MFB – HH/CY-522

The HH/CY-522 is composed of three drum voices. In detail, closed hi-hat,open hi-hat and cymbal are available. The circuit design is based on instruments included in the MFB-522, Tanzbär and Tanzbär Lite. For using them in a modular environment, some extras were implemented. The module utilizes a metallic oscillator mix, consisting of several pulse waves, to create sound. Hi-Hats are shaped via a band-pass filter plus an envelope. To create cymbals, two band passes for attack and decay phase are employed. Their mixing proportion is adjustable. Instead of the internal oscillators, an external sound source can be used for the cymbal’s decay phase. The The HH/CY-522 responds dynamically to incoming trigger signals. Besides sequencers and MIDI/CV interfaces, the circuits can also be played using a drum pad, piezo element or dynamic microphone.

The HH/CY-522 module comes equipped with potentiometers for the following parameters. Some of them also feature CV inputs.

Global: Pitch
Closed hi-hat: Decay (100 milliseconds at most.)
Open hi-hat: Decay (One second at most. CV input plus attenuator available.)
Cymbal: Decay (CV input plus attenuator available.), Tone (CV input, no attenuator)               

The dynamic trigger inputs are adjustable in their sensitivity. At completely clockwise position, 0.1 V are sufficient to activate the module’s drum voices.

HH/CY-522 supports the serial data protocol M-Bus. With the help of a suitable MIDI/CV interface or sequencer, M-Bus allows the user to send control commands to compatible modules without any patch cables at the front of the modular system. Several circuits can be daisy-chained via small wires. M-Bus works twelve times faster than average MIDI setups.