DACS Freque II

Anyone ever used this ring modulator?

http://dacs-audio.com/product_details.php?product_id=11

It seems kind of cool .....but not the frontpanel, which could have been a print taken from one of MC hammers trousers...

radiance said:

MC hammers trousers...

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ROFLMAO  ;D ;D ;D

Well, DACS is not exactly renowned for its good looking front panels...
I would even dare to say that the DACS freque II looks like an improvement to me!
Have a look here to see the front panel of the first version of their ring modulator. (the 3rd from the top)

http://www.infernalemachine.fr/page7/files/43-rack2net.html

I never played with it, nor I had to open the hood to fix it, but the owner is very happy and consider it as his "secret weapon".
Since he has quite a few, the DACS must have some "mojo"...

Axel

I think it's actually kind of cool looking. Much better than their new front panel.

Oh, and tha't an inpressive FX rack btw What's that red unit below the DACS? Some kind of EQ maybe?

That's a Lafont Audio Labs LP-24 Cinema Filter Set.
A parametric EQ indeed, capable of 60dB rejection!

More info here:
http://www.lafontaudio.com/home.htm

Click on: 19" processors, then : LP24

Axel

What a cool collection of vintage fx , mic's and key's and what not are there to be found on that website.
Do you work for that studio Axel? I saw the mad.ax section on the site as well Lot's of trannies in stock.

Also, I'm located in France as well (can't change my profile here :-() I live in Burzet, near Aubenas.

Teo (Infernalemachine studio's owner) is a good friend, and a "vintage freak". I don't specifically work for him, but I have fixed and built a lot of stuff up there.

Ardeche is such a nice area... One of these days, we may start a "get together" thread in the brewery for all the Lab members living in the south of France.
Just replace the beer with some local wine!

Axel

Axel...any chance of you taking some detailed pics of the inside of the Freque?

hey I have a dacs freque ii !!!

I really want to mod it actually. It has loads of i/o so its not really necessary but I'd love it to have internal square oscillators too.

I have a mutronics mutator too and i basically create feedbcak loops between the two units and create some ultra crazy drones and rhythmic mayhem.

they're both quite pricey units but the results can be pretty mentul

Yeah...I'm still leaning towards buying the Freque II. I'm a sucker for modulation FX's.
Did you ever look inside the Freque? It's supposed to be high quality right? whatever that means 

radiance said:

Yeah...I'm still leaning towards buying the Freque II. I'm a sucker for modulation FX's.
Did you ever look inside the Freque? It's supposed to be high quality right? whatever that means 

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Well it pretty much destroys anything you put through it so I'm not sure 'quality' is the right word!

Have you got a modular synth? I'm justing starting to get some bits together now. The other option would be to buy a doepfer frame, and buy some similar bits and make up your own, although you wouldn't get the somewhat apocalyptic FM/ frequency shifting thing.

I've only just fully patch bayed mine up so am about to experiment a bit more with it. You really need to do that to get the most out of it as crawling round the back to change stuff is well annoying.

The front panel truly is an absolute horror. They'll do you a black one if you want I think. I like the horrible one as it reminds me how the thing sounds. Everything about it is a bit weird. The knobs aren't concentric and seem to come towards you half way through the turn, and the LEDs are odd too - they're kinda inside out.

I'll take mine apart as soon as I get time to de-rack it (hopefully tmrw) and send you some pics. I think I did look inside once before but I don't remember seeing anything particularly unusual.

Cheers

Matt

mOBiTh said:

Well it pretty much destroys anything you put through

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Well, that's kind of what I'm looking for  ;D  . I don't have a modular synth. I do have a korg ms20 which is kind of modular and a Kenton pro solo usb with which I can generate modulation signals.
I'm also planning to make a simple sine/square wave oscillator so I can use it as carrier for the Freque.
Best would be to find a variable capacitor with the right value so you don't have to switch between ranges like on the Freque. Would be fun to have 1 big multi turn knob which let you sweep from 20 to 20.000 HZ.

I almost bought the mk1 unit when the ukp crashed.
Seems like a cool device imho.

radiance said:

mOBiTh said:

Well it pretty much destroys anything you put through

Click to expand...

Best would be to find a variable capacitor with the right value so you don't have to switch between ranges like on the Freque. Would be fun to have 1 big multi turn knob which let you sweep from 20 to 20.000 HZ.

Click to expand...

Actually the freq range switches are one of the best things about it I reckon - you can step between different ranges to create wonky melodic type things which sound ace (to my ears!). They seem to be musically (haha!) sensible logarithmic steps I think.

Right just need to figure out how to upload pics

mOBiTh said:

Actually the freq range switches are one of the best things about it I reckon - you can step between different ranges to create wonky melodic type things which sound ace (to my ears!). They seem to be musically (haha!) sensible logarithmic steps I think.

Right just need to figure out how to upload pics

Click to expand...

Never looked at it that way ...

...as for pics..open an photobucked account or so...

inside pic from above, attached

It actually has two pcbs an upper and a lower, plus a couple of 'daughter' cards on the left for level indicators for the four inputs.

The second pcb is below this one and is smaller.

Seems to have pretty high quality components, torroidal tranny etc, nice pots etc. Would be quite easy to mod I think as its hardly cramped but like a I said before you might as well just use some outboard modular bits to spice things up even more

i can email you an ultra high res version of that pic if you pm me your email address...

Thanks Matt. Looks like a quality build!
Did they use an AD633 for the ringmod part? Can you decipher that from the high rez pic?

radiance said:

Thanks Matt. Looks like a quality build!
Did they use an AD633 for the ringmod part? Can you decipher that from the high rez pic?

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Now you ask me 

Sorry can't tell from the pics and I've racked it all back up stupidly. It's really dark in my studio so had to use flash and wide angle to get anything like a useful pic. The guy who designed it is helpful though, so he'll probably tell you what chip he used.

I think I'm gonna have a proper play with it this weekend. Make something truly outrageous. Might loop it through my chorus echo and newly modularised 202. It's time to create a monster!

mOBiTh said:

Now you ask me 

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No prob...I want one whatever chip they've used