More random EG thoughts
2000-02-03 by Dave Bradley
More Stooge blathering - 1. ASR vs AR: The reason I envisioned needing a mode switch is that for AR, I think you'd want the attack phase to always complete fully before release starts, so it works correctly with very short triggers and long attack times. But with ASR, you want release to start immediately when the gate goes low. Hence, a switch tells the EG how to behave, but at the expense of panel real estate. I personally don't like half click input jacks, because now you are hiding functionality and you can't just glance at the panel in a dense patch and see how it's set (sorry to disagree, Chris! ;>) 2. 1U vs 2U, simple versus complex, flexible versus affordable: we really have 2 conversations going, one about a simple VC AR, maybe chainable or retriggerable, and the other about a super whizbang multistage VC DADSR or level/time based EG. These are incompatible goals, so we should realize we are talking about at least 2 different modules. I like the idea of 1U for the simple case because if I want to chain 3 or 4 together, I don't want to burn 8U of space. The interesting thing about the complex module being talked about is that it will end up being 4U wide or more to get enough knobs on it, or you'll have to have a processor to multiplex them. By this time, you have the makings of a minisequencer, or JH's interpolating scanner. If you are devoting this much expense and panel space, your module may as well be able to do other things, too. Matter of fact, I think the interpolating scanner is an incredible module, and Paul should offer it in a MOTM module (fortunately, JH already designs for MOTM!) It will already do something very close to the multiple break point EG functions, and will also allow VC crossfading of audio. For a description, see: http://www.synthfool.com/diy/jh_ipscan.html 3. Back to the simple design. The idea of the END signal needs ironing out. First, if you plan on retriggering the EG as an oscillator, you have to have either a switch to sum the output pulse back to the input, or a second gate input jack. If you are to use it for chaining, however, the logic gets a little complicated as you propogate these signals down several modules. I'm not sure how it should work if you have a module somewhere in the middle set for ASR mode - then the END signal of the previous stage has to terminate at some point for the envelope to move on to other stages. I'll have to think about this some more. Maybe the answer is TWO separate 1U simple AR modules, one with VC delay, another with the mode switch. Blah blah over and out, Moe