Pittsburgh’s Flamingo brings Center Clipping and Harmonic Interpolation to analog synthesis Pittsburgh Modular Flamingo · Source: Pittsburgh Modular Flamingo works on a concept from Don Buchla that shapes and destroys waveforms from the inside out and uses Harmonic Interpolation to try to reconstruct them. ADVERTISEMENT Flamingo It sounds like something from a horror movie where a mad scientist tried to fold a victim through time and space by nefarious means only to dramatically reconstruct them with monstrous results. It’s just another day in Eurorack. Center Clipping is where you shape a waveform by pulling the top and bottom half towards the middle. These are then folded back on themselves through sliding and inversion creating new types of waveforms and shifting the fundamental in and out of the waveform via an Overtone control. Apparently, all this jiggery-pokery destroys the waveforms down to almost nothing and so another process is needed to inject some energy back in. Harmonic Interpolation is a process that attempts to restore the amplitude of the Center Clipped waveform by using analogue circuitry to guess what it should look like. As they say “results will vary”. Flamingo is part of the Safari range of modules that aim to be exploratory and there as a proof of concept that might appear in something else at a later date. In the video below from February Richard from Pittsburgh Modular talks about the concept of Harmonic Interpolation with a prototype Flamingo module. Interesting stuff. If you’d like to get your hands on a Flamingo then there will be a limited number available very soon. The website suggests you can order now but it doesn’t appear to be on sale just yet. |
