Expert Sleepers Cicely

MUSICAL FEATURES

Cicely is an 'Octave fuzz' inspired by the famous guitar pedal 'Octavia'. The 'Octavia', which is also known to have been used by Jimi Hendrix, is an effect pedal created by Roger Mayer.WebsiteYou can read interesting articles at. Cicely inherits the concept while offering some additional features and CV controls suitable for modular environments.

This effect basically adds an octave to the input sound, but it only applies to the pure input sound.For more complex tones, the sound changes in all sorts of interesting ways.Give your sound an edge by overdriving it, or combine it with asymmetrical clipping created by the unique 'Center' control. This 100% analog module includes an envelope follower as a bonus feature.

HOW TO USE

theory of operation

The input audio is first sent to the Gain stage (controlled by the Gain knob and CV).It then enters the Octaving stage, which is affected by the Center knob and CV, and this octave output is mixed with the input signal (controlled by the Mix knob and CV).

To get the classic Octavia tone, set the Mix to about 9 o'clock, the Center to 12 o'clock, and the Gain to a high level depending on the input signal.To approximate the effect of a guitar amp and cabinet, run a filter after Cicely to moderately filter out high frequencies. The two audio inputs are simply summed together.

Gain and Mix

In the image below, the green traces represent the inputs and the yellow traces represent the outputs.

It's also useful to look at the harmonic spectrum of the audio rather than looking at the waveform.The following was captured with Gain set to '5'.

Centre

The Center knob and CV input create asymmetrical clipping by adding a DC offset to the Octaving circuit.This is especially effective when modulated by an LFO, etc., and produces a sound similar to VCO pulse width modulation (PWM).The following images all have Gain set to '5' and Mix set to '10'.

Envelope follower

Envelope followers follow the amplitude of the input signal. The two envelope outputs provide a normal and an inverted copy, respectively.In the image below, the green trace shows the input signal, the yellow trace shows the normal envelope, and the magenta trace shows the inverted envelope.

Jumpers

There are two jumpers on the top board labeled 'JP1' and 'JP2' which control the nature of the Dry/Wet mixing as follows:

• If no jumper is installed, the mix will be a linear crossfade of the dry and wet signals, with the output at the midpoint being 50% dry/50% wet.
• With the jumper installed, the midpoint will be 100% dry/100% wet.Below the midpoint, dry remains at 100% and wet decreases as the knob value decreases towards '0'.Above the halfway point, wetness remains at 100%, and dryness decreases as the knob value increases towards '10'.

Neither is installed when shipped from the factory.