Waves of Curiosity
Joshua Kolenc
I was always a handful as a child. My curiosity and extreme hyperactivity were constantly getting me into trouble. I remember being very young and sticking a butter knife into a power outlet. What was that mysterious invisible force that traveled through my body?! I became fascinated. I’m a little embarrassed to admit that I didn’t do it just once. My parents will tell you that this probably contributed to some of my “personality quirks”.
I never played with my toys very much. That’s not to say that I didn’t enjoy them. Much to the chagrin of my parents, my enjoyment was found in taking them apart to see how they worked. I was especially fascinated by electronics. They just seemed so magical. I would stare at the circuit boards and try to understand how it all worked. My greatest enjoyment was in manipulating my toys that made sound. I would take them apart and touch paper clips to different parts in an attempt to do what I later realized was circuit bending.
I became much more interested in music around the age of 12. I loved watching MTV late at night to see strange music videos. One night, I had seen the video for “Closer” by Nine Inch Nails and it totally blew my mind. Sounds were being used in ways that I had not heard before. I had to hear more! I convinced my parents to take me to a record store, but they refused to let me buy it because a song from the album was named “Heresy”. I was super bummed, but “Life, uh, finds a way”. I ended up trading my friend Chris a pair of real sai (the martial arts weapon) to get the album. You read that right. My parents were ok with me having deadly weapons, but not a Nine Inch Nails album. I must’ve listened to those tracks hundreds of times. I was captivated by all of the synth sounds and was super curious about how they were created. I immediately wanted to make my own synth music.
When I was 15, I accompanied my grandfather to RadioShack. I was excited to see that they had keyboards, microphones, mixers, amplifiers, and a giant wall of curious electronic components. I began saving my money and finally had enough to buy one of the Casio keyboards that they had on display. I really enjoyed that keyboard. I played it every day and tried to dig as deeply as possible into the settings to find ways to make experimental sounds. I also acquired a copy of Propellerhead’s Rebirth RB-388 synth software. This had a big impact on my awareness of what a synth was. I spent many hours on our shared family computer making strange manic beats and recording them to cassette tape. This was fun, but I needed to find more sounds! I slowly taught myself to play keyboard and learned a little bit of guitar. I began to get far more serious about music when I met my good friends, Brian Sekula and the late John “JJ” Sekula, two well-known musicians in the Cleveland music scene. They encouraged and inspired me to delve further into music, composition, and audio recording. JJ had given me guitar lessons for a number of years. We created a number of recordings together that were sadly lost in the destruction of a studio computer. As I leaned further into music, I began to get more and more curious about electronic instruments.
There used to be Lentine’s Music, Guitar Center, and Sam Ash all within a few blocks of one another in a nearby city. I would wrangle my friends into going with me to all of these stores at least once a week. I must have been such a pest. I asked tons of questions and played every single synth and drum machine. After years of saving and a gracious partial loan from my parents, I ordered a Minimoog Voyager. I was so excited for it to arrive that I couldn’t sleep. I stayed up day and night experimenting with its settings and plugging it into every pedal that I could get my hands on. After many hours of experimentation, I did what I do with all of my toys. I took it apart.
I know what you must be thinking. Yes, I got it back together and everything worked just fine. No extra pieces! Opening up the Voyager lit a fire inside of me. I needed to learn more, but where to start? I started back where I began. I went to RadioShack and started looking through all of the kits and books that they offered. I bought every book that they had on electronics and a few of the smaller kits. The most memorable of all the books was a series called Engineer’s Mini Notebooks. They covered an array of topics and projects. I read each of the books cover to cover, but at that time was only able to glean a basic understanding.
Before joining EarthQuaker in 2015, I worked in hospitality management. During that time, I met the love of my life, Angie. We got married and had two wonderful children. Shifts at the hotel were long and strenuous. I often had to work several 12-hour shifts back-to-back, and there were even occasions where I would be required to stay overnight at the hotel for an entire weekend. While I made a lot of really great friends, I quickly realized that I was deeply unhappy with my career path. I was getting home too late to see my wife and kids, and I wasn’t getting any time for my hobbies. Despite that, I studied synths and electronics late into each night. I especially liked to study all of the schematics and kits available online by Paia, Ken Stone, Bbob Drake, Music From Outer Space, and various DIY forums. I completed the free online learning resources from Allaboutcircuits.com. I also learned a lot from MIT’s free online learning resource, MITOpenCourseware. I am super grateful for all of these free resources. I am also really grateful to Eric Barbor of Metasonix for graciously answering a number of my questions in regard to DIY tube circuits.
In those late hours, I also managed to complete a couple of my own DIY projects that I am really proud of. I built a guitar-shaped touch synth controller and a voltage-controlled tube distortion device. I showed them at a local Mini Maker Faire, and they actually gained quite a bit of attention from the attendees and organizers.
