intellijel designs planar v1 price : $340.00   $240.00

this module has been in development for almost a year. thanks to david dixon for his ingenious way of implementing the vector mixing (among other things in the design) and haven s. for coming up with the name and some great feature ideas.

this has to be one of the most fun modules we have ever played with! with just a few audio and cv sources and some inter dependencies (i.e use the joystick cv to simultaneously modify the signals being processed by the vcas) you quickly get highly complex sounds that you can easily control and play with.

features:
vector mixing: put up to four sources into inputs a, b, c and d and then use the joystick to create the vector mix. positioning the joystick in any corner will isolate that particular source. putting the joystick in the center will create an even blend of all four sources. resulting mix is taken from the mix output.

quad panning: plug one source into input a and steer it to outputs a, b, c, d. you can also do stereo panning by just using a pair of outputs.

sense gate output. this is a slew detector which means the gate is only active when you are moving the joystick. excellent for driving envelopes/vcas to coordinate so that the output mix is only heard/used when the joystick is being moved.

manual gate output: pushbutton to manually trigger a second gate output

cv outputs: the joystick produces either unipolar (0-5v) or bipolar (-5 to +5v) switchable outputs.

cv inputs: the module accepts x and y axis inputs. by using out of phase lfo sources (such as outputs from the dr. octature) you can create really interesting swirling/circular patterns.

this input is also very useful when coordinated with a cv recorder. you can record the modulation from the x, y outputs and then turn the joystick off (see switch at top left) and playback the modulation into the x and y input. this will allow you to recreate a complex quad panning or vector mixing jam.

reversible! the module will ship with a second faceplate that is designed to mounted upside down (so joystick is at the bottom) and there are jumpers on the back of the module so you can coordinate the reversed orientation of the joystick. this is to facilitate use in a skiff. the optional panel can easily be replaced after removing the curled nut washers. the driver tool is part # 382-0006 at mouser.com.

the joysticks used are very expensive and have a long lead time (plus large minimum order). as a result the first batch is going to be kind of limited.