[sdiy] Banana vs. 1/4" question

[greg montalbano]

At 12:02 PM 4/15/03 -0400, Michael Schulze wrote:

>A while back we had a thread about the ideal modular synth connector.  I'v
>just finished my first module - a quad vco with 36 1/4" jacks.  As I gaze
>longingly at the Milton sequencer I remember how cool it was on the big
>Buchla system in college to be able to split control voltages by just
>sticking a banana into another banana already plugged it.  Very conducive to
>improvisation and patching on the fly.
>
>As I remember the thread the only real disadvantage to bananas was that they
>could not be normalled and you needed to adapt signals from the outside
>world.  I don't care about these points - were there any other disadvantages
>I am forgetting?

That's pretty much it.  After trying several different schemes over the 
years, the only rule I've come up with is:  No matter what jack system you 
use, you'll ALWAYS end up needing some form of adapter cable.  I've created 
some truly bizarre ones....


>I am actually considering redoing all 36 of these jacks to end up with an
>all-banana modular.

For patching madness, this is probably the best way to go -- for 
interfacing with the outside world, there are always the aforementioned 
adapter cables, or one of the commercial (or even your own custom) adapter 
panel.

~GMM