Archive of the former Yahoo!Groups mailing list: MOTM

Patchcords are cables, and therefore have a finite amount of resistance, as
well as other electrical properties. That said, in my experience with
modulars, as long as you are using good quality shielded patchcords, the
length (up to a point) shouldn't make any difference worthy of noting in
your patch charts. It makes sense to try to use the shortest cords available
to go from point-to-point, while still leaving enough slack so that you can
pull them out of the way of something else for tweaking. And it goes without
saying that the cords should never be pulled taught. Man, I used to see
people doing that in my college E-Music lab... the TA used to shriek when he
saw that. "Jazz majors!" he would yell. He yelled that when the tuning
scales would be fiddled with, too... those old Electrocomps we had were hard
to temper. But I digress.

Speaking of patch charts, though, I've always found that they are only
useful to a point. The patchcord length makes much less of an impact as some
potentiometers being at "62-degrees" rather than "63-degrees," and the
cumulative effect can get pretty wild in big patches. Diagrams are only good
for getting you to the "Oh, that's right, that's what I was doing" point,
and after that you just have to know your instrument well enough to tweak
all of the knobs to get what you want.

The joy of modulars, IMHO, is that you start off trying to get somewhere and
90% of the time are sidetracked by some new aspect of the sound you hadn't
heard before and split off down another road. Working with a modular is like
going for a hike with the intention of getting lost, just to see what's
"over there." And with a modular synth, unlike a hike after dinner, you
don't really care if you get back or not.

Nothing beats knowing your instrument, and once you do, you may become too
lazy to write things down, because you know you can patch it up again from
the heart any time you want. Except for sharing a layout with another, or
when every now and then you come upon something so cool or so odd that you
just have to write it all down. Maybe a digital camera is the better method!
:-) With a digital camera with a Hollywood-style chalkboard clapper that you
can hold in front: "Weird copper-sounding brass patch, take one!" -Clap!--

My partner in creative crime is a brilliant but undisciplined fellow (his
radio program is on right now, in fact). He used to get up in front of the
modulars we had access to and put patchcords all over the place. The most
unusual, wild, rhythmic but non-repeating sounds would come out. Instant
Morton Subotnick album in a single patch. I would then step in and slowly
remove patchcords one at a time that actually weren't doing anything until I
got down to the true heart of the patch. Then I would step back and look at
it and say, "Huh! ∗I∗ certainly would never have come up with this by
working logically."

These experiences broke me of the discipline of patch charts.

Sorry for the rant. Your questions activated neurons I hadn't used in a
while, and I had to indulge myself in the mnemonic trip.



-----Original Message-----
Do I also need to note which specific length of patchcord I
use to make each connection? Will using different length cords in future
patches cause small changes to occur in the voltages between modules and
thus change the sound significantly? Likewise, will using different cords
made by different manufacturers have a big effect on the patch's sound?
Lastly, is there a maximum length that patchcords can be before excess noise
or signal degradation starts to detrimentally effect the sound?