Wednesday 4 December 2019

Synthesizer Build part-6: THE SEQUENTIAL PRO ONE LOWPASS FILTER.

The first filter I built and not one of the best in my opinion. Skip to an other project. I'm keeping this up for archival purposes.

[EDIT] Before we start: I'm writing this about 7 months after I published the article below and I can tell you now that I removed this filter from my synth. I couldn't get it to self-oscillate and I was not impressed with the sound of it. Maybe that's due to the fact that I was just starting out with synth building when I made this and I made some mistakes, but if you have the AS3320 chip I advise you to use it for the Digisound 80.6 lowpass filter. That is an amazing sounding filter!
I'm keeping this article up because this website is an archive of all my builds and that includes the ones that were not a succes (That's only this project anyway. The rest all works fine.)

Okay on with the original text:

I've considered many filter designs, and there's a lot to choose from if you search for schematics on the internet, but I've picked out 3 filters that I want in my synthesizer. Two of those are LowPass filters and one has the choise between Lowpass and Highpass. That's the Korg MS20 filter We'll get to that one later.

Now we will concern outselves with the Sequential Circuits Pro One (and many others) Lowpass filter based on the AS3320 chip. I went to the ElectricDruide website and found a page full of filters and amongst them I found this circuit:



There are also versions which are re-configurable with the flick of a switch but they were a bit too complicated for my taste and I thought this would be a great project to start with. Well, it was a good project to learn from but the result was nothing to write home about.

I made a layout on stripboard which you can find in the picture below. All potmeters viewed from the front.:


(Layout revised 15-Feb-2021)

Print only:

Bill of Materials:


The first version I made of this had capacitors that were 220pF instead of the 150pF as seen in this schematic. I thought that would give me more control over the low frequencies and I was right, LOL! It brought the top cut-off frequency down to about 200Hz. Way too low. So I soldered in the 150pF and everything worked after that.

The three inputs in this schematic have different values but I did some testing and the 120K resistor worked the best on the input so I put those in all 3 inputs. I think you should also do this if you decide to build this filter because these schematics reflect the circuit that is used in the synthesizer itself and that's why the inputs have different values because they receive signals with different amplitudes. In our synth all the VCO's produce signals with a set amplitude of 10V peak to peak, therefore the input resistors need to be the same value.

There's not much more to say about this. The opamp in the schematics can be any low noise audio type. I used the TL072 for that because I have a lot of those in my components collection and they are the opamps most used in synthesizer projects. But you can also use the TL082 or NE5532.

You can use this filter with a dual 12V powersupply without any changes except for the current limiting resistor to pin 13. Change it from 1K5 to 1K2 for -12V operation.

This filter sounds like a lowpass filter should although it is not as versatile as the Moog or Korg filters. For one, this filter is not self oscillating (at least, the one I build isn't) so you can't make it scream but it does produce that resonant synthesizer sound, if you know what I mean.  It's just a different filter to the Korg or the Moog Ladder Filter which is an other filter I've put in my synth build. It's more a filter to round off certain sounds you've created on your synth, to make them fuller. I don't know, you have to listen to it to know what I'm on about. It should be capable of self oscillation if you read the text that goes with the schematics. The fact that mine didn't self oscillate is probably due to my inexperience at the time I built this.
EDIT 20-March-2020: I just finished work on the Digisound 80.6 lowpass filter using the AS3320 chip and it sounds fenominal. If I were you I would build that filter instead of this one. 

Here are some pictures of the PCB and the panel I made:



The filter is the one on the right. The other one is the VCO. I had yet to add the text to the panels.



You can see the inputs for oscillators one, two and for noise on the left and below that the resonance control voltage input (for the LFO for instance). That input has a level control and there's a switch for internal or external resonance control. On the right is the audio output. The top potmeter is for the Cut-off frequency and the one below is, as mentioned, for resonance.

15 comments:

  1. Hey Eddy, how would change these modules to a 12v system? I'm fairly new to diy and i love the designs and layouts, easy to follow! Thanks again!

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    1. You can in most cases simply connect them to 12V without any changes. The AS3320 chip has a current limiting resistor from pin 13 to -15V, if you want to use it with +/-12V this resistor needs to be changed from 1K5 to 1K2, that's all. I'm so glad you like my articles. This filter was a bit of a disappointment to me and I am currently building a new filter with the AS3320 chip; the Digisound 80.6 Lowpass filter. Expect an article on it within the next week.

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  2. Dang, im excited can't wait!

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    1. Cool! Well I've been testing it today but I can't get it to work (yet). But that's usually the case with anything I build. In 80% of the cases I get it to work eventually though. ^____^

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    2. I've got it working my friend and it sounds AWESOME!! Working on an article with demo video right now. :)

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    3. Oh sweet, i'll be ready. I'm sourcing parts to start building. Another thing, for the other modules what would i need to change to make it 12v? Probably just being paranoid. i'm scared of the magic smoke. Ha Ha.

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    4. If there are specific things that need to be changed for 12V, it's usually mentioned in the article plus you can't get magic smoke by taking away 3 volts from the power supply so no worries ^___^

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  3. As I can see, this circuit will not work because +15V and -15V (with a 1.5K resistor) are connected to pins 15 and 14. But they must be connected to pins 14 and 13, right? And why GND isn't connected to pin 3?

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    1. Yes, you're right. I don't advise anyone to build this filter anyway because it's not very good. I'll go over the layout and correct the mistakes, thanks for spotting them!

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    2. I've updated the layouts and added a Bill of Materials too. If you spot any more mistakes please let me know. Thanks again!

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  4. Hello Eddy! Have some questions to you:
    1. Why do we need to connect 3rd pin of TL072 to GND?
    2. Why do we need to put jumper from pin 1 to pin 2 of TL072?

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    1. The TL072 is a dual opamp. We are only using the second one (pins 5,6 and 7), The other one needs to be connected at half voltage with feedback to the inverting input. That's the proper way to 'park' that opamp if you're not using it. In this case, ground is the same as half voltage (the middle of +15 to -15V = 0V) and we connect the output back to the inverting input with a wire bridge. Now that opamp is properly set aside and won't give us any trouble.

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    2. Thank you so much! Now I understand.

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  5. Hi Eddy. I've already built this filter using your schematic. And ... It works so good! Thank you for schematic!

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    1. Hi, I'm glad it worked so well. You probably did a better job than myself because I could never get this filter to self oscillate. But it was the first filter I ever built so I have learned a lot since then.

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