Piston Honda MKII

Bambou · Post by **Bambou** » Tue Aug 19, 2014 6:52 am

mats_j wrote:The Piston Honda doesn't seem to be in stock anywhere in Europeland. Will supplies be refilled sometime soon?

Interested too.

Endorfinity · Post by **Endorfinity** » Sun Aug 24, 2014 11:01 am

torn between this and shapeshifter

mats_j · Post by **mats_j** » Thu Aug 28, 2014 8:18 am

Bambou wrote:
mats_j wrote:The Piston Honda doesn't seem to be in stock anywhere in Europeland. Will supplies be refilled sometime soon?
Interested too.

Rubadub have them in stock!

Bambou · Post by **Bambou** » Fri Aug 29, 2014 6:20 am

Thanks, I didn't think to check Rubadub.

Soju · Post by **Soju** » Mon Sep 08, 2014 4:47 am

I'm trying to decide between the piston honda and the e350. I think I've got a grip on some of the basic differences between the two. I know that the PH is generally known more for its gritty/glitchy qualities and the e350 for its smoother ones.

I'm not opposed to the crunchier textures, but I definitely want some smoother ones too. My question is, How far does a low pass filter go in regards to smoothing out the rougher edges of the PH? Can this get me a nice compromise between those two options?

Bob Loblaw · Post by **Bob Loblaw** » Wed Sep 10, 2014 5:24 am

Soju wrote:I'm trying to decide between the piston honda and the e350. I think I've got a grip on some of the basic differences between the two. I know that the PH is generally known more for its gritty/glitchy qualities and the e350 for its smoother ones.

I'm not opposed to the crunchier textures, but I definitely want some smoother ones too. My question is, How far does a low pass filter go in regards to smoothing out the rougher edges of the PH? Can this get me a nice compromise between those two options?

Oh, man, I was torn between the two a few months ago as well. Ended up getting the E350 first, and then the Piston Honda later. I have to say, for me personally, the Piston Honda just wipes the floor with the E350. If you switch on the internal modulation and feed it say an LFO, and attenuate the modulation quite a bit, the PH can sound smooth as silk. And it sounds a hell of a lot warmer and more organic than the E350 in my opinion too. It's brilliant for textures.

On another note ...

I've been wanting to add my own waves to the PH too, but haven't really understood what devices and programs I need to be able to do so, and where to get said devices and/or programs. I remember reading a good thread about it here a while back, but can't seem to find it.

Also - can anyone share some light on what exactly the Sync-input of the PHII does? What exactly does it sync? And what does the 'Range' button do?

Voggg · Post by **Voggg** » Sat Sep 13, 2014 9:10 am

I think sync is for a hard sync with the pitch of an external oscillator. So if you give it a saw or square wave it resets every time the input goes high. That's my understanding but I might be totally wrong.

The range switch changes output to LFO.

You can use the Wiard Wave256 software (Windows only) to draw your own waves. Then you send the 256 waves to The Harvestman and he will burn them onto a chip. You buy a Piston Honda expander board to load the chips onto its memory. You will need six chips or there will be blank banks. There is the bsmith EPROM set of 4 banks available, so if you bought that, you could write 512 of your own waves and have a full bank. I want to do this eventually.

Soju · Post by **Soju** » Mon Sep 15, 2014 4:29 pm

Daisuk wrote:
Soju wrote:I'm trying to decide between the piston honda and the e350. I think I've got a grip on some of the basic differences between the two. I know that the PH is generally known more for its gritty/glitchy qualities and the e350 for its smoother ones.

I'm not opposed to the crunchier textures, but I definitely want some smoother ones too. My question is, How far does a low pass filter go in regards to smoothing out the rougher edges of the PH? Can this get me a nice compromise between those two options?
Oh, man, I was torn between the two a few months ago as well. Ended up getting the E350 first, and then the Piston Honda later. I have to say, for me personally, the Piston Honda just wipes the floor with the E350. If you switch on the internal modulation and feed it say an LFO, and attenuate the modulation quite a bit, the PH can sound smooth as silk. And it sounds a hell of a lot warmer and more organic than the E350 in my opinion too. It's brilliant for textures.

On another note ...

