Sparrow's Corner - Music Warehouse - Metasonix TM-3 100070

The METASONIX TM-3 is the only voltage-controlled oscillator on the market with an all-tube signal path. It consists of two thyratron tube sawtooth oscillators, which are wired in parallel but may be offset with their individual front-panel tuning controls. Furthermore, soft sync is available, to force oscillator 2 to track with oscillator 1.

The waveform produced by the 2D21/5727 thyratrons is unique and distinctive--a very imperfect sawtooth. It's NOT like the thin, reedy sound of a solid-state oscillator. It's thick, robust, meaty--the kind of sound that screams "VINTAGE". Because the only other instruments that produce it are vintage ones--the Mixtur-Trautonium, the Univox, and some 1950s electronic organs.

Furthermore, there is a suboctave circuit, which adds a square wave one octave below oscillator 2. It includes short pulses an octave above, for a distinctive sound. And you can mess with the STABILITY control to get unique effects--because the suboctave divider is made of two neon lamps, and NOT a transistor flip-flop. Except for the CV driver, the TM-3 is all tubes.

And unlike most other synthesizer VCOs, the TM-3 is so sensitive that it is easily used for FM sound effects--simply by driving either CV input with a line-level audio signal. Both inputs are DC coupled and highly sensitive. The result is a unique, and very extreme, form of signal distortion.

The TM-3 is a Hz/V VCO, meaning it follows a linear characteristic. Each successive octave requires doubling the control voltage. As shipped, the first octave is swept from 0 volts to 0.25 volts, the next from 0.25 to 0.75 volts, etc. Although not standard to the present modular-synth industry, this scheme simplifies the TM-3's use as a signal processor, and avoids the use of an exponential converter circuit, which can drift with temperature or cause other problems. TM-3's CV pitch may be controlled from any MIDI-CV converter having Hz/V capability, including the Synhouse MIDIJACK II, Philip Rees Little MCV, Kenton Pro-Solo and Pro-2000, JKJ, Frostwave, and Encore Expressionist, and it is also compatible with vintage Korg MS series and Yamaha CS series synthesizers. Tuning is within a 25 cent deviation over the lower 2 octave range when MIDI-CV is used.

AUDIO SAMPLES:
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