The first module we came up with, it’s called Evolution. It’s an all-analog module.
Its genesis, the E-MU modular low-pass filter, was a filter that I really liked. Somewhere in the web you can find and somebody quoting our filter that has the SSN-2040 in it I think, saying, “This is the filter Dave would have put in the E-MU modular if he had time.” But that wasn’t the case.
I never wanted to use the SSN-2040 in the E-MU module, because I love the sound of the original E-MU 1100, which is a discrete ladder filter à la Bob Moog’s [filter] with some twists.
When we first started out, I wanted to do something analog. I love that filter. As luck would have it, in some discussions with my partner Marco Alpert about what we might be able to do with it, he suggested maybe we could make it have a variable slope. I pointed out that ladder filters have a discrete number of poles that are either one, two, three, four and some number of poles so you really can’t voltage control that continuously.
Something that Scott Wedge, my partner at E-Mu, used to say was that, “Once Dave figures out it’s impossible, he’ll figure out how to do it in a couple of weeks.”
And that was what happened here. Once I told Marco, “You really can’t do both the controlled slope and the ladder filter,” I figured out a way to do it and prototyped it up one Saturday in the lab. And it sounded really cool.
That’s what we call our ‘Genus’ control, following the evolution theme of the module. It does this very interesting current stirring thing in an analog way, that just makes this kind of sparkly raindrop sound as you modulate it. Just something I found very audibly and musically pleasing. I think other people had, too, and then other than that, it’s just a very carefully done modern technology analog low pass ladder filter design.
I love the sound of it. I have a received the compliment by somebody would know that said, “Dave, congratulations. You finally outdone Bob Moog’s filter.” I took that as very high praise.
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