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ANTONUS STEP BROTHER, User Manual

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ANTONUS STEP BROTHER User Manual Download Page 6

5

When setting the origin of the inspiration who motivate 

the development Antonus 

Step Brother is convenient to ex-

plain what is the concept of the sequencer as such (center-
piece of our instrument).

The 

Step Brother is founded around the classic design of 

the ARP Sequencer, one of the first analog sequencers com-
mercialy manufactured.

We will begin by describing what an analog sequencer 

means to musical electronics. The first step sequencer de-
signs, like any pioneering development, presented some of 
innovative features (and exotic even to this day), which on 
the one side was something totally inspiring and fresh in 
regarding originality of processes and results, but at same 
time were accompanied by certain difficulties by aparent 
manufacture precariousness as well as discomfort due to its 
logic design or interface, very different from what could be 
the lenguaje used by musician accustomed to music figures 
(beat, notes, silences ...); an image that has to do more with a 
common score more than with all the new language provide 
by an instrument such as the analog step sequencer.

Moog was right to propose a very musical design -espe-

cially controls and interface- on the Moog 960, while presen-
ting certain features which allows you to enter at experi-
mentation fields as well as a remarkable live manipulation 
character, distancing the idea that a sequencer is something 
for program and let it just work running alone in a repeti-
tive way. Is precisely with addition of others modules like 
the 962 sequential switch when live perfomance capabilities 

and composition possibilities begins to rise exponentially. 
And is with the ARP Sequencer design when you can define 
a series of characteristics with more friendly relation with 
the traditional musician, but at the same time offering very 
interesting functions for example to define a tuned pitch ad-
just thanks to the quantizer where the voltage output is sca-
led to allow 12 semitones steps when is applied to the con-
trol of the oscillator frequency at volt/octave relation, which 
no longer has the difficulties of defining tuning present in 
other sequencer designs where you have to tune every step 
with certain precision to avoid detuned notes. With the ARP 
Sequencer you could set a wrong note, but you couldn’t be 
detuned while using the quantizer output. However, it had 
outputs without quantizer allowing path free for microto-
nal scales or outside the tempered scale. And that’s just one 
part, also including three GATE BUS, a RESET function, ran-
dom mode ... all in a very clear and intuitive interface, where 
is easy to see in each step the note position literally talking, 
slider potentiometers are used instead of rotative ones, so 
just by a fast look at panel you can see the notes easily. Also 
a remarkable feature of this sequencer is the wide range 
of operation speed. Although the internal clock just reach 
a little more than 100hz, nothing prevents it from moving 
forward with a high frequency oscillator to move it in a ge-
nerous audible range, where we can jump from working in 
the control field to give it the task of generating audio by 
itself. Later will detail in this manual these experimental 
functions, among many others.

I. Where we come from...

Summary of Contents for STEP BROTHER

Page 1: ...USER MANUAL STEP BROTHER ...

Page 2: ... suggestion that help improve it in future revisions will be wel come For any suggestion or doubt you can contact us through the following channels Email info antonus synths com Web www antonus synths com Facebook Antonus Instagram antonus_synths First edition November 2018 ...

Page 3: ...mmunity for all the support since the beginning of the Antonus project activities until the development and pulish of the Step Brother as well as the trust and direct support from certain members of the group have given at the time of manufac turing the first units Without their sup port this would not have been possible Special thanks to Alan Richard Pearl man for his work vision and contribu tio...

Page 4: ... VI 1 Tuning a sequence 18 VI 2 Using the step switches 19 VI 3 FM Clock 19 VI 4 Using GATE assign for accents 20 VI 5 Clock pulse width 20 VI 6 TRIG GATE switch 21 VI 7 Position 1 OUT jack 22 VI 8 CV Input jack 22 VI 9 Sequencer outputs 22 VI 10 Clock divider 23 VI 11 Envelope generator 26 VI 12 Oscillator 27 VI 13 VCA 29 VI 14 MIDI interface 30 VII Advanced techniques 32 VII 1 Stacking two seque...

