hello list,

yesterday i received the a197 analog meter and the
a101/3 vactrol phaser. i will have some time to try
them out during this week. anyway i did some short
tests yesterday and want to share my thoughts.

a197
----
looks really nice. the three modes make sense.
as dieter doepfer pointed out before, the
analog meter is not the right choice for
really exact measurements. a digital voltmeter
is doing a much better job here, but only as long
as you want to measure fixed voltages, because the
display of a digital voltmeter reacts very slow.
the analog meter is cool for viewing fluctuating
voltages from lfo's or envelope followers, especially
for users who do not own an oscilloscope.
it is also nice to use as a sort of vu-meter for
audio signals. and again, it looks cool ;-)


a101/3
------
from my first tests i can say that i'm really
impressed by the possibilities of this module.
the a125 has a nice phasing sound, but with the
a101/3 you can have dozens of really different
sounding phasings. it is a bit more fiddly to adjust,
because the audio inputs are more sensitive and
with patched feedback loops things can get
really nasty. but exactly this possibility to patch
different feedback loops is such an amazing
feature. sometimes the overall sound of the unit
changes dramatically. the phasing character can be
organic and liquid-sounding, but also full of noisy
feedback peaks, or somewhere in between these extremes.
i can't wait to try the a101/3 with modules like
a135, a151, a155 and especially the forthcoming a152
to select different feedback loops with a control voltage.
i find it also very appealing that the a101/3 an be used
as a stereo 6-stage phaser without additional patching.
a really clever design.

best wishes

ingo