VOICEREC1b description: The module uses a voice recorder toy (talking fun KT-1101) to record and playback samples, there are no specifications with this toy, other then that it can records about 6 seconds of sampler time, in its normal operation mode. The sample time can be adjusted with the pitch knob and cv input. The voice recorder chip is capacitively coupled, but the output of the module is not. The voice recorder chip has little automatic gain adjustment, so if the signal you record is of low volume the output signal will also be low. Every time a playback is triggered the voice recorder chip will startup and when the playback ends it will shut down. in some kind of sleep mode. The chip is made like that to save battery power (The module has no battery in it). This results in a click on the start of every playback, when the chip shuts down there is almost no click. You can have less click if you record record samples in a low pitch setting. There is almost no boot up time, so playback starts quickly when it is triggered. Playback of the sample will always start from the beginning of the sample on the rising edge of a trigger signal. There is a threshold for playback, the trigger signals you send to the voice recorder have a frequency that is to high, they will be ignored. This threshold depends on the pitch setting, if the pitch setting is high the trigger frequency can also be high. The pitch controls the overall operation speed of the voice recorder chip. On the start of a recording there is a beep sound. switches: - disable input trigger/gate. connection: - CV pitch. - Trigger for playback, playback starts from the beginning of the sample and retriggers on rising edge. - Audio out +/- 10v peak to peak, can be adjusted with trimmer pot on the backside of the module. potentiometers: - Pitch attenuation. - Lowpass filter. power consumption: - +12v (+/- 12mA). - - 12v (+/- 5mA). history: One of the first things i wanted to have when i started making electronic music was a sampler, i had no money so i decided to build one myself using a voice recorder. some time later i made my own sequencer that send out gate signals and could drive all kits of things (3v/5vSequencer), one of the modules i made was one with 2 voice recorders, that could be triggered by a speaker used as a relay. The voice recorders on this module are the same as on this module, i think i made this module in 2002, and to my surprise the toy store i bought them from is still selling the exact same model in 2013! But something changed on the inside.. usually a change in design with these kind of products means a less good product, but in this case the product got much better. They changed how the sample are being played back, in the old model the samples would start on a button press and stop when the button is pressed again, they changed this into a re trigger function so when you press play the sample will start and when you press again it will start over from the beginning of the sample. This a very nice for music. Another thing they changed is that they added pads to solder wires to with comments onto the PCB that indicate where what is.. Other things i hope they change in the future is that they remove the beep on the start of the recording.