Page 5: ...e more than just a simple ana log sequencer and it would be almost impossible to describe in this manual all the creative possibilities that will be given when the Step Brother starts to interact with voltage contro lled modular systems I don t pretend it will be a simple guide with only defini tion of terms and collection of adjustments First I want reader understand a little of the why of this i...

Page 6: ...ntial switch when live perfomance capabilities and composition possibilities begins to rise exponentially And is with the ARP Sequencer design when you can define a series of characteristics with more friendly relation with the traditional musician but at the same time offering very interesting functions for example to define a tuned pitch ad just thanks to the quantizer where the voltage output i...

Page 7: ...ences in proportions of the size and shape of one instrument to other It was remarkable not only aesthetics differences but also places where to use it It does not mean that the ARP Sequencer could not be taken from one place to another but the 2600 design being somewhat larger is much friendly for on the road perfor mance and the aesthetics in the style of the amplifier guitar combo is more Rock ...

Page 8: ... VCA units 4 Frequency or clock divider 5 MIDI Clock Interface With all this and to close it is important to emphasize the intention of designing a sequencer that both in its aesthetics and in its functions is a self sufficient instrument with a lot very real time composing and live perfoming intention a se quencer to play pleasantly and far from the idea of being the typical sequencer that simply...

Page 9: ...e during production In the type of internal design has been taken into account the longevity and the possibility of finding answers with the passing of many years the idea is to avoid like some clas sic equipment when maintaining becomes an expensive and painful task due to exclusive components difficult to obtain over the years Interface and distribution are presented on a surface that allows to ...

Page 10: ...at remain for a long time in the equipment of the musician that its use is intense and not superficial that mu sician manages to develop a technique and a language of his own at the same time that the instrument inspires surprises as well as something to always trust despite the passage of time and be able to keep it at setup without problems and not be forced to replace it following the frenetic ...

Page 11: ...d that user must take care like usually most electronic au dio gear need Use the recommended supply voltage for the unit 110v 120v or 220v 240v depending on the requested configuration To prevent damage avoid to be used in places where water or rain can acces inside the unit You have to be careful with using or putting the Step Brother in places where there is a lot of dust floating The dust is on...

Page 12: ... GATE BUS 2 GATE BUS 3 POSITION 1 OUT CLOCKED GATE 1 OUT QUANTIZED OUTPUT A QUANTIZER A SEQUENCER OUTPUTS QUANTIZER B QUANTIZED OUTPUT B ATTACK GATE IN 10 0 ENV OUT SYNC PW CV IN INPUT RESET CLOCK DIVIDER OSCILLATOR VCA 2 ENVELOPE GENERATOR 1 3 1 4 1 5 1 6 1 7 1 8 1 2 X 1 X 10 HI LO MANUAL DECAY SUSTAIN RELEASE GATE ASSIGN SKIP RESET OFF STEP RESET GATE BUS 1 OUT IN CV VCA 1 OUT IN CV ANTONUS STEP...

Page 13: ...the slider controls buttons and the connection points for patch cables Quantizer inputs When a patch cord is plugged into these jacks the connection from the sequencer outputs is temporarily disconnected The quantizer can then be used separate from the sequencer The ranges are equal 2 octaves from 0v to 2v Multiple It allows to divide signals for example an ori gin to three different destinations ...

Page 14: ... sustain and final re lease time factor multiplier for short long times Also have manual trigger button and led for visual control More details in chapter VI 11 Oscillator Voltage control input initial frequency ma nual control synchronization restart input different waveform outputs and pulse width control More de tails in chapter VI 12 Voltage controlled Amplifier double Signal inputs voltage co...

Page 15: ...nk devices Pulse output corresponding to start of sequence MIDI song Pulse output corresponding to resume of sequence MIDI song Pulse output corresponding to stop or pause of sequence MIDI song Status output 5v for playback and 0v for stop Pedal input Midi clock division manual adjustment Playack mode for midi clock according to the active com mands PLAY STOP Always active MIDI clock output For mo...

