Vanilla Envelope Kit

The Vanilla Envelope is an authentic translation of the envelope generator and VCA of a certain American two voice synthesiser from the 1970s into American format. If you need a second hint, think of vanilla ice cream.

The addition I've made to the design is a negative EG output, because the original synthesiser had a bipolar attenuator for filter modulation, and nothing in this product line will have bipolar attenuators. The VCA is tweaked out to be a bit hotter on the input so if you want to push it into distortion you can. The input-output signal levels are also adjusted for modern modular expecations set by Roger Arrick 23 years ago.

Top knob is attack time, second knob is decay and release time, and the third knob is the sustain level. LED indicates output of the EG. VCA provides approximately unity gain at a 5V control voltage or maximum EG sustain level.

The PCB is labeled with all component values. It will ship with paper BOM and schematic.

There is an assumption that buyers have some experience in building electronic devices. If you have no experience, this would be a great place to start but you will need to do some research on basic assembly techniques.

It is strongly recommended that you have a resistance meter and lead bender to assemble this. The kit will not have resistors labeled beyond the colour code printed on them.

Vanilla gets a bad rap. I think that's unfair. We need straightforward and reliable modules like this in our synthesisers to build complex structures upon.

This module has a physical depth of only 1 inch.

Price: $150

Ships in April 2023