Thursday 19 March 2020

Synthesizer Build part-23: DIGISOUND 80.6 LOWPASS FILTER.

A very cool AS3320 design that sounds amazing! With verified stripboard layout and new schematics.

After having taken out the Sequential Pro One lowpass filter to make room for the Korg filter, I needed a new use for the AS3320 chip that was inside it. I found the Digisound 80 point 6 lowpass filter module on this awesome website that has all the schematics for the entire Digisound 80 modular synthesizer.
You can configure the filter for any type you want (it's all in the original text) but we are going to build the lowpass filter because for subtractive synthesis the lowpass is the best sounding and most useful of all the filters in my opinion.
I first made a new schematic drawing because the original had those zigzag lines for resistors and I find the rectangular way of drawing resistors easier and you can put the value of the resistor inside the box. Makes it less complicated to look at imho.
Anyway, here's the new schematic drawing:


So after that was finished I made a stripboard layout. It is verified because I used this twice and both times the filter worked perfectly. Furthermore it has been used successfully by others in their builds. Make sure you work accurately though because I wouldn't consider this a beginners project. The layout includes a second audio output with 3 times the gain of the original output. This is of my own design and is not included in the schematic drawing. It is this output that is wired up to the output jack-socket in the layout below. The original output is marked on the layout too. More about this further down the article:


(Last revised: 19-March-2020. Added a second audio output with 3 times gain compared to the normal output. 25-5-2023: Removed colour codes from resistors, added colouring to wirebridges.)

Stripboard only. Beware that some stripboards are sold with 56 instead of 55 holes horizontally. The layout is 55 holes wide:


Cuts and wirebridges seen from the COMPONENT SIDE! As always, mark the cuts on the component side with a Sharpie and then stick a pin through the marked holes and mark them again on the copper side and then you can cut them with a sharp hand held 6 or 7mm drill bit. 


Bill of Materials:



The panel potmeters used are all 100K linear types but the value isn't that important. Since they are all connected to either a powersupply voltage or an audio signal you can use any value you like from 10K upwards. I myself used three 100K potmeters for the Coarse, Fine and Resonance and I used three 10K potmeters for the audio and CV level controls. This works just fine. 
You can choose to include the Frequency Fine control potmeter or leave it out to save more room on the panel. I personally never use it but it is there if you want to play the filter as an oscillator when it is in full self-oscillation mode with the Resonance turned up full. You'll need to tune the self oscillation pitch to the chromatic scale of notes so in that case a fine tune knob will be very useful. But I personally never tried this so I don't know how well this filter responds to that. If you have any experience with that then please put it in the comments below so I can share it in this article.

This is a 24dB/Octave, 4-pole LPF and it is self oscillating unlike the Prophet One filter I used this chip in earlier. That one refused to self oscillate. I used simple ceramic capacitors for the 220pF caps and this works fine. There's no need for fancy polystyrene caps ^___^.
The 1µF electrolytic cap C7 at the input may seem to have the wrong polarity. Usually a cap like that would have the positive pole connected to the point where the signal comes from and negative to where the signal needs to go. In this case it is mounted correctly because the input opamp is an inverting buffer with a negative gain reducing the amplitude of the 10Vpp input signal by a third to an amplitude the chip can handle. In the output buffer the signal is then inverted again to a positive signal with a gain of 3 to give us the original amplitude.