Page 16: ... to try a few silent experiments and familia rize yourself with several of the sequencer s features Plug in your sequencer and turn on the power switch The red pilot light on the switch should go on and other panel lights may go on also Set the controls on the front panel exactly as shown in Diagram 1 look at page 16 Find the area of the front panel that has the three slide controls and push butto...

Page 17: ...trol If you watch the lights for a while you will see that the sequence of stepping does not follow any pattern and is truly ran dom Try skipping a few positions as you did earlier and notice that this function still works in the random mode When you try to reset the sequencer using the ASSIGN swit ches you ll note that the sequencer will return to position 1 instead of any position where the GATE...

Page 18: ...operation of the 8 2 counting Be sure to keep the CLOCK FREQ low enough so that you can observe what is going on When you have finished return all the switches to the original position Now that you have learned a little about the operation of your sequencer s stepping controls and functions it s time to connect the sequencer to your synthesizer and begin ma king music Even for the simplest patch y...

Page 19: ... 1 Starting at the bottom raise the position 2 slider until the tone has gone up a major 3rd 4 semitones Press the RESET button and the STEP button alternately to hear the two no tes of the major third Now advance the sequencer to posi tion 3 and counting from the bottom of the slider advance the position 3 slider 7 semitones to make a major 5th Hit RE SET and then STEP twice to hear all three not...

Page 20: ...owever to operate only at subaudio frequencies The CLOCK FM input on the sequencer works in much the same way as the FM inputs on the VCO in your synthesizer The CLOCK FM input on your sequen cer is normally connected through the jack to the output of GATE BUS 1 The output of GATE BUS 1 will be 11either zero volts or 10 volts depending on whether the GATE ASSIGN switch for each position is set to ...

Page 21: ...ure the controls at your sequencer with the following way a Sequential mode 16 1 b clock stopped c Press the reset button Step 3 Set the patch on the synthesizer you want to control Step 4 Open the filter or the amplifier so you can listen to the oscillator you are tuning Tune each step one by one until you have completed the desired pattern Step 5 Press the start stop button and go VI 4 USING GAT...

Page 22: ...should be in the middle position at this point Now rai se the GATE ASSIGN switches one at a time to the GATE BUS 1 position and notice that as you do so the notes correspon ding to these switches become long instead of staccato Alternatively you can use the foot switch to select either long or short notes Remove the patch cord from the GATE BUS 1 jack and plug it into the FOOT SWITCH OUT jack Plug...

Page 23: ...will find two output jacks labeled SEQUENCER OUTPUTS Set up the patch shown in Diagram 2 once more and hit the RESET button You will recall that by moving the slider for posi tion 1 up and down you get a chromatic scale Now remove the patch cord from QUANTIZED OUTPUT A and plug it into the SEQUENCER OUTPUT jack just above the MULTIPLE You will note two changes in response to moving the position 1 ...

Page 24: ...divider output In this divider design unlike other designs where the divi sion factor must be selected in its output we have all subdivi sions at same time in each output 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 We must point the use of unusual subdivisions since the most common in Diagram 6 ANTONUS STEP BROTHER MULTIPLE CV INPUT INPUT A INPUT B A B GATE TRIG CLOCK FREQ CLOCK OUT PULSE WIDTH FM STOP PWM START STOP CLOCK FM ...

Page 25: ...th lea ving active less than 8 steps and see the result of phase or phase shift at the restart of the sequence diagram 8 on page 25 Using the clock divider as a audio frequency divider A particularity of this analog divider design is that it will allow us a range of frequencies higher than other designs based on digital processors that suffers from aliasing if their proces sing is not enough fast ...

Page 26: ... SKIP RESET OFF STEP RESET Diagram 8 ANTONUS STEP BROTHER MULTIPLE CV INPUT INPUT A INPUT B A B GATE TRIG CLOCK FREQ CLOCK OUT PULSE WIDTH FM STOP PWM START STOP CLOCK FM START FOOT SWITCH OUT 16 1 8 2 SEQUENTIAL RANDOM 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 GATE BUS 1 GATE BUS 2 GATE BUS 3 AND A B GATE BUS 1 GATE BUS 2 GATE BUS 3 POSITION 1 OUT CLOCKED GATE 1 OUT QUANTIZED OUTPUT A QUANTIZER A SE...

