[sdiy] Pot panel scales

[megaohm]

On Thu, Sep 23, 2010 at 10:10 AM, Neil Johnson
<neil.johnson97 at ntlworld.com> wrote:

> On a modular synth, many pots have an arbitrary 0 to 10 or -10 to +10
> scale.  I'm not counting specific scales, such as on a pitch pot that
> might indicate semitones, for example.
>
> The question being: how important are the numbers?

They have no importance. Leave them off.

I've tried to think of ways to give them logical meaning and I always fail.
For instance:
0-10 can be thought of as a multiplier. Place a decimal point before
the first digit and you get full CCW = X0 = no signal
full CW = x1.0 = full signal
12 o'clock = x0.5 = half signal....umm...
Nine times out of ten 12 o'clock doesn't equal half signal level.
Usually it's 2 o'clock (or "7") that equals half signal level. So,
again, they are meaningless. Of course this is due to the non-linear
behavior of say a 100K and 100K resistor.

What's more, the numbers 0-10, -5 - +5, etc. usually fall on the hours
of a clock so for patch documenting they aren't much of an advantage.

I leave dial #'s off unless they actually have a meaning.
The input attenuators on my Delta VCF modules being one example:

http://www.megaohmaudio.com/deltaVCFv2.html

p.