User manual

Applications

It was quite a few years before the idiosyncratic personality of the TB-303 was fully

recognised. Most of the things you do with the Devil Fish will be unique because the

combination of your music and the new sounds have never been tried before. There is a

great deal to be done, just with the machine as it stands, playing from its internal

sequencer, synched up to other equipment. Still, I think, most people see the Devil Fish

as a TB-303, typecast in techno or acid music, rather than an instrument, musical

character / critter etc. in its own right.

One simple extension is to drive a synthesizer from the CV and Gate outputs and mix the

synthesizer’s signal into the Devil Fish with the Mix In or the Filter FM. Another is to

treat the output of the Devil Fish with EQ, reverb, delay, flange etc. and bring it back into

these inputs. One application of the CV, Gate and Accent In and Out signals is to have

one Devil Fish slaved to another via these three signals. The two machines can have

differing sounds and their outputs can be treated and mixed separately. This sounds great

with the two machines running together, but coming out of separate speakers.

Breeding pairs of Devil Fishes are rare, but if you can bring two together, the following

“69” configuration is recommended. Have the two machines running as master and slave,

via CV and Gate or by Sync with a similar or identical pattern. Alternatively, have them

both playing via MIDI In notes. One way or another, have them playing similar or

identical notes, with similar or identical settings and tuning. Take the audio out of the left

one and feed it into the Filter FM input of the right. Vice-versa from the right audio out

to the left Filter FM in. Listen to the two machines in stereo. Turn both Devil Fish

volumes down and start them playing. Now slowly turn up the two volumes, and you

will hear the increasing sound level and the similarly increasing levels of cross-

pollination taking place, since the level of FM for one is dependent on the volume of the

other . . . while the sound quality of the other is dependent on its interaction with the

output of the first, which is getting louder and the product of the other’s increasingly

convoluted output . . .

Consider one of my definitions of techno: Machines cranking over – lovingly tended.