Page 27: ... is a trigger button that allows to start the envelope manually which can be use in the absence of GATE control signal or by adding to any GATE signal present at the input of the envelope generator The indicator light will bright like the voltage level crea ted being a simple and direct visual monitor of the envelope generator This envelope generator is an analog classic design to give an excellen...

Page 28: ...rd with CV outputs to play tuned at the tem pered scale Very important point that the standard of this CV signal follows the Volt Octave In case of using a control signal coming from a keyboard or sequencer that follows a scale of Volt Hertz commonly used in analog synthesizers of Korg and Yamaha we will not be able to match the curve of tuning if we have not previously made a conversion of your c...

Page 29: ...en the control reach any of the two extremes In addition to the classic range of timbres offered by this output it should be noted that its range is unipolar unlike of the other waveforms this is so that its operation is optimal when in low frequency we use it for trigger logic or control functions since some control modules do not usually recei ve or understand in a correct signals that have sign...

Page 30: ... In addition to offering dynamic control over signals from audio or control it is convenient to mention the use as a lo gical function for trigger signals or GATE in which case its logic gate behavior would correspond to the AND function explained in the following graphic Important to say that the design of this oscillator is full analog without any digital control That is why it is recom mended i...

Page 31: ... output continue the communication until we reach the synthesizer The Step Brother will use the MIDI clock signal and playback commands and the synthesizer will respond to the commands of note channel CC sysex or MIDI clock too in short it will respond to any command that the main computer is transmit ting since it is a transmission without command filtering It should be remembered that this trans...

Page 32: ...f we want to match the metric to a 16 step measure let s select position 4 of the adjustment divider It is important to know that the signal conver ted from the MIDI clock does not replace the internal clock signal of the Step Brother or any signal that is connected to the STEP input which in the presence of several signals of clock would be added when moving the sequencer So to avoid clock summin...

Page 33: ...h step but never a funda mental frequency at such a low frequency Although we shorten the steps length in order to obtain higher frequencies we would not get very far either a mini mum sequence of 2 steps would give us a oscillation frequen cy of 100 2 50 Hz plus that being only two positions the result would always be a square wave We re going to need to use a voltage controlled oscillator thatal...

Page 34: ...14 15 16 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 GATE BUS 1 GATE BUS 2 GATE BUS 3 AND A B GATE BUS 1 GATE BUS 2 GATE BUS 3 POSITION 1 OUT CLOCKED GATE 1 OUT QUANTIZED OUTPUT A QUANTIZER A SEQUENCER OUTPUTS QUANTIZER B QUANTIZED OUTPUT B ATTACK GATE IN 10 0 ENV OUT SYNC PW CV IN INPUT RESET CLOCK DIVIDER OSCILLATOR VCA 2 ENVELOPE GENERATOR 1 3 1 4 1 5 1 6 1 7 1 8 1 2 X 1 X 10 HI LO MANUAL DECAY SUSTAIN RELEASE GATE ASSIGN...

Page 35: ...on 10 then B will advance to position 14 then A will advance through 16 and continue on to position 4 You still have 32 notes but now sections of each sequencer are used alternately Now set the GATE ASSIGN switches as before with just position 16 used on both A and B When B s TRIGGER GATE switch is changed to TRIGGER A still in GATE position B will count it s sequence 16 times A will advance one p...

Page 36: ... 13 14 15 16 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 GATE BUS 1 GATE BUS 2 GATE BUS 3 AND A B GATE BUS 1 GATE BUS 2 GATE BUS 3 POSITION 1 OUT CLOCKED GATE 1 OUT QUANTIZED OUTPUT A QUANTIZER A SEQUENCER OUTPUTS QUANTIZER B QUANTIZED OUTPUT B ATTACK GATE IN 10 0 ENV OUT SYNC PW CV IN INPUT RESET CLOCK DIVIDER OSCILLATOR VCA 2 ENVELOPE GENERATOR 1 3 1 4 1 5 1 6 1 7 1 8 1 2 X 1 X 10 HI LO MANUAL DECAY SUSTAIN RELEASE GATE AS...