Being aware of my fascination with music electronics, my good friend JP tipped me off that EarthQuaker was hiring a Customer Service Manager. I was immediately super interested. I was already familiar with EarthQuaker, as my favorite pedal at the time was a Disaster Transport SR. I had a ton of experience with customer service and couldn’t be any more excited about the subject matter. A couple of interviews later, I found myself surrounded by one of the best groups of people that I have ever met. Since I was hired, I have transitioned to a role as EarthQuaker’s Systems Administrator. JP joined EarthQuaker as our Customer Service Manager a couple years after I was hired. EarthQuaker’s origins in DIY encouraged and inspired me to push myself further into circuit design. During my time here, I have gone deeper down the bottomless rabbit hole that is modular synthesis. As my collection of synth modules has grown, I’ve accumulated a wish list in the back of my mind for different features for an oscillator. I wanted more simultaneous access to different wave shapes, an ultra-fine-tuning control, fine CV control of pitch, etc. While it would have been fun to make an oscillator that fulfilled these needs, it didn’t feel like quite enough to justify creating a module.
*In walks Serendipity*
I have always been fascinated by metamorphosis, transmutation, transformation, transfiguration, and morphology. As such, I was working on an effects routing device that could morph a signal path by rearranging the order of effects devices by turning a single knob. This posed a technical challenge in that the circuit would have created undesirable feedback when in a parallel configuration. So, I sat down with a pen and paper and worked to solve the problem mathematically. I created an algorithm that controls the levels of the signals passing between each effect. I then designed an analog circuit based upon the algorithm. I tested it and it worked! Mostly, anyway. Not quite perfect, but cool! For some reason, I decided to sweep the circuit with various frequencies of sine waves to see where my solution would break down. As I began to approach audio frequencies, I suddenly became aware of the circuit’s potential for wave shaping.
The initial wave shaping was cool, but I knew that I could push things further. I began including various feedback paths, additional analog math operations, differential integration, and subharmonic generation. The circuit began to quickly take shape.
The best way that I can describe it is that the original waveform is broken into several different pieces, analog voltage math is then asymmetrically applied to each segment, and the waveform is then reassembled at the output in a gnarled mass of audio mutations. It functions in a way that is reminiscent of west coast style wave shaping circuit in that you start with a simple waveform that increases in harmonic complexity as you increase the control, but that is where the similarities end. The Wave Transformer offers a unique arrangement of even and odd harmonics and subharmonics with curious asymmetrical characteristics. I also included an insert jack to allow the player to choose the starting waveform, whether internal or external. The possibilities are further expanded by the ability to choose to have the sub octaves track the internal oscillator or the external source, and if those sub octaves are 1 octave down, 2 octaves down, or muted. You can also choose to mute the original waveform so that the wave shaping circuit acts as a harmonic VCA. As the Transform panel control or CV input increases, so does the volume and harmonic complexity. This allows The Wave Transformer to act as a synth voice without the need for a filter or VCA. Combining the Transform circuit with the available Linear and Exponential FM, Hard and Soft Sync inputs, Pulse Width Modulation, µTune CV input, and the 6 other audio outputs can yield a shockingly large variety of tonal options. You can create searing leads, thunderous bass lines, mellow plucks, texturally complex drones, vast soundscapes, gristly, self-modulated monstrosities, and everything in between. I also added a uTune control and input to give the ability to precisely adjust the tuning and modulate the pitch. The latter was inspired by my love for Richard D. James’ use of custom tunings, microtonality and interesting pitch bends in his music. I found it difficult to achieve the same results with other oscillators without using additional attenuators from other modules. The microtune CV input makes it possible to do microtonal sequencing, gentle pitch modulation and precise pitch bends.
I could barely contain my excitement when I had a fully functional prototype. I called EarthQuaker President and Founder Jamie Stillman and CEO and co-owner Julie Robbins and asked if I could show it to them. We spent a good two hours using it to create all sorts of crazy sounds in their basement. Jamie thought it sounded awesome, and he seemed to be most struck by the many different sounds that can be achieved with very few other modules. After some discussion and lots of experimentation, we decided to move forward with it as a product. Since then, I have been working with our amazing team to define all of our systems and processes. It is unbelievable just how much goes into making a new product. I truly respect and appreciate the role that every person has in the process. I have treasured all of these new experiences that I have had working with my fellow EarthQuakers to make this dream a reality.
Joshua Kolenc is the Modular Synth Designer and Systems Administrator for EarthQuaker Devices. He is a multi-instrumentalist composer with roots in DIY and Circuit Bending, and has a background in audio production, graphic design, sculpture, culinary arts, hospitality, data analytics, and manufacturing technology.
