In a recent Instagram post, we used Sinc Defero as a sort of modulation hub for some CV: routing the CV to multiple destinations, using SD’s built-in multing abilities, and attenuating that CV for each destination. If you’re familiar with Loquelic Iteritas Percido or Cursus Iteritas Percido, you may recognize this sort of technique: they both have envelope sends that are routed in similar ways to this. People have asked us if it’s possible to recreate the architecture within the Percido modules with a patch, and the answer is yes! It just takes a lot of modules. Let’s see if we can recreate a simplified version of that sort of patch with SD.

Starting out: the envelope

In my opinion, the envelope is one of the most important parts of a synthesizer. I’ve used and owned dozens of envelope modules to find my favorites that I now have in my system: the AJH Minimod Contour Generators, Mutable Instruments Stages, and Pons Asinorum. I use them all for different things as they each have a different character and behavior, but today I’ll be using PA. Remember, though, this post is about creative patching more than specific modules: feel free to try stuff out with the modules you already have in your system. (Or buy a bunch of new ones. It’s Eurorack, after all.)

What are we actually gonna modulate?

LIP and CIP are two interesting and complicated oscillators. However, we don’t have to limit ourselves at all in terms of modulation destination. Obviously, NE oscillators (like Ataraxic Iteritas and Basimilus Iteritas Alter) have CV inputs galore so they’re great candidates for this, but they are by no means the only options. My favorite analog complex oscillator, the Instruo Cs-L, has lots of interesting CV ins too, so it would be a good one for this. But again, we can keep it simple, if we want: this could also be interesting in a simple subtractive patch, perhaps modulating a filter cutoff, PWM, and sync’d oscillator’s frequency all simultaneously.

Learn more:

Sinc Defero

Pons Asinorum

Ataraxic Iteritas

Loquelic Iteritas Percido

Cursus Iteritas Percido

Better open up google maps or something because it’s time for some ROUTING

Having an envelope is one thing, but actually getting it to where we want it to is where stuff gets fun! Sinc Defero is a quad attenuator, but it also has circularly normalled inputs that create copies of a signal on whatever channels are left unpatched. This is great for exactly what we want to do! It lets us send our single envelope to four destinations, and attenuate each copy separately, fine-tuning it to perfectly modulate our destination.

Wouldn’t it be nice if patch cables were this neat in real life?

WAIT. PANIC. I DON’T HAVE A SINC DEFERO. WHAT DO.

You DON’T? GO ORDER ONE. Or don’t! It’s up to you. Chances are, though, you probably have a mult and some attenuators in your system. It’s a little more patching, but you can mult out your envelope to a bunch of attenuators and basically do the same thing. Creative patching! Woohoo!

Let’s make like Mario and TAKE IT TO THE NEXT LEVEL (careful, it’s a water level)

We can easily add some pizazz to this type of patch too. For instance, we could use attenuverters instead of attenuators to invert our envelopes, if your modulation destination likes that sort of thing. In fact, Lapsus Os is great for both attenuation and attenuversion and it’s a lot of fun for this since it’s designed for performance. We could also add voltage control to our envelope sends with a simple VCA like the Intellijel Quad VCA, or a voltage-controlled polarizer (CV’able attenuverter) like Mutable Instruments Blinds.

A video of example of this whole thing

Let’s try this out! Here, we’re using Pons Asinorum and Sinc Defero to modulate Ataraxic Iteritas. Another PA channel modulates Seca Ruina which is acting as our VCA.