Monday, September 24, 2012

Doepfer USB/CV/Gate/MIDI Converters Update

A little bit more info (by Dieter himself) on two upcoming Doepfer modules popped up in the Yahoo Doepfer Usergroup today.

It said that the A-192-2 Dual CV/Gate-to-MIDI/USB Interface is in the starting blocks and will be included with the next (fall 2012) production series.
Module A-192-2 contains two independent CV/Gate-to-Midi/USB interfaces.
Another product that almost reached the production stage is the A-190-5 four voice polyphonic Midi to CV/Gate interface that will probably be included in the last production series in 2012.

The A-190-5 will have 12 CV and 4 Gate outputs, and different modes (e.g. unisono, four-fold monophonic, different four voice polyphonic modes)
The hardware of the A-190-5 module is ready and Christian is working on the firmware.
Though it was planned to use 12 bit DA converters Doepfer thinks about 8 bit converters to reduce the price a bit.
"12 bit converters don't seem to have any advantage because the module only converts 7 bit midi data into CV (no software LFOs or software envelopes or software glide) and in this case 12 bit DACs
are wasted money because the last 5 bits are not used.", according to Dieter.

The estimated price for the A-192-2 is approximately 130 Euro, expect to pay around 300 Euro for the A-190-5.
Price and release date are still without obligation

Find the latest updates on new Doepfer modules HERE

2 comments:

  1. "Though it was planned to use 12 bit DA converters Doepfer thinks about 8 bit converters to reduce the price a bit.
    12 bit converters don't seem to have any advantage because the module only converts 7 bit midi data into CV"

    Incorrect. The error on a n-bit DAC is at least 0.5LSB in theory, and in practice can rise to 4LSB. For MIDI 7-bit integer-based pitch, that translates into an error of 0.5 to 4 *semitones*. Totally audible! While for a 12-bit dac, that is 3 to 8 *cents*.

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  2. Thanks Chris, you're probably right.
    Sorry for not being clear that was only quoting Dieter.
    Although the A-190-5 will be out soon, it is still not clear to me what converters they eventually will use.
    Thanks for the feedback anyway... PP

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