I've been wanting to add my own waves to the PH too, but haven't really understood what devices and programs I need to be able to do so, and where to get said devices and/or programs. I remember reading a good thread about it here a while back, but can't seem to find it.

Also - can anyone share some light on what exactly the Sync-input of the PHII does? What exactly does it sync? And what does the 'Range' button do?

Thanks heaps. Just ordered one.

Bob Loblaw · Post by **Bob Loblaw** » Mon Sep 15, 2014 5:44 pm

Voggg wrote:I think sync is for a hard sync with the pitch of an external oscillator. So if you give it a saw or square wave it resets every time the input goes high. That's my understanding but I might be totally wrong.

The range switch changes output to LFO.

You can use the Wiard Wave256 software (Windows only) to draw your own waves. Then you send the 256 waves to The Harvestman and he will burn them onto a chip. You buy a Piston Honda expander board to load the chips onto its memory. You will need six chips or there will be blank banks. There is the bsmith EPROM set of 4 banks available, so if you bought that, you could write 512 of your own waves and have a full bank. I want to do this eventually.

Ah, that's very nice! I'll have to check that software out. Made a few waves from scratch for my Monomachine a while back, and would love to stick those in the Piston. Thanks a lot.

Soju wrote:
Thanks heaps. Just ordered one.

Good choice! It's a matter of preference obviously, but to me the E350 was nothing like I imagined, it mostly sounded sterile, cold and flat to me - I ended up selling it. The PH is exactly the opposite, in my opinion.

Hainbach · Post by **Hainbach** » Mon Sep 15, 2014 5:52 pm

Well, I have the PH1 and the E350 in my live skiff and find that they are very complimentary. You get the warmth and depth with the Honda and the shimmering morphing with the E350. It not a case which is better, they are different tools, especially in the way you play them.

The funnest thing is running the E350 through the Honda and modulating the hell out of them both. Here is a taste of that (all of the percussive sounds):
https://kudelski.bandcamp.com/track/noir

Soju · Post by **Soju** » Tue Sep 16, 2014 8:40 pm

Hainbach wrote:Well, I have the PH1 and the E350 in my live skiff and find that they are very complimentary. You get the warmth and depth with the Honda and the shimmering morphing with the E350. It not a case which is better, they are different tools, especially in the way you play them.

The funnest thing is running the E350 through the Honda and modulating the hell out of them both. Here is a taste of that (all of the percussive sounds):
https://kudelski.bandcamp.com/track/noir

Nice stuff mate. Ill have to check out your other stuff.

AuxOp · Post by **AuxOp** » Thu Oct 16, 2014 9:07 pm

I was wondering if anyone has had an issue with the wavetable cv's. If i plug and lfo into say cv x and turn the knob it effects the x wave. but if i then turn the cv y knob with nothing plugged into the cv y input, y bank is then effected by the cv x lfo. cv z seems to be independent but cv x and y are linked somehow which i find odd.

Just got the unit today so and am still exploring but so far i like what i hear!

robotopsy · Post by **robotopsy** » Thu Oct 16, 2014 10:24 pm

I dont have the MKII but my Piston Honda V1 does some weird things too. It's somehow kinda the signature of the harvestman I guess. If I put some CV to the waveshapes It will affect the other side if I dont attenuate the signal correctly. It can do some crazy things. I presume the MKII has it's way to mess things up.

AuxOp wrote:I was wondering if anyone has had an issue with the wavetable cv's. If i plug and lfo into say cv x and turn the knob it effects the x wave. but if i then turn the cv y knob with nothing plugged into the cv y input, y bank is then effected by the cv x lfo. cv z seems to be independent but cv x and y are linked somehow which i find odd.

Just got the unit today so and am still exploring but so far i like what i hear!

Voggg · Post by **Voggg** » Thu Oct 16, 2014 11:13 pm

AuxOp wrote:I was wondering if anyone has had an issue with the wavetable cv's. If i plug and lfo into say cv x and turn the knob it effects the x wave. but if i then turn the cv y knob with nothing plugged into the cv y input, y bank is then effected by the cv x lfo. cv z seems to be independent but cv x and y are linked somehow which i find odd

Check if your mod sources are putting out negative voltages. PH is very sensitive to control voltages outside of 0-5 v and they can effect it in this way. I run the mod through a Maths center channel to attenuate and use the Or output when I'm having trouble with this and it always fixes the problem.

