Mutant snare User Manual

The Mutant Snare

09.feb.2016! Mutant Snare user manual v1.03 PG1
Hexinverter Électronique, 2016

!

analog snare drum synthesis with external input, inspired by the 808

!

Thank you for your interest in/purchase of the Mutant Snare (MSN) eurorack module. We would like to thank
you for considering a place for the MSN in your modular synthesizer! We hope you find it has a unique
character that lends itself to much use in your musical endeavours. The Mutant Snare is a eurorack modular
format product, available as a module or a DIY project that electronic enthusiasts can assemble themselves.

THE SNARE: FROM CLASSIC TO MUTANT

Like the other percussion modules which make up the Mutant Drums series, the Snare was born out of the
desire to evolve away from classic drum synthesis techniques and offer something with a unique character
of its own. The world of modular synthesis has been evolving rapidly in recent years, and so has drum
synthesis. We wanted to offer a snare drum that would stand the test of time and offer the possibility of
sounds not found in any vintage drum machine.

The Mutant Snare's SHELL is comprised of two bridged-t sinewave oscillators, much like a certain legendary
vintage drum machine with the number "8" in its name. These oscillators have a particularly clean waveform
that produces a low-harmonic sine which naturally decays in amplitude, and pitch, over time. The tone of
these oscillators is quite natural sounding to our ears, which is perhaps part of the reason why some vintage
analog drum machines still see daily use by many contemporary artists. You can tune the pitch of one of
these oscillators by about two octaves - a useful feature not found on the circuit this Mutant was inspired by.

The SNAPPY makes up the noise tone of the snare drum. It uses an all-analog transistor noise generator,
just like many vintage machines. If you tire of this sound source, you can plug virtually any other audio
source into the external input. The 12dB/octave HP/BP filter which the noise feeds into is voltage
controllable with selectable resonance settings, which lends a lot of variety to the types of sounds you can
create with the Mutant Snare.

!

The Mutant Philosophy

There are already some pretty awesome clones of vintage gear out there in the modular world. The

Mutant Drums were not made to try and fill that role. Although each Mutant began as a favourable classic

drum topology, we wanted to create something modern and different, while still maintaining an analog

nature. Features like CV inputs and signal routing not found on classic analog drum machines were

incorporated to make these circuits powerful creative tools in your modular synthesizer.

09.feb.2016! Mutant Snare user manual v1.03 PG2
Hexinverter Électronique, 2016

FEATURES

MIX and DRIVE

•!MIX lets you blend between the SHELL and SNAPPY tones that make up the overall snare drum

•!turn up the DRIVE to get overdriven snare tones with intense harmonics. The purple LED indicates when the snare

begins to overdrive

•!like the other Mutant Drums, signal levels have been normalized for modular level input and output (up to 20Vpp)

SHELL synthesizes the drum skins

•!analog bridged-t sinewave oscillators, for those organic-sounding tones we've come to love from the 808

•!TONE control blends between the two sinewaves of different frequency

•!SHELL PITCH lets you tune one of the sine waves, to change the pitch of your snare drum

SNAPPY adds some noise to the snare

•!an analog white noise generator feeds the SNAPPY circuit

•!an external input lets you patch any sound source you like into the SNAPPY generator

•!voltage control of SNAPPY decay

•!SNAPPY feeds into an analog selectable high-pass or band-pass filter

•!voltage control of filter cutoff frequency

•!when nothing is plugged into the cutoff CV input, the SNAPPY envelope OR the adjustable sinewave from the SHELL

generator normalize through the CV attenuverter for cutoff CV. A jumper on the back of the module allows you to
select which of these internal modulation signals are routed here

•!filter has three resonance settings: classic 808 (low resonance), high resonance, and self oscillation

•!bipolar attenuators (aka: 'attenuverters') on CV inputs

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Width: 13HP | Depth: 30mm

Current draw: +50mA, -50mA @ 12V

!