[sdiy] "Living VCOs" PCB in 2009 ?

[Mattias Rickardsson]

2008/12/9 Brandon Daniel <bdu at fdiskc.com>:
>
> I don't think it's a case of nobody believing that any instability can
> be programmed into an otherwise stable oscillator. Of course it can be
> done, and it's being done in many commercially-available virtual
> analog synthesizers.
>
> IMO, as someone who finds use for oscillators of the stable and
> unstable variety, in the cases where I want an unstable oscillator,
> I'd rather just patch in a different oscillator than use other modules
> to create that instability in a stable one.

Kind of beside the scope of this thread, but since so many have
mentioned the possibilities of making any unstable VCO by
noise-modulating a stable one:

It might be a bad way to go. :-)

Simply because everything that CAN be done will not be done, at least
not very often. It's often counterproductive to separate functions in
smaller and smaller modules beyond the point of having useful
combinations.

For example, resonance could be seen as an unimportant feature of a
VCF, since it can be added by feeding back the output to the input
with external mixer modules and so on. But having resonance IN the
filter module is simply a darn good thing. So good that any other
solution would be plainly stupid. The usefulness of imperfections in a
VCO might outrule the usefulness of having it perfect. And if you have
it perfect, you will probably rarely even think of programming an
external instability to it.

Honestly - have you patched together a subtly unstable VCO from your
near-perfect VCOs lately? No? That's what I suspected... ;-)


/mr  -  bold combinations is the difference between modules and instruments