Page 37: ...ION 1 OUT CLOCKED GATE 1 OUT QUANTIZED OUTPUT A QUANTIZER A SEQUENCER OUTPUTS QUANTIZER B QUANTIZED OUTPUT B ATTACK GATE IN 10 0 ENV OUT SYNC PW CV IN INPUT RESET CLOCK DIVIDER OSCILLATOR VCA 2 ENVELOPE GENERATOR 1 3 1 4 1 5 1 6 1 7 1 8 1 2 X 1 X 10 HI LO MANUAL DECAY SUSTAIN RELEASE GATE ASSIGN SKIP RESET OFF STEP RESET GATE BUS 1 OUT IN CV VCA 1 OUT IN CV 0 SYNC PW CV IN HI LO SEQUENCER OUTPUTS ...

Page 38: ...front panel Check the position of the rear switch to select the MIDI clock running mode Check you do not have the internal Step Brother clock running Keep in mind that the two clocks are going to sum if they are on at same time To avoid conflicts you can put the Step Brother clock in GATE mode to avoid accidentally starting if you involun tary touch the PLAY STOP button on the panel The control of...

Page 39: ... you must use an external converter to ensure total compatibility The led shows the oscillation of the pulse waveform If the ad justment of the pulse width potentiometer is near of some extre me then it going to reflect an absence of oscillation but only in the pulse output When moving the adjustment a little we will see again blink again the led if we work at slow speeds In high speed mode obviou...

Page 40: ...level 10v 0v Sequencer Maximum Step numbers 16 Maximum unquantized control voltage ouput 12V Maximum Gate output voltage 14V Mode 16 X 1 A B channels together Mode 8 X 2 A B channels separated Step Reset Start Stop and Start Stop jack inputs Accepts 3 V to 10 V Gate Clock Type Voltage Controlled Pulse Width 10 to 100 less 5 msec Pulse Width Modulation Input Accepts 0 to 10 volts Frequency Range 0 ...

Page 41: ...terface Clock and trigger outputs 0 to 5v MIDI Thru not filtered Physical characteristics Weigh 5kg closed Dimensions 60 x 30 x 12 cms Voltage power requeriments AC Input 100 240 V AC select by internal switch Power frequency 50 60 Hz Operating power 30 watts 675 mm 266 mm 266 mm 100 mm 132 mm Dimensions ...

Page 42: ...7 8 GATE BUS 1 GATE BUS 2 GATE BUS 3 AND A B GATE BUS 1 GATE BUS 2 GATE BUS 3 POSITION 1 OUT CLOCKED GATE 1 OUT QUANTIZED OUTPUT A QUANTIZER A SEQUENCER OUTPUTS QUANTIZER B QUANTIZED OUTPUT B ATTACK GATE IN 10 0 ENV OUT SYNC PW CV IN INPUT RESET CLOCK DIVIDER OSCILLATOR VCA 2 ENVELOPE GENERATOR 1 3 1 4 1 5 1 6 1 7 1 8 1 2 X 1 X 10 HI LO MANUAL DECAY SUSTAIN RELEASE GATE ASSIGN SKIP RESET OFF STEP ...

Page 43: ...ANUAL DECAY SUSTAIN RELEASE GATE ASSIGN SKIP RESET OFF STEP RESET GATE BUS 1 OUT IN CV VCA 1 OUT IN CV ANTONUS STEP BROTHER MULTIPLE CV INPUT INPUT A INPUT B A B GATE TRIG CLOCK FREQ CLOCK OUT PULSE WIDTH FM STOP PWM START STOP CLOCK FM START FOOT SWITCH OUT 16 1 8 2 SEQUENTIAL RANDOM 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 GATE BUS 1 GATE BUS 2 GATE BUS 3 AND A B GATE BUS 1 GATE BUS 2 GATE BUS 3 P...

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