Mutable Instruments Blades (Dual multimode filter)
Mutable Instruments Blades (Dual multimode filter)
A dual multimode filter…
A CV-controlled overdrive circuit capable of wavefolding.
A clean 12dB/octave multimode filter self-oscillating cleanly across the audio range.
Times two. And this could have stopped here.
For all the in-betweens…
What sets Blades apart is that options commonly presented as multiple choices (low-pass or high-pass? serial or parallel?) are presented here as a continuum, ready to be explored at the twist of a knob or with a CV.
The filter response is continuously variable between low-pass, band-pass and high-pass, and delivers intermediate shelving responses, for more nuanced spectral coloring.
A dual crossfader circuit allows the routing between the two filters to smoothly vary from single to parallel to series.
And more…
Originally thought as a complex filter, Blades turns out to be capable of much more:
- A dual distortion with spectral color control?
- An oscillator mixer with crossfading, wavefolding, and enough filtering to clean up the mess?
- A voice, using one filter as an oscillator, then distorting, folding it and filtering it with the second filter?
- A complex oscillator capable of FM, PM and AM?
An essential overdrive circuit
- A CV-controlled overdrive stage precedes each of the two filters.
- Overdrive response continuously adjustable between soft-clipping and 2-stage wavefolding.
Two rich multimode filters
- Clean 2-pole (12dB/octave) state-variable design.
- CV-controlled filter response, continuously variable between low-pass, band-pass and high-pass.
- CV inputs with attenuverters for cutoff and resonance.
- Unattenuated frequency CV input, calibrated for 1V/Oct tracking.
- Clean self-oscillation across the audio range, extending into very low frequencies, with constant amplitude.
- Modulating the filter response is akin to modulating the phase of the self-oscillation tone.
Unique routing possibilities
- Continuously variable (and CV-controlled) routing from single to parallel to series.
- With a signal patched into filter 2’s audio input, the routing knob and CV act as a crossfader.
- Filter 2’s cutoff can be set relatively to filter 1’s cutoff.
Specifications
- Fully analog, based on the V2164 quad VCA chip.
- Frequency knob range: 8Hz to 18kHz.
- Audio input impedance: 30k.
- DC-coupled audio inputs.
- Filter mode CV input impedance: 50k.
- Other CV inputs impedance: 100k.
- All CV inputs handle audio-rate modulations.
- There is no mention of stereo on this page, ykinmkbykiok.
+12V:150mA -12V:140mA
18HP 25mm deep
