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Post by brunzini on Nov 22, 2020 21:59:15 GMT
i bought a incomplete AE modular set up via ebay several months ago
2osc / 2env / 2lfo / seq 8 / mixer / beat divider / quantizer / wasp / kick and have added wavetable / wavefolder which took 2 months  to arrive so im ready to go now !
today was trying to play via midi notes and now under the impression having no vca in the rack is my problem .I didnt know this before . everything runs fine via 8 seq / external midi seq but when i try to play notes via midi keyboard i hit the problem . is this the fact i dont have a VCA ? or patching wrong ? i can play pitched notes but they have no attack or sustain
as its saying 3 months now for a VCA can i run a external one via eurorack module ? as i just bought a rack but no modules .......
thanks
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VCA help
Nov 22, 2020 22:37:55 GMT
via mobile
Post by MaxRichardson97 on Nov 22, 2020 22:37:55 GMT
A VCA is basically a voltage controlled volume dial - it means your sound can turn on and off controlled by an envelope or LFO (or anything for that matter!). It's a required module for serious use, but it's not to say your system is useless without it - it's just pretty limited. I think (but am not sure!) that a Eurorack module would work if you converted the signal with a 4IO or the Master audio, but it's expensive and a pain. Where do you live? It'd be worth looking for an AE stockist - Juno Music here in the UK are great!
A VCA shouldn't affect pitch at all - what's your specific problem? Hope you're enjoying your first AE footsteps!
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Post by brunzini on Nov 22, 2020 22:55:56 GMT
thanks for the reply system certainly isnt useless its great and i love it but i think the VCA is a serious missing link 
juno dont have stock of the VCA ....already checked thanks and its 3 long months postage from germany here ......
i bought my first eurocrack from cre8audio last week and i can get a VCA such as doepfer within a few days it seems , i will need one anyway i guess ! im curious if this will work .
the specific problem im not sure but it seems i cannot play a series of notes on the keyboard - as you say the envelope controls the VCA - its just one long note after another though sequencing works great ...
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Post by admin on Nov 22, 2020 23:09:06 GMT
While a VCA is really the most fundamental module in any synthesizer, you can play without it by just modulating the cutoff frequency of a filter, eg. WASP with an envelope.
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Post by brunzini on Nov 22, 2020 23:24:09 GMT
thanks admin that sounds most interesting ill try that but essentially i will need the VCA . im enjoying leaning all this !
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Post by funbun on Nov 23, 2020 2:00:40 GMT
If you order from Germany, go ahead an order about four VCAs! You'll never run out of uses for them.
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Lugia
Wiki Editors
Ridiculously busy...ish.
Posts: 556 
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Post by Lugia on Nov 23, 2020 2:36:44 GMT
Synth w/o VCAs = car without tires. And that's definitely the cause of the absence of the volume envelope. You NEED a VCA to control audio amplitude in the way you want...and in fact, since they control all sorts of amplitudes (as in, with modulation signals too), they're something you need bunches of. VCAs can work as...
Audio amplitude control
Modulation amplitude control
Panners (two, with an inverter on one's CV input so that it opens as the other one closes)
Quadrant multipliers (think "ring modulator")
Dynamics control (compression, ducking)
Amplification (if the VCA is capable of more than 1:1 gain)
Waveshaping (by overloading the VCA)
...and on and on. They're a bread and butter staple of synthesis.
As for the "use a VCF" trick, yep, that can work...but only if you're willing to have a timbral change there, because the way you'd "close" a VCF would be to drop the cutoff to zero. If not, then you have to use a VCA. So, buy several. Funbun ain't lyin'!
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Post by brunzini on Nov 23, 2020 20:35:33 GMT
thanks for your help people most interesting learning curve !
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Post by brunzini on Nov 24, 2020 22:49:34 GMT
tried another trick running vca from my semi modular synth , that works rather nicely !
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Post by sycophante on Nov 25, 2020 14:25:52 GMT
I would say now is a good time to drone, or crafting music with pure tone! Drone, even if its not your style of music, can be good place to practice deep listening, and it can be very meditative or cathartic! I rearranged my 2 pannels rack to have a 1 pannel drone and sound art machine, that is enough for me to get a lot of fun and creative potential, and my use of VCAs is anecdotical (only for audio-rate amp modulation). It does have 5 oscillators, noise and 4 filters though  and tons of mixers and non cv-able attenuators... Still, your limited system can be a good thing to push your creativity and find crazy patching technics! |
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Post by arti on Nov 25, 2020 15:39:45 GMT
and my use of VCAs is anecdotical (only for audio-rate amp modulation). Could You be a little more specific? Any patch examples? |
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Post by sycophante on Nov 25, 2020 20:36:30 GMT
Well being more specific would imply not forgetting to say that I am trying to create move mostly by the way I route my audio signals (sources, filters, effects, panning). typically by taking time to tune my oscillators, find the sweet point on filters where the you can feel harmonics are "trying to escape", use of feedback, finding a mix ratio between two tones that gives a nice chorus, etc... So I even try to avoid lfos at the moment, as when it comes to make a certain moving sound evolve, I will turn the knobs by hand. I will use vcas combined with 2cvtool to blend my sound with different results than mixing (one osc in "in" another in "cv"), but I got lots of other way to create texture.
So I basically avoid all the cv and trigger generating stuff, wich is pretty specific, but fooling around is giving me great joy!
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Post by brunzini on Nov 25, 2020 21:01:10 GMT
and my use of VCAs is anecdotical (only for audio-rate amp modulation). Could You be a little more specific? Any patch examples? very much involved in deep listening I had the patches doing some wild stuff initially not sure how but it sounded great |
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to arrive so im ready to go now ! 
and tons of mixers and non cv-able attenuators...
