog Here's the gracious letter
of April 10th 1978, which Bob sent me along with his
schematic (below) for the Circon. We spoke only a once on
the phone about it, yet he grasped at once what was needed.
You can read here how open and straightforward is his
description of the inner workings of his proposed circuit. I
recall he kindly laughed at the much more primitive circuit
I had originally proposed, which contained none of the
voltage stabilizing and regulating niceties. He was very
quick in coming up with this, then mailing it to me -- it
arrived less than a week after we'd spoken about it! Bob's Circon circuit, annotated Here's the circuit design
Bob came up with for this custom controller. I've added my
commentary, annotations, wherever you see the lighter pencil
additions (plus the bottom view of the transistor), to his
original hand-drawn ink schematic. It's pretty much what I
followed when I built the actual device. Note the two
independent sections, one fairly simple for volume and
expression, the other fairly subtle, for pitch. I note that
in March of 1995 I had to replace the op amp chip with a
newer, and probably more stable, substitute. I wish I could
have afforded one of the highest quality plastic-film
potentiometers made by companies like Penny and Giles. They
have a much more consistent taper, so the spacing of the
intervals would remain more constant. You can see that from
the front photographs, the "keyboard" keys are not all the
exact same width. But it's still close enough. The real
problem would be if that Allen-Bradley sealed carbon pot
would fail, as any replacement would present its own curve
and semitone spacing. Fortunately, it gets little use, so I
doubt I'll ever need to face that eventuality. (And anyway,
there are perhaps a couple of hundred of the same vintage AB
controls throughout the studio and the original Moog
synth...!)
Vladimir encouraged the
musicians who worked there to try to be innovative, expand
the horizons, and found my idea for real-time playing of a
calibrated HP oscillator most amusing and useful. So he
allowed me to adapt, with greater precision, one of the
studio's newer, better units (I recall a gray panel Heathkit
sine/square oscillator). It was my memories of that graduate
student experience which much later inspired creating the
Circon
Controller for the
Moog, when the Kubrick film project, "The Shining", came up.
At first Stanley seemed to be gravitating towards at least a
few spooky quiet melody-driven things like haunted waltz
music (for example, Sibelius's "Valse Triste"). Later he
abandoned that idea completely and stayed with more textural
elements. I, for one, was sorry to see it go, if only for
the contrast and variations it would have allowed us. |
Wendy
Carlos, The Circon
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1996-2012 Serendip LLC. No images, text, graphics or design
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Reserved.