I’ve been tinkering around with my Bastl Kastle synth for about six months now. This tiny little semi-modular synth is great fun. It has been designed in such a way that it’s impossible to patch it up wrong. I’m still new to the world of synthesizers and mucking about with patching the Bastl Kastle has been a great way to learn.
Making a tune with the Bastl Kastle is something I struggle with. To be honest I’m not sure this is the sort of synthesizer that is designed for belting out a nice tune. It’s an experimental thing. But trying to control it in any way that I might find useful, or even repeatable has been a bit of a challenge.
Recently I bought a Korg SQ-1 sequencer so I could run longer sequences on my Korg Volca Bass. I really love this little sequencer; it has enabled me to do things with my Volca Bass that I didn’t think was possible.
Because the Korg SQ-1 is such a versatile device I thought I’d try and use it to run a sequence on my Bastl Kastle. The SQ-1 has CV out so in theory the process should be fairly straight forward. But every time I tried I failed. Eventually I figured out that the SQ-1 needed to be set to 5V CV in order to properly control the Bastl Kastle. So I made myself a little video to remind myself how to set everything up in the future.
In this video I do a few things that aren’t essential to getting the SQ-1 to play nicely with the Bastl Kastle so here’s a quick run down of what needs to be done to get the sync working properly.
- Use a mono cable to run from the CV OUT on the SQ-1 to the I/O input on the Bastl Kastle
- On the Kastle patch from the L I/O to Waveshape. In theory you could patch it anywhere else, but I used the Waveshape port because it appeared to have the biggest impact on the ‘tune’
- Set the SQ-1 to 5V by pressing the function button and the 5V button at the same time
- Tinker to your heart’s content.
Last Updated on February 18, 2023
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