Deerhorn tuning

[Palme]

Well its not improving the response of the antenna or cv or anything, just the response of the frequency knob. (the frequency of mine went from mid-ish to freakishly high pitch)

Step 1: unscrew all the screws that are NOT the golden ones, those are soldered to the PCB. and lift the top off
Step 2: locate the LM324 chips, there are three, on per deerhorn. they are located in the end with the input jacks.
step 3: solder in a 1K resistor between pins 5 and 7, and between pins 8 and 10. There already is a resistor (10k in my case) between these pins, so you can just locate it and solder it parallel to that one. (see pictures above)
step 4: Repeat for all three LM324 chips, 6 resistors total (one per voice)
step 5: put it back together

[Palme]

It works on the Plumbutter deerhorn aswell

[d42kn355]

So glad we got this solved
I am glad you brought it to the Forum as well ^_^
I don't post enough here, lol.

[jimmie]

Thank you so much Palme, that's so valuable information.

I underestimated the job - thought it'd be adding one or two resisters to per voice.. So it's 18 of them in total!! That'd be a not so easy task for some who has never soldered on an SMD thing! Do you have any tips for soldering on to the tiny thing? And do you happen to have a picture for the whole board or one whole DH area so I could doubly make sure..

Thanks again for the effort!

[Palme]

Hi
No it is only 6 resistors total (one per voice)
As you can see in the pictures, I used normal through-hole resistors to do it, the trick is to have something to hold the resistor while you solder it, you can get all sort Soldering assistant devices (google “soldering assistant”)
So you place the resistor exactly where it needs to be, with the terminals touching the terminals on the and part. And then you just warm both parts and add a little solder.

The key is to get both hands free and get the resistor locked in place with the soldering assistant device, then it is easy :-)

[Palme]

Here are pics, not of the deerhorn, but of the concept

[jimmie]

Palme, thanks again, that's super helpful So relieved it's actually 6 in total I'll have to get the assistance device and try later!

[Palme]

No problem! Let me know how it went

[jimmie]

sure, I placed an order for resisters and seems it'll take a few weeks so will try later!

[BigFrog]

Ah this is a shame to hear about your deer horn! Can anyone else comment on this being a common issue/just how it is? I was planning on purchasing the deer horn as a controller for my other CL gear but am kind of turned off with the idea that the oranges might only output +/-2 volts. Cheers

Oh No... Im very sad to read that you guys also have the orange range problem , i just bought a Deerhorn and Im extremely frustrated with the weak orange out response, it’s absolutely not like in my PB2 where I can consistently wave up n down about 5 volts without any danger to touch the antennas.
I cannot even get 3 volts range with any deerhorn on my Triple Dee and To get even like just 2 volts I need to get so close to it that I always touch it by accident. This is terrible as I was thinking this would be my “ultimate controller” for all my modular, not only CL, but Serge and euro.. I know i can amplify and offset externaly but damn, i just wish they responded like the one in my PB2.

[triangle]

Ah this is a shame to hear about your deer horn! Can anyone else comment on this being a common issue/just how it is? I was planning on purchasing the deer horn as a controller for my other CL gear but am kind of turned off with the idea that the oranges might only output +/-2 volts. Cheers

I found there are two different responses for the Deerhorn cv output. With the antenna tuning knob set so resting voltage is around 4v, on the lower antenna cv goes from 4v up to about 7v without touching the pcb. While on the upper antenna cv goes from 4v down to about 1v without touching the pcb. The setting of the antenna knob is important, as is being deliberate with playing the two different antenna “zones”. I have an older Deerhorn organ and the current version with s/h and they behave the same. It’s a really fun instrument to learn techniques for playing, there are tricks like using alligator clips on the antenna brass screws attached to big pieces of aluminum foil to get bigger playing zones away from the instrument etc. Hope that helps!

[jimmie]

knob doesn't improve the situation at all, unfortunately maybe yours is good but some of ours apparently don't behave like yours. like I said in the beginning my PB's deerhorn can go very low pitch but my stand alone deerhorn can't, showed in my videos. Suggested 'patching is important' but the problem is raw behavior within the device; patching doesn't change the situation. So, sadly mine's orange outputs are also weak compare to PB's deerhorn. I also need to get my hand very close or touch to be effective. I suspected if something was interfering (experience from PB) or power might be problem but at the end that didn't seem to be the case. So, hence the physical mod we're talking about, I wish I didn't have to take such risk since if something goes wrong I can't troubleshoot by myself. I'm still waiting for the resistors in the mail by the way. And the thing is, the surgery may improve tuning issue but the antenna signal issue seem to be another story yet.. The idea of extending(?) antenna sounds noble and interesting but cumbersome in practice - I just want it behaves like my PB's deerhorn and that's it.

[triangle]

I just want it behaves like my PB's deerhorn and that's it.

I sent you a pm. I spent some time with another new Deerhorn Organ owner recently who also thought the cv out of their unit wasn’t behaving as they wanted compared to their PB Deerhorn. But, after sharing some video clips and giving some examples to try they were able to get the behavior they wanted. For me, the important thing to getting most out of my Deerhorn Organ’s was approaching the Deerhorn Organ as the unique instrument that it is.

[jimmie]

Thanks for your trying to help my case. replying later..

I forgot to mention another thing, and would like to know if anybody is in the same situation. On my stand alone deerhorn, it's very hard to get new cv value from intersection outs other than grey ones. The grey ones seem to be relatively alive but most of red/yellow/red ones are really hard to get any new value no matter how I wave my hands on any way or distance. In my first impression of the device I almost thought it might be broken so in my email to Peter I asked this as well. He advised me, to get new cv from them, touch one of the horn with one hand while waving the other hand on other horn. By doing that exhaustively I finally confirmed all outputs DO renew to a new cv value but it takes many, many, many touch & wave trial. So mine is NOT broken indeed but, I suspect this is actually originally intended behavior. In practice, yellow/orange/red outs are barely usable. If this is normal behavior it's a bit of disappointment, but maybe my expectation was too high and that's the problem, eh? I kind of feel this is also related to weak antenna response somehow.

Please don't get me wrong - I'm not trying to dissing the instrument. It is a very unique and beautiful device. But it's not cheap! I'm just a bit sad to learn mine doesn't work like his v1 video or example sound on the website (assuming most of them are from deerhorn itself) doesn't represent what mine actually does. The good new is, pitch issue can be improved and I'd be very happy with the fact alone if it works on mine, even if other things remain current situation.


edit: 'my expectation was too high (wrong assumption)' may actually be the case here?

[heliophis]

I just want to add this that I've heard from Peter: The Deerhorn is supposed to be different than the PB's. Something like the deerhorn being the violins to the PB's Single horn being the Cello.

[jimmie]

I just want to add this that I've heard from Peter: The Deerhorn is supposed to be different than the PB's. Something like the deerhorn being the violins to the PB's Single horn being the Cello.

This should have been put onto the official Deerhorn website Would it not be great to have two flavors, tho, since it has 3 units

[Lapis_Elle]

(Please Delete this Comment)

[jimmie]

I'm still not ready to execute the SMD operation challenge. I feel need to practice so looking for a junk PCB and all, nothing is in my around aside from flux as well! Anyway, I've just re-checked Peter's reply (more than a year ago) and he wrote: "how to mod it and change capacitors..." Now I wonder which capacitor.. Unfortunately I couldn't get further reply since. Just letting you know if this is interested..