Doepfer Dark Energy II - Manual (Page 4)

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Dark EnerGy II DOEPFER Introduction
1. Introduction
1.1. Preface
Welcome to Dark Energy II. As you might have guessed already, your newly purchased Dark Energy II is
not a tool for space research, neither is it suitable for studies in astrophysics. Yet, we find these topics as
fascinating as music technology - reason enough to celebrate Hubble & Co‘s amazing discoveries a bit and
call our brand-new synthesizer Dark Energy II.
Doepfer says „thank you!“
First of all we would like to thank you for purchasing Dark Energy II! We really appreciate your choice and
promise you an extraordinary support throughout, including useful information, easy service, and innovative
product development.
May your Dark Energy II be an important source of creative power for ages to come.
What‘s this?
Dark Energy II is a monophonic, analog synthesizer with USB and MIDI interface. Its entire sound gene-
ration as well as all its modulation sources is 100% analog. Only the USB/MIDI interface uses, of course,
digital component parts.
Dark Energy II is housed in a rugged black sheet metal case with wooden side panels. Only high-quality
potentiometers (referred to as „pot“, in case you should be wondering where the „weed“ is…) with metal
shafts have been used. Each pot has been mounted firmly to the chassis. The space between the knobs is
wider than e. g. on the A-100 modular system, and we made use of knobs which have a classy vintage look
to them. Dark Energy II looks as beautiful as it sounds and is made for extensive live tweaking sessions.
You will get all the advantages of analog sound generation as well as direct access to all crucial parame-
ters - forget about confusing menus and tiny displays. Yet, Dark Energy II is a modern tool for sound crea-
tion and, thanks to its built-in MIDI/USB interface, can easily be linked with every modern computer-based
studio or live-setup. Hooking Dark Energy II up to classic vintage analog equipment or to a Doepfer A-100
modular system is also easy.
R.t.f.m.!
We knew it: User manuals are your first choice in literature. Hey, that´s great – we´re talking the same
language here! If you are in doubt about the entertaining qualities of this manual – how dare you! –, please
bear in mind that its thorough study will eventually turn out to be quite useful, as it will highly increase the
entertaining qualities of your new synthesizer as well. So please do yourself – and us – a big favor: Read
(and possibly understand) this friggin´ manual! Bless you for your efforts!
In the first section you will find all information needed to hook up Dark Energy II to your setup.
After that, you will find a brief overview of its functions. Synthesizer experts may use this as a quickstart
guide. You should not skip the complete description of the entire „functions“ section in the next chapter,
though - Dark Energy II hides some interesting features. If synthesizer technology and the secrets of sub-
tractive synthesis are totally new to you, please refer to „Nuts and bolts of sound generation“ later on in this
manual.
Enough talk - here we go...