Calibrating the filter:
There are three trimmer potmeters on this print and you can set them as follows:
RV8, the 100K trimmer, is used to trim away the DC voltage on the audio output. Measure the DC output voltage with nothing connected to the input and turn RV8 until it reads zero.
RV7, the 20K trimmer is an interesting one. It's used to have the filter track 1V/Octave oscillators correctly but I simply tune it for best sound. If you have a squarewave on the input and you turn this trimmer you can clearly hear the over-tones, the harmonics, change in pitch. You should be able to hear the frequency beating effect of the note from the VCO against the tone of the resonance. Trim until there's no frequency beating but also listen to the tone while changing the cut-off frequency and trim until it sounds right to you. There's a full description of the proper way to calibrate this filter in the original text, which is in the link I mentioned earlier in this article.
The last trimmer is the one in series with the current limiting resistor for the AS3320. Simply measure the resistance and set it so the total resistance of the trimmer with the 1K resistor equals 1,5K. You could also just put in a 1K5 resistor but turning this trimmer does have a little influence on the sound but you'll have to try it to know what I mean. I just set it to 1K5 and left it at that. Turning this trimmer all the way to zero resistance won't damage the chip though, eventhough it needs a 1K5 current-limiting resistor, 1K won't hurt it. The one thing I learned building this filter is that the AS3320 is quite a robust chip. I made a few mistakes building it the first time and the chip has had voltages (through resistors) placed on the wrong pins, short circuits and all sorts of other mishaps but it survived all that without a scratch. Thank goodness because I only have one of them at the moment :) Luckily I was able to test if the chip still worked by placing it back inside the old Prophet One filter and seeing if that still worked. That was very useful.
Anyway, you can use this filter with a dual 12 Volt power supply, but in that case the current limiting resistor should be 1,2K in total. But it's really not that important. Simply connect it to +/-12V and it should work fine.

This filter sounds amazing! It has its own distinctive sound and I can not say it sounds like the Korg or the ARP or the Moog Ladder filter. It sounds like a Digisound 80 filter, although it comes veeeeeeery close to the ARP in sound. This one sounds a bit more well behaved, if you know what I mean. The sound of the Resonance is clearer than in the ARP which has a Rensonance that is sharper and rougher in sound. But that's the only  difference I could hear so it occupies a solid second place over the Korg-MS20 and the Moog Ladder filter in my personal top 5. The ARP filter is still number one because it's a real rebel and I love it. But hey, remember, this is all just my personal preference. You may judge it quite differently. Actually, I find myself using this filter more often than the ARP filter somehow.
The output from the Digisound 80 LPF is a bit more attenuated than the other filters I built and that's why I used the left-over opamp in IC-1 as an output buffer with a gain of 3. There's a 150K resistor from pin 6 to ground and double that value, 330K, as feedback resistor from pin 6 to pin 7. (You can use any value over 10K for both resistors, as long as the feedback resistor is twice the value of the resistor to ground.) This brings the volume up to the same level as the other filters I made. As I mentioned earlier, the amplitude is first divided by 3 and then multiplied by 3 again in the output opamp but, at least in my filter, I found the sound still lacking in volume compared to the other filters. That's why I wired up the left-over opamp as an amplifier with an extra gain of 3 to bring it up to normal. I'm not sure if it's just my filter or if this is normal, that's why I left the original output un-touched so you can use it if you think my solution is too loud. You could also install a potmeter of 500K instead of the feedback resistor so you can manually set the gain. (Put a 50K resistor in series with the potmeter so the feedback loop can't go to zero Ohm.)
The original audio output is marked on the layout so you can choose which one you want to use.
The first time I build this filter I had used a coupling capacitor of 4,7µF over the audio output because I measured a big DC offset voltage on the audio output, but then I read the original text and found out you can trim that away with trimmer RV8 so I took out the cap and trimmed the DC away and now it's all as it should be.
This filter has an input for 1V/Octave but unlike the ARP filter it's not necessary to use this. The filter will work fine without it but if you connect a 1V/Oct. source to it, the filter will track the octaves better. The sharp synthesizer sound we all love, will be more prominent if you use the 1V/Oct input. It actually makes the filter sound better.
Like I mentioned before, this filter has 2 potmeters for the Cut-Off Frequency but I advise to only use the 'Coarse' control. Fine is only for Polyphonic synths. I included it in my build so I could hear its effect and write about it here, but I normally don't use it. It stays in the middle position because turning it just changes the sound a tiny bit. It can be handy though to tune it into a certain harmonic frequency because this filter brings out the harmonics of a square wave really well, but all in all; leave it out.

Here's a picture of the finished panel built into the synth.:


As you can see in the picture I also included a bypass switch on my panel so I can put other filters in series with this one and if I only want to use one filter I can bypass this one and send the signal straight to the next one without having to change the patch cables. For instance, having this filter in series with the Korg MS-20 in High Pass mode sounds pretty amazing too! That way you have a Band-pass filter made up of two different filters. The bypass switch is only connected to the 'Audio-1' input though. If you want to see the wiring diagram for this switch, you can find it in the article about the Moog Ladder Filter, in which I also installed a switch like this.

