Tips & Tricks For Patching Modules

I’ve always gone VCO → VCA → VCF with separate envelope generators on the VCF and VCA. The reason for swapping the VCA and VCF in the chain is to let the VCF respond to different amplitudes it receives from the VCA in different ways. E.g. with resonance, the resonance will be more present on a low amplitude input than a high amplitude. The setup gives more flexibility in the dynamics.

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Had INCREDIBLE fun today, put contact mics on a drum kit, fed into an amp to boost the signal, then running that to the @d42kn355 passive LPG with a beefy bass signal running through it. SO much fun, I can’t get over it.

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Have any audio samples or video to check out by chance?

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Eh, it’s not that good since it’s just synth DI out, no amps or drum recordings. Sounds better with everything together, but you can kind of get the idea: Vocaroo | Online voice recorder

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I’ve just found this, very interresting :slight_smile:

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Nice!

I especially like how some concepts are illustrated:

For example, an oscillator typically puts out a constant tone. So it sounds like:
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Feed it into a VCA and an LFO can force the oscillator be silent at regular intervals, like:
AAAA----AAAA----AAAA----AAAA----AAAA
Feed that into another VCA and another LFO can then inject another patern of silence:
AAAA------AA------------A-------AAA-

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The feels like telling people about a song you like.
Duh dum, dee dum de dum de dum

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@Dud Thank you. My only issue (for me personally) is that I am a visual learner so pictures of how everything goes together is actually more helpful to me. I think in order for me to try and understand this I would need to sit down and draw the explanations out. Patching modules still doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me as I have a bunch of questions about it. I also still do not have a 100% working modular to play with as I need a few more key modules and/or a case. I have been playing with VCV Rack and watching some of Omri Cohen’s videos on YouTube. The little that I have been able to try has not given me any results really. I guess my confusion about patching a modular comes down to CV, clock, and audio and knowing which one I should be using for each type of parameter and the order that they sometimes must be put in. I know this can vary depending on the module too. For example, do you have to have a vca before an envelope or could you have a filter before an envelope? (osc, vca, env… vs… osc, filter, env, vca.) I’ve only used digital synths or guitar pedals that only have audio in / out or soft synths. Not every module I have has an audio out so it’s confusing to me how to route audio let alone cv, and clock throughout a modular. Most tutorials make the assumption that the person has used analog synths before and knows the answers to all of these questions, even this book makes that assumption. :frowning: My brain always has worked linearly. For example, guitar signal goes to the in on a delay pedal then out to the distortion input then out to the in on a mixer. Now you have a guitar with delay and distortion. Simple. However, modular doesn’t seem to work like that so it’s very confusing to me. :pensive:

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First thing, your modular have Audio, CV, Gate/Tigger/Clock signals, but all is electricity and you can send everything in everythings (example an audio source in a CVIN) , but at the beginning test some “classic use” voice synth like VCO VCF VCA

the ENV gen is more use to modulate the CV IN of the VCF or VCA

a VCO OUT in a VCF IN then in a VCA IN

  • an ENvelope Generator to open the VCA (in VCA CVIN)
    or open the VCF (in CV IN) or both with a multiple before

and after you can test the VCF after or before the VCA

btw i think it’s better to put the fx (delay, reverb …) at the end of the chain, but all is possible :slight_smile: , like whawha after or before distortion each is own taste

yes you can think like guitar with the modular too, the audio signal (guitare or VCO) and go to modification (distortion, filtre, …) but in + you can also with other source change the parameters of each modules by the CV input.

try a simple synth voice and try to modulate it with some CV

there’s also this thread with some simple patch example

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@popflier

You have found an excellent resource, Omri Cohen’s videos are where I and a fair chunk of the VCV community learned about modular. VCV is also good software to learn with as the principles translate into the hardware world. I used to watch his videos, and patch at the same time, having to pause to think about what I had just done. This is essential for the tutorial videos, but I found I could learn a lot from his general patching videos too.

You may have already found the entry level playlists by omri



These three playlists all have the same introduction video.

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Also this thread

When I started, there are some videos that I had to watch several times, and understood new things with each additional view, watch watch watch … and again :slight_smile:

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Thanks @Dud and @Dave .

I agree with you @Dud that a delay and reverb should go at the end of an fx chain. I was just trying to make a point that you have audio in and audio out of each pedal and the signal travels in a straight path, unless you’re dealing with some of these newer higher end digital pedals that have midi in/out and additional in/out jacks.

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Just an experiment that I just did, a sample rate reducer “effect” with a Sample & Hold.

I put a square wave in the Trigger IN of the S&H.
I used a set of drums in the input source.
and the CV OUT, which has become audio, can be modified by playing with the square wave.
Really funny !

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Random patch note for a nice warbling drone:
Safety valve drone → Transistor Ladder Filter (CV/Res at max) → Mixer. Set ADSR to audio rate, patch + out to CV of filter and mixer in inverted mode. Pitch with ADSR rate and filter cut off, distort with valve drone pitch. Grain delay and widening in post to taste.

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Haven’t built my hardware envelope follower yet… or my second VCO… but wanted to experiment with an idea and came up with a wonderful little wobble machine using an env follower in a way I havnen’t seen before.

Two slightly detuned low sin oscillators (should work with any shape, actually works great with two different shapes), fed into a mixer to make a detuned drone - feed that into a VCF, then into an env follower. Put the out of the env follower into the CV of the filter (and optionally the mixer level), then the out of the filter mult’d out to a reverb and the master output. Make great random wobbles that change in tempo as you change the detuning.

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So I was using a 960 sequencer, this is a basic 8 step sequencer, and I wanted to automatically and peridically transpose the sequence in some way. This device does not have an input which lets you transpose its output voltages (which is an easy thing to add in the design, so I’m wondering why it is not in there…).

So I thought, why not use the output voltage of a counter followed by an attenuator as the amount of voltage that determines the transposition?

So this is the patch that I tried to make and I got it to work with some basic modules:

I have a audio/CV-mixer that does not have any AC-decoupling. So I sent the V/Octave signal from the sequencer into that as one signal. Next I took the output of a counter which was clocked by the same source as the sequencer and took one of the higher order counting outputs. This will give some DC voltage when it is activated. I sent that through an attenuator (a simple potmeter will do!) and put that as the 2nd signal into the audio/CV-mixer. Both signals are now added by the mixer and the result can be used to control an oscillator. Of course adding a quantizer between the mixer and the oscillator’s V/Oct input makes tuning a bit easier, but this is not a necessity.

So whenever the output of the counter goes high, via the mixer a portion of that signal ( the portion is determined by the attenuator ) added to the sequencer output value will be send to the oscillator. Et Voila, a periodic transposition of the sequence!

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