Hello all! So, I’ve scavenged these and other forums/ websites to no avail! I know that these troubles have been had by many others but im tired of troubleshooting gunking up my creative ebb and flow yo!
My shapeshifter is the 2nd revision and was manufactured in august of 2016. I do have the noisy wavefolder issue (which really doesn’t seem to be that big of a deal to me) however, after flashing and reflashing multiple versions of firmware And trying my damndest (silent way, reaktor, max, ableton, cv toolkit, minibrute cv, ultralite) i cannot for the life of me seem to be able to properly calibrate the pitch tracking of my unit. I have attempted many times to do so following the tracking calibration routine but i still am not able to get my shifty to reliably play the muzak im trying to make. I do not have a deficated midi2cv module besides a shit ton of software and my dc coupled motu. I have not figured out a reliable way to set its base freq at exactly 0-1v with the daughter board button combo.
Anyone who has struggled and or has suggestion, id really appreciates their input.
Side note, anyone ever have their shifty stuck loading a default preset (mine was stguck on 93 every boot up. Finally back to normal after erasing firmware for the umteenth time)?
Cheers!
So this is about Shapeshifter, not Shifty, correct?
Probably best to contact support@intellijel.com.
The pitch calibration should be simple as long as you’re certain that you’re sending 0v and then 1v. In house, we use a voltage source like Triplatt or Quadratt with a quantizer like Scales with only the note C selected. With the voltage source in Uni mode turned all the way down it will output 0v. Then if you turn it up it will jump in 1v increments, so the first jump will get you to 1v.
Potentially completely tangentially, but… once I thought I was having problems with an oscillator tracking then it turned out that the output impedance on my sequencer was mismatched with the input impedance on the VCO. My sequencer had an output impedance of 1000 ohms (common in older gear) and there were noticeable tracking issues with VCOs from some manufacturers, including Intellijel. Most modern manufacturers tend to have very low output impedance in their sequencers, so their VCOs can also have lower input impedances without causing tracking problems. I got my sequencer manufacturer to drop the impedance down to 500 ohms and the tracking is much better all around.
This is my long winded way to ask: are you sure that the problem is whatever is sending pitch? One way to check is to run your pitch through an active buffer since their outputs have very low output impedances. If you still have the problem then it’s almost certainly a Shapeshifter issue.
“Shapey” woes!
Howdy scott. Thanks for the speedy reply. So, i totally lucked out after a solid week of trying (right after i posted of course). I was trying various combinations of midi controllers and software when i fortunately stumbled upon a website showing various manufacturer’s modules along with their corresponding voltage to midi note C4. It turns out that most euro Stuff is sensibly set up for C4=0v.
EXCEPT for the Minibrute. Which is set up for 4V. After some mathing i was able to get it all squared away proper. Scales like a dream and I couldn’t be happier. Now all that remains is to zero out any remaining DC offset lurking in the wavefolder circuit. I do seem to remember Danjell speaking on this wavefolder issue and while i believe it still may sound like a noisy vca/pot in the end i should be able to get it pretty dialed in.
One last question for you (sorry)
In the manual it says that the far left dip switch on the board selects between 96k/192k sampling rate. Is this true? As it stands, leaving said dip switch in the up position seems to prevent the unit from showing saved user presets after powering down.
Thanks much!
Ah yes! You’re probably talking about Chris Meyer’s Learning Modular Matching Octaves article. I’ve had to refer to that many times and I often send it to people while troubleshooting issues with third party modules and other gear. Glad you were able to sort it out!
If you’d like instructions on how to tune the DC offset, please e-mail support@intellijel.com and I can walk you through the process. It does require an oscilloscope.
The dipswitch sample rate selection feature was actually removed in more recent firmware updates. It was discovered that the higher sampling rate was just too unstable and glitchy.