Rob Hordijk Rungler

The purpose of the Rob Hordijk Rungler module is to create short stepped patterns of variable length and speed. One could categorize the circuit somewhere halfway between a plain S&H and a shiftregister-based pseudorandom generator. It needs two frequency sources to work and basically creates a complex interference pattern that can be fed back into the frequency parameters of the driving oscillators to create an unlimited amount of havoc.

The rungler is basically a CMOS shift register clocked by one oscillator and receiving its data input from the other oscillator. The output bits of the shiftregister are used as a binary code 'to do something with'. E.g. in the Benjolin the last 3 stages of the shift register for a 3 bit code that is fed into a 3 bit DA converter. This DA eight level output voltage is fed back to the oscillator frequency control inputs. The output of the DA is the 'rungler CV signal'. To describe the rungler waveform in similar terms as like a sine wave or pulse wave I call it a 'stepped havoc wave'.

When the rungler signal is fed back to the frequency parameters of the oscillators it will change the triangle waveforms and pulse widths of the oscillator outputs, making other types of havoc waves, like a 'pulsed havoc wave' and a 'sloped havoc wave'. Note that it is these properties of stepped, sloped and pulsed that are of interest in the waves. (The Dutch composer Jan Boerman formulated an idea in the 1960s about audio signals that are inbetween pitched and unpitched. Havoc waves are probably somewhere in that region, maybe a bit similar to granular synthesis stuff. I haven't really thought deeply about this myself, but Boerman has certainly always been an inspiration to me to try to go into that inbetween territory.)

The rungler will try to find a balanced state. In this way it behaves according to principle from Chaos Theory. There seems to be an unlimited amount of possible balanced states and when a balanced state is just slightly disturbed it can be noted that it takes a little time to find the next balanced state, with noticeable bifurcations, etc. Note that a new balanced state is defined by the exact position of the control knobs plus the previous state it was in.