Here's a little video with a demonstration of the sound of the Digisound 80.6 LPF (EDIT: at this stage in building my synth it still hadn't occurred to me that you need to connect an AD or ADSR to the CV input to get that typical synthesizer sound. #facepalm (We live and learn LOL):



Lastly I want to share with you the efforts of LookMumNoComputer Forum member Doolang who successfully built this filter using my layout. He made it so it fits the Eurorack standard by cutting the print in half and connecting the copper strips together with wire. This works like a charm and he did the same with the Steiner-Parker filter which also worked fine.



So that's the Digisound 80.6 lowpass filter done. I can really recommend building this. It has some very recognizable synthesizer sounds that you should really have available in your synth. Make sure you use good quality stripboard though. The first one I built had problems because strips of copper would become loose and break. So I rebuilt it with better quality stripboard. Make sure you use the filter with the 1V/Oct connected to get the best out of it. This will make resonance follow the notes you play (filter tracking). It'll also work with out 1V/Oct of course.

Okay, thanks for being here and if you have any comments or questions just put them in the comments below or in the special Facebook Group for this website.

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27 comments:

  1. Hey! Just built this..worked great first try! Just wondering, I used Tl072's since I had no 82s. Would there be a difference in tone/sound in any way?

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    1. That's great No I never noticed any difference between the 72 and 82. You can use both without problems.

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    2. I used the 72's, than you can leave out C5 and C6. The 72 has internal frequency compensation

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  2. Hello Eddy,
    I have built the 5 types of noise and the sample and hold so far, both work well, thanks!
    I'm currently building the "OSC Digisound 80" and see that you have a "CV OUT" output on your front panel, this is not shown on the stripboard drawing! have I overlooked or misunderstood something?

    greetings

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    1. Hi Maik. The CV OUT is soldered straight onto the CV IN (1V/Oct.) so you can 'daisy chain' more VCO's together. So it's not on the stripboard because the connection is straight onto the jack-socket. You can see the connection on the schematic drawing. I'm glad the projects you built work so well. That's good to hear! =)

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  3. Soms ontgaat me de logica in die synthesizer schakelingen. Neem R32, die moet dan 51k zijn, dus een 1% weerstand. Maar die staat in serie met C12, 1uF, dat wordt een elco, dus een procent of 10 ?? Lijkt mij dat 47 of 56K ook wel zal werken. Of R6 51k om vervolgens in serie te staan met trimpot RV3 ? En idem R13

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    1. Tsja, dat weet ik ook niet Rolf. Ik heb dit filter niet ontworpen. Ik maak het alleen maar na en het werkt dus het zal wel goed zijn.

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    2. R6 dient om de 'Throw' van de pulse width modulation potmeter beter te verdelen over de hele potmeter en niet een stukje daarvan (geloof ik).

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  4. Built this one a while back. Love it.

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    1. Cool! I love it too. It sounds really good.

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  5. Hello,
    I always have your instructions translated from English into German, so it could lead to misunderstandings, my learned English is unfortunately bad!

    1. Question: Should the 2K trimmer (RV9) and the separate 1k resistor add up to 1.5K, or 1K (resistor) and 1.5K (trimmer) together make up 2.5K? From the schematic I read 1.5K the trimmer and 1K the resistor, together 2.5K?!
    3. DC 10.4 volts come out of the output, I had to plug a jack plug into the output and measured at the other end! I could not turn down the 10.4V with the 100K trimmer, I am measuring incorrectly or a connection is possibly wrong! Otherwise the filter sounds great, I'm happy to have built it!

    Sorry for this stupid question, I hope I could explain myself understandably!

