The Bell Jar

The Bell Jar was designed as part of the Dome system. It followed Pandora’s Box but was not intended to supersede it. The ‘sound’ of Pandora’s Box is very dense and steady. It was designed with the intention of giving the Dome a steady source of clay to mold. I wanted an alternative source that would be different in character from Pandora’s Box; more varied and changeable. The pairing of the Bell Jar with the Dome is more ‘rhythmic’ than the pairing of the Dome and Pandora’s Box.

The design was characteristically improvisational. I wanted an actively modulated balanced (‘ring’) modulator and I had a surplus ‘Klangwerk’ PCB from John Blacet . John was a peerless analog designer from whom I purloined a huge number of great ideas. I knew I could build a DIY balanced modulator, and that it might even work pretty well. But I also knew that my design would never be better than his. So I just nailed his PCB to the floor with few minor modifications and started building-up around it. Another purloined idea in the Bell Jar is Rob Hordijk’s ‘rungler’ circuit. DIY aficionados will notice its familiar topography in the upper left of the block diagram. I added a more complex feedback scheme than the standard version. The rest of the voices are mainly VCO-pairs that never quite sync-up which is a concept that I can’t seem to get enough of. Unlike Pandora’s Box, the Bell Jar can be patched to configure different sounds. I added an ‘audition’ mixer to facilitate patching, and as a result, the Bell Jar could be easily used as an instrument on its own. But my main intention was that I would create a patch to supply the Dome with 5 signals and then drop the jar over it all and then only manipulate the Dome. Obviously space is tight under the jar so i decided to use a solderless-breadboard as a patch panel to save space. This idea worked so well that I used it again on the ‘Offshore ‘ micro-modular’s configuration scheme You can see the breadboard on the floor of the bell jar in the top photo.