[sdiy] How to use an analog time-domain multiplexer?

[Benjamin Tremblay]

I don’t do modular. The paradox of modular is the pleasure of plugs and dials versus the frustration of not being able to save ones work for later. 
Would it be cool to have a “super bus” where all my audio and control signals are on a “modulation matrix”? Oh yes very cool. And not modular. 
For all the time my modular friends spend building modules and hanging them up on the display case known as eurorack, they could be designing circuits to _not_ be generic and do very specific things that reflect their own tastes, styles, and ideas.
It is probably not a surprise that I don’t like building with legos, either. CV normalization rarely ever matters to me, because building accurate VCOs seems like a waste of my time when I can tweak code on a microcontroller and get what I want and scale it to my needs.
The modular synth is a laboratory instrument. Laboratories are cool for ideation. Translation of ideas into working solutions is another toolset and another frame of mind.
You can get amazing sound and infinite microtonality from a one-string fretless instrument, but unless you really feel the difficulty of playing it is part of your performance, why? 
We just love patchcords and knobs. They’re irresistible.  I can’t keep my hands off. But best way to produce music?
Having a programmable bus is something I spent a lot of time thinking about. Ultimately I observed I ruin my designs when I attempt to enable my circuits to do everything every which way. My job as artist is to make decisions about what kind of esthetic I wish to enable in a device. After all, there will always be another crazy machine to build.

Benjamin Tremblay

> On Jun 4, 2021, at 9:27 PM, dh at atoav.com wrote:
> 
> 
> 
>> On 05/06/2021 01:41, cheater cheater wrote:
>> 1. RJ-45 plugs break very easily when being patched and unpatched
> 
> That's news to me. How many cycles do you expect? These connectors are
> rated.
> 
> 
>> 3. it's hard to patch and unpatch an RJ-45 cable with one hand and it
>> requires considerable free space around the connector to do that,
>> which takes up panel space
> 
> Depends if the cables have their latch on them or not. If not, they are
> are quite easy to patch (rotation needs to be right of course). But how
> you value this discomfort in your plan depends on how many parallel
> connections you think will happen. 1? 5? 10? If it is below 5 you should
> ask yourself: is comfort _really_ that much more important than audio
> quality or price?
> 
> 
>> 4. no panel mount jacks
> 
> Neutrik has panel mount jacks and there are probably others. This is a
> non-issue. You know that thing right? <http://www.doepfer.de/A1809.htm>
> 
> 
>> 5. can't be stacked
> 
> If you can afford the 2 k€ for the chopper-sender and the
> chopper-receiver you can also afford the chopper-multiple don't you
> think? I think you are in theory theory land there. Why not just do it
> digitally (or digitally controlled) if you want full flexibility?
> 
> 
>>> I can already picture people mailing you and telling you how with
>>> _their_ cable it didn't work. If you don't gain anything from using a
>>> audio cable, why would you?
>> 
>> Yeah, I can see that being the case.
> 
> For me the thought of avoiding stress for other people alone would be
> enough to avoid solutions that are on the edge of "could potentially
> work". I want people (including myself) to enjoy the circuits I create.
> 
> This is certainly stuff that can go horribly wrong. This means you have
> to build and extensively test it. It might take you years to find the
> perfect solution and you have to keep an open mind to find a good
> solution, which is why you shouldn't rule out things that don't feel
> right. If you want to avoid shielded multicore cables you have to be
> aware what that means and you have to test it, because in the end
> physics always wins if you don't : )
> 
> Cheers,
> atoav
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