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    1. Hi Maik! There is no such thing as a stupid question Maik. There are only stupid answers ;) As for your first question. Yes the total resistance would be 2,5K. This is the current limiting resistance to protect the chip. The chip can not handle -15V of itself so it needs extra resitors for protection. The 1K is there so that the minimum resistance when you turn the trimmer all the way down, is not 0 Ohm. That would destroy the chip. You can replace the trimmer and resistor with one 1k5 resistor. That would work fine.
      The second question: You should be able to trim the DC voltage away with the trimmer RV8. If you can't then you must have made a mistake somewhere. But you can put a 4,7µF capacitor on the output (the plus pole towards the filter, minus pole to the output) and that would hold back the DC voltage and only let through the audio signal. Btw, you can ask your questions in German too. I understand German perfectly fine, only I'm not good at writing in German so I will always answer in English. ;) I hope this answered your questions.

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  6. Eddy, ik heb dit filter ook gebouwd en het werkt denk ik. Alleen krijg ik niet hetzelfde geluid als in je Youtube video. Wat voor ingangs signaal heb je gebruikt voordat je de LFO aansluit ? Op die manier kan ik een beetje vergelijken

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    1. Ik heb gewoon een squarewave gebruikt op de ingang. Verder is het mogelijk dat er een licht chorus effect overheen zit maar dat weet ik niet zeker. Soms staat die module per ongeluk aan als ik opnames maak maar hoe dan ook, het verandert niet veel aan het geluid dat er uit krijgt.

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  7. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  8. Hallo Eddy.
    Ich nochmal,also mein Filter funktioniert jetzt super auch mit dem verstärkten Audio Ausgang,ist eine tolle Ergänzung im Rack !Klingt toll !!!
    Warum ich Dich aber eigentlich anschreibe ist,ich habe eine Frage und zwar habe ich hier noch einige “opa's z.B. OP275 und OPA604 soviel ich weiß sind diese bi-polar,kann ich diese austauschen und den TL072 (tl082) dafür heraus nehmen ? Ich wollte sehen ob es wenn auch nur minimal,Klangunterschiede gibt !

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    1. Ja das musste gehen Maik. Du kannst es probieren. Were interesant zu sehen ob est unterschiede gibt.

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    2. Freut mich dass das filter jetzt so gut funktioniert!

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  9. Hello Eddy - I have a question about this filter. The one I have built seems to work more-or-les, but is very distorted sounding. I decided to try the original output (not amplified) and it sounded better, but very quiet. I am wondering if this has to do with the signal I am sending into the filter which is ~10Vpp. Do you know what the maximum voltage is for the input of this filter?
    Thanks!
    -Tan

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    1. There must be something else going on because I also use this filter with 0 to 10Vpp input signals and it sounds awesome and very clear.

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    2. Interesting. I cannot figure it out. I have traced an retraced the paths on the circuit board and cannot find anything wrong. I have also reflowed all the solder but that did not seem to help

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    3. If a filter distorts it could be that the resistor values are off, or the capacitor values. If everything is connected correctly it is likely that some of the component values are off spec by too much. I wouldn't know what else to suggest.

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    4. Thanks for your reply. I'll see what I can do

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  10. Hello Eddy, i tried to build this one but it's not working 100%. The 12db/oct is completely silent, B-PASS does not affect anything, and turning resonance knob doesn't affect the sound also.. Can you tell me if in the verobard drawing, the shafts of the pots and switches are facing the viewers ? hope its correct in english. Cheers!

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    1. I'm sorry it's not working for you. Yes I always draw the potmeters with the shaft facing you. Front view.

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  11. Hi Eddy - Your site is excellent such useful observations from your builds. I have a question because you scrapped the Pro-1 filter; then you built and praise the Digidesign 80-6 lpf (and recommend a x3 gain buffer out). Electric Druid wrote an article stating that the Pro-1 filter is "pretty close" to the datasheet 80-6 LPF with the addition of a x3 gain output buffer. Would be interesting to know more of your thoughts on this.

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    1. Hi! Yes what you have to keep in mind it that these projects are amongst the first I ever built. So the Pro-1 filter I probably did something wrong and that's why it didn't work very well for me. Then I needed a circuit that took that 3320 chip and the Digisound filter was a good one to try. I didn't know that Electric Druid added a 3x buffer to his filter too. I haven't read that article. That's funny. We obviously came to the same conclusion about the output level.

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