[sdiy] Midi2CV accuracy(was MIDI2CV alternatives)

[Richard Wentk]

At 08:26 07/10/2004 -0400, you wrote:

>In a message dated 10/7/04 1:28:50 AM, P.Maddox at signal.QinetiQ.com writes:
>
><< So there are some real advatnages to keeping the CVs seperate. >>
>
>You are absolutely correct, sir.  That is why I have always loved the Roland
>MPU-101.  I just wish its basic pitch accuracy were a little better.
>
>I see no actual musical advantage to summing modulation sources digitally,
>other than it makes it easier for the user to achieve certain things.

Well, yes... :-)

>The clever and resourceful user would be able to, for instance, modify his 
>Minimoog (I
>love ripping 'em open and carving them up, BTW, being the blasphemer that I
>am) to do anything with an MPU-101 that can be done with a Kenton Pro 2000 --
>with the additional flexibility of routing things exactly where you want 
>them to
>go (i.e. - Pitch Bend to control just one VCO, or something wacky like that).

Sure. And in software you can do something wacky like that a lot more 
easily, with potentially instant repatching between one kind of wacky patch 
effect and another.

>  If I want an LFO to modulate a synth, I'll use an actual LFO, not someone's
>digital triangle wave lookup table!

Who said anything about triangle waves?

One of the Great Limitations of analogue fetishism seems to be an inability 
to see the value of more complex modulation waveforms. The Access Virus, 
for example, has a rack full of bizarro waveshapes that can be used in both 
the DCO and LFO. Once you've listened to some of the effects these can 
produce, the usual menu of sine/square/pulse/ramp/tri/noise seems like an 
extremely limited selection.

Plus you can also do wacky things like link the LFO rate to note number in 
software, match rate to MIDI clock, add independent LFOs per voice with a 
fade envelope for each, and so on. All of which are fantastically easy to 
do in s/ware, but rather demanding in h/ware.

Richard