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Message: [QUOTE="Shamiso, post: 92598, member: 160"] Digitron's iOS patchbay lets you connect any module output to any module input, while its two LFOs can also serve as oscillators. The flexibility sounds simple until you stop following the usual oscillator-to-filter-to-amplifier route. A patch can change because the sound path moved, because a control signal moved, or because one module started doing a different job. Start plain. Let an oscillator make the tone, send it through the filter, and keep the VCA handling level. [B][URL='https://goldmidi.com/community/threads/sillydevices-brings-digitron-synthesizer-to-ios.77964/']Digitron's modular routing system[/URL][/B] becomes much easier to understand when you change one connection at a time instead of filling the patchbay because the sockets are there. The iOS instrument gives you two oscillators, a voltage-controlled two-channel mixer, a resonant low-pass filter, ADSR and AR envelopes, two LFOs, two VCAs, noise, sample and hold, and a quantizer. None of those names are especially mysterious on their own. The fun starts when their roles stop being fixed. [HEADING=2]Audio and control paths need different thinking[/HEADING] Some signals are there because you want to hear them. Others are there because you want them to move something else. An oscillator normally sits on the sound side, while an envelope or slow LFO is more useful when it changes level, pitch, filter behavior, or another destination over time. Keeping those jobs separate in your head makes patching far less messy. [B][URL='https://patents.google.com/patent/US9530395B2/en']Modular synthesizer signal and control routing[/URL][/B] has long treated oscillators, envelopes, LFOs, filters, amplifiers, mixers, and sequencers as separate functions that can be interconnected instead of locked into one permanent order. Digitron puts the same basic freedom on a touchscreen. Try moving one control source before adding a second one. An LFO routed somewhere obvious gives you a clean before-and-after comparison, while piling an envelope, another LFO, and sample and hold onto the same patch makes troubleshooting annoying fast. One change, listen, then keep or ditch it. The destination matters as much as the modulator. The same repeating LFO can create subtle motion in one place and a very obvious pulse somewhere else. Reusing one source across different destinations teaches you more than reaching for another module every time the patch feels static. [HEADING=2]LFOs and utility modules are where it gets interesting[/HEADING] Digitron's two LFOs can be used as oscillators, so the label does not lock them into slow modulation duty. One patch may use an LFO to create movement, while another can pull it into the audible side of the instrument. Same module, completely different role. Sample and hold works differently. Instead of smooth movement, it can produce stepped changes, which is useful when continuous modulation feels too polished. Feed changing pitch-related control through a quantizer, and the result can land on discrete values instead of sliding freely between them. Those two modules solve separate problems. Sample and hold gives you changing values. Quantization gives those values boundaries. Keeping them separate means you can decide whether you want smooth movement, stepped movement, or stepped movement that behaves more predictably around pitch. The pair of VCAs is easy to dismiss as volume plumbing, but a VCA can control the amount of a signal before it reaches somewhere else. Level then becomes part of the patch itself rather than something you only touch at the mixer. Modulation depth can become a routable decision instead of one fixed knob position. [HEADING=2]Simple patches make the weird stuff easier to hear[/HEADING] A packed patchbay looks impressive for about thirty seconds. Then one connection starts behaving badly, and you have no clue which route caused it. Keeping the main audio path readable makes experiments much easier to judge, especially when LFOs and utility modules are already changing roles. Digitron's oscilloscope helps because you can see the generated waveform while you change the patch. It will not tell you whether the sound is good, obviously. It can still show when oscillator shape, filtering, or level behavior has changed more dramatically than your ears suggested at first. Patchability also changes how you think about saving sounds. You do not need a completely different oscillator setting every time you want a new result. Keep a core tone you like, then rebuild the control path around it with envelopes, LFOs, sample and hold, or quantization doing different jobs. The useful limit is whether you can still explain the patch to yourself. Keep the audio route obvious, give each modulation connection one reason to exist, and only add a utility module when it fixes a specific problem. Digitron gets deeper when the routing stays readable, not when every socket is occupied. [/QUOTE]

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