Description
The Portland percussion synthesizer has been designed as a drum machine companion to the FSS Brunswick. Like the Brunswick, Portland has been designed with affordability and flexibility in mind, allowing for a wide range of drum synthesis options from relatively sparse electronics. Portland is presented as a “sandbox” for percussion and drum synthesis, giving several different analogue sound generation and shaping elements in a patchable unit. The synthesis elements are normalled together on the patchbay, allowing for minimal patching to arrive at a kit of drum sounds, however this normalling can also be overridden for more complex drum sound synthesis. There are 32 Patch points in total, see further down the page for the full list.
Drum synth circuit elements:
- Bass Drum semi-linear resonator
- 2x Twin-T resonators
- “Ring” generator, formed from 6 XOR’d oscillators
- Noise generator
- Dynamic hi-hat shaping circuit
- 2x decay envelope generators
- 2x discrete audio VCAs
- Four channel audio mixer with Baxandall tone circuit
Suggested first patch from FSS:
A signal flow diagram of Portland can be seen below:
Technical specifications:
- PCB Dimensions: 228 x 112 mm
- Module power: 2x PP3 9V batteries (not included) (+12, -8mA current draw)
Whilst Portland can be powered from two PP3 9V batteries, the FSS Battery Simulator will allow Portland to be powered from DC or Eurorack power supplies. Portland is also fully compatible with modular synthesizers and standalone sequencers.
Patch bay I/O:
More info on the Patchbay functions can be found here: https://www.muffwiggler.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=3075326#3075326
-Bass Drum sweep input (normalled to Decay 1 output)
-Bass Drum audio output
-“Ring” Generator mix input (normalled to Noise Generator output)
-“Ring” Generator audio output
-Twin-T Resonator 1 trigger input (normalled to TT2 trigger input)
-Twin-T Resonator 1 audio output
-Twin-T Resonator 2 trigger input (normalled to TT1 trigger input)
-Twin-T Resonator 2 audio output
-Snare Drum mix input (normalled to VCA2 audio output)
-Snare Drum audio output
-Closed Hat trigger input
-Open Hat trigger input
-Hi-Hat audio input (normalled to Ring Generator output)
-Hi-Hat audio output
-Hi-Hat envelope output
-Open Hat envelope output
-Decay 1 trigger input
-Decay 1 envelope output
-Decay 2 trigger input (normalled to TT1 trigger input)
-Decay 2 envelope output
-Noise Generator audio output
-VCA 1 audio input (normalled to Ring Generator output)
-VCA 1 control input (normalled to Decay 1 output)
-VCA 1 audio output
-VCA 2 audio input (normalled to Noise Generator output)
-VCA 2 control input (normalled to Decay 2 output)
-VCA 2 audio output
-Mixer audio input x4
-Mixer audio output
