There hasn't been a whole lot said about normalizing thus far in Polyphony, so, since I have organized a central switching board for my own PAIA equipment, I thought I would share my ideas with Polyphony readers.

My reasons for switch-orienting my synthesizer can be summed up in a single word; Speed!

When I first assembled my PAIA equipment and got it all working, I was amazed at the variety of sounds I could get with the multitude of patch combinations available. Even with the 2720 equipment alone, if you take the time to set things up, you can have a very versatile axe. However - fast, it's not.

If you don't have a lot of equipment, and only a couple of keyboards, and don't have to sing all the time, you can possibly get by with patching your synthesizer. If you're anything like our group, though, you would have to settle for getting only a couple of different sounds out of your unit per set.

Although we use other synthesizers in our act, I now use my PAIA synthesizer extensively and with a minimum of effort for bass, as a lead instrument and also for special effects. The best part about it is; I can still patch my synthesizer any way I want - for studio work, "special" patches, or just experimenting.

What is involved is procuring about 35 or 40 switches and sitting down with your soldering iron and a roll of wire to the tune of about four or five hours of work.

My switch panel is set up on a one eighth inch aluminum panel which is the size of three single width module panels, or four by six inches. The panel is drilled out to accomodate 36 mini-toggle switches. I use two different types; single throw and dual throw. Dual throws are much more expensive than single, so should only be used when necessary. Actually, many different types of switches can be used, selector, push-button, lever-type, etc. I use mini-toggles because they are easy to work with and are extremely fast.

So far, I have fifteen SPST and twenty-one DPDT (center off) switches in use, and will expand my panel as I add more effects and modules. They are used to route both control voltages and audio signals, and, in effect, take the place of patch cords directly.

I have permanently wired my keyboard "out" to my transposer. In turn, I have one "master" VCO permanently wired to KBD out, with two other VCO's permanently wired to one each of the transposer outputs. The signals from the oscillators are wired to the patch panel, each signal being either on or off to a dual throw switch which sends it to one of two possible mixer channels or off. The mixer, in turn, is routed to two sets of filters (permanently), right channel going to the input of a 4730, with the left channel going to both a low pass and high pass filter simultaneously. Whenever any of the filter switches are in the "in" position they are sent directly to the inputs of the VCA, the 4730 going to the 3 db. input, and the -3B and -3L to the 0 db. input. The output of the VCA goes directly to the audio amplifier.

Signalwise, that's pretty much it, except for the noise output which I have sent either to channel one or channel two of the mixer. (Note, that, when the oscillator signal switches are in the out position, the mixer can accomodate any other signal, sending it directly to the filters.)

The voltage control outputs are similarly routed to the control inputs via a number of dual throw switches acting as selectors, (see figure (a)) Obviously, there are as many possible switch combinations as there are patches available, and each synthesist would want to tailor his system according to his needs. Agreed, many owners of PAIA equipment would not need nearly so many permanent setups, and there are probably those who would need more.

I've found that my system works wonders for me. I hope that I've helped someone else out there. Now all that you have to do is find room for a four by six inch panel!