AuxOp · Post by **AuxOp** » Sun Oct 19, 2014 12:04 pm

Thanks for the hints!

I played around with some of those ideas, but I am still having the same issue. I used a maths channel 3 into the wavetable cv x and it still effected the y cv with nothing plugged into it. And like wise with it plugged into the y cv the x cv was effected. In both cases both the x and y cv knobs were turned to full positive.

Voggg · Post by **Voggg** » Sat Dec 20, 2014 11:54 am

Expander question:

Can you tell which EPROM is going into which slot? So that if I only wanted to load 2 EPROMs, all the dead space would be at the top of the slider range?

Golgo44 · Post by **Golgo44** » Mon Dec 22, 2014 1:28 am

I want one of these so bad.

WhiteIsBeautiful · Post by **WhiteIsBeautiful** » Thu Jan 01, 2015 1:02 pm

i just got the PH MKII and was wondering if the WAVEFORM EXPANDER is a good buy? looking at the manual it looks like the same people who are on the expander sets are already on the factory rom. is it more waves from said creators?

thanks!

Sinamsis · Post by **Sinamsis** » Sun Jan 25, 2015 12:16 pm

Bumping this thread. I just bought a PH mk II and I'm considering getting the expander and EEPROMs. How have people filled the 2 missing slots? Has anyone else made EEPROMs for the PH?

voidshell · Post by **voidshell** » Sun Jan 25, 2015 2:38 pm

I have both the Piston Honda MK1 as well as MK2. You only need the Expander to load the roms on the MK2, after you load them, you don't need it anymore after that. Where as the MK1 always needs it. I picked up the Expander for my MK1 originally but then used it to load ROMS into my MK2 so now both Rev's are full of glitchy goodness:D

Sinamsis · Post by **Sinamsis** » Sun Jan 25, 2015 2:43 pm

But the pack of EEPROMs that are commercially available are only 4. Which means that leaves 2 empty slots and I'm guessing would result in a empty spots as you're scanning the Z axis or whatever on the PH (I don't have my PH yet, so I'm speaking kind of abstractly because I haven't been able to play around with it yet). There have to be EEPROMs that other people have made or some other work arounds.

PS Richmond baby! Born and raised. I'm moving back in July. You're the second person I've seen on the forum from the river city. We should set up a synth meet or something.

namshub · Post by **namshub** » Sun Jul 05, 2015 12:37 am

Hi, I'm new here
Just bought a piston Honda & polyvoks vcf
Love them both.

Thank you o'darklord harvestman

hazycomet · Post by **hazycomet** » Wed Jul 15, 2015 6:08 am

Hey, I'm new here! I was wondering if someone could explain the Ext. In section of the PH Mk.II better than the manual. Is the external signal in modulated by the internal osc and then fed back to the ext. Out? Is it applied also to the internal out at all? Any patch examples for this feature? Your help is greatly appreciated, thanks!!

governor blacksnake · Post by **governor blacksnake** » Wed Jul 15, 2015 9:53 pm

hazycomet wrote:Hey, I'm new here! I was wondering if someone could explain the Ext. In section of the PH Mk.II better than the manual. Is the external signal in modulated by the internal osc and then fed back to the ext. Out? Is it applied also to the internal out at all? Any patch examples for this feature? Your help is greatly appreciated, thanks!!

The external signal is attenuated by the "GAIN" control and then fed "through" the piston using the currently selected wavetable as a lookup. So, instead of using the Internal section's ascending sawtooth waveform to address the waveform memory, it uses whatever you put into that jack. Use a sine wave for effects like the Buchla 259e.

Patching this section is straightforward - oscillator into the EXT IN jack, audio coming out of the EXTERNAL output, CV modulating the GAIN parameter. I recommend using any leftover oscillators in your patch with this feature, as it's a convenient way to get an interesting waveform out of something else.

hazycomet · Post by **hazycomet** » Thu Jul 16, 2015 6:16 am

Awesome, thanks for the quick reply, Gov.

MOD WIGGLER

MOD WIGGLER

Piston Honda MKII

Ext. In?

Re: Ext. In?