So most of you probably know you can stick a polyphonic signal into the V/Oct or FM input of an LFO, and get a different LFO on each channel, like this:
For my purposes, I find this works better when there’s some sort of relationship between the channels, for example when the LFO is the same speed but with a phase offset. Poly LFT from Null Set is great for this:
You can also do the same thing with any modulation signal by copying it on to multiple channels with Bogaudio Polymult, and sending it through CVD delay with a different value on each channel applied to the delay time attenuvertor (basically sending CV signals through an audio delay, slightly complicated but I nicked the idea from Make Noise’s MultiMod!)
Here we have the VCV LFO made into a poly signal with a phase difference between the channels. Biset Omega6 is producing the voltages to create the poly offset:
Last one, Omega6 creates static voltages on poly channels, which is really useful for creating the signal to apply to FM/rate/V/Oct inputs. But if you modulate the phase input, you get a wobbly waveform with occasional stepped parts, which is really satisfying if you apply it to something like a filter or resonant phaser:
Who else does stuff like this, and what are your favourite modules? Wavetable LFOs work well, just wondering what other strange modulators I can try next!
I got Envelope City and the rest of the modules in the bundle they were in because you can trigger a cascade of envelopes like a tidal wave of modulation but it’s heavy on resources if I use all 16 channels… I will have to try out these methods make multiple modulations in one voice… and I’ll have to add a polyscope to my racks because the regular VCV scope doesn’t always work especially because it matches the cable color and I tend to use black cables which don’t show up on the black scope display… need to attach more modules like Spectra that have plenty of modulation destinations or try polyphonic effects
Yep, I noticed Wave Multiplier is tagged as an LFO, haven’t tried that yet. Doesn’t recurse use poly channels to intensify something like a filter or effect, and output one channel? Not sure how that would work for modulation.
I’m all about polyphonic effects! I made a tutorial on that recently, it was demonstrating guitar effects but of course you can apply the same principle to anything else.
I’ll have a look at Envelope City too, thanks. Although you can do the same trick with regular envelopes that have attenuverters for the different stages (the VCV Fundamental one works for example).
The Wave Multiplier is wild. Venom has a lot of good ones.
Recurse takes an input and runs it recursively through the modules poly layers. But you can get an output that’s a stack of related poly from each previous stage… could be interesting. I dunno.
Fantastic, thanks Lars! I knew you’d have some ideas, that’s exactly the kind of thing I started this thread for. I’ve used that module before, and completely forgot about it.
Just going through the Mutants too, they’re all polyphonic so there’s bound to be something in there. The poly version of Tides does some interesting stuff, @Bloodbat can probably recommend some more if we ask nicely
If we’re going premium, the morphing LFO from the Synthesis Technology collection is great too. I like to use free modules for YouTube stuff, so I can share the patches without people complaining…
Ok now I’m intrigued by polyphonic tides, I don’t think I need the synthesis technology lfo, I only got their second bundle of some complex oscillators since the Cloud Terrarium was already free and I didn’t need the other ones… should really play quad lfo I don’t use that one much…
@shawnbortree19@VirtualModular Do keep in mind that my polyphonic Tides versions are not in the Library yet: you need to get one of my Nightlies to play with them. They will be in the Library… at some point
However, something polyphonic already available in the Library: Funes (my version of Plaits) can be configured to be an LFO, the cool thing is it uses its synthesis engines to produce the LFO signals, so it goes beyond Sines, Saws, Triangles and Squares
That said, I will not make every module polyphonic; for example, I don’t think it makes sense for Marmora (Marbles).
Great topic.
If you care about pixel real estate (which I do for reasons beyond me), VCV Library - docB RndC is a nice option. 3x16 in 2HP. It’s a bit odd on voltage levels though.
I’m not fussed about screen HP generally, but both the DocB modules look interesting, thanks. The 3d cube is wild, and makes really cool scope patterns too!
Looking at the manual for Wonk, this is exactly what I was talking about with LFOs on multiple channels going in and out of phase:
I can do this already by bodging together other modules, but this looks a lot easier and has some cool features, I might have to buy it soon as well.
@Bloodbat entirely fair points, polyphony doesn’t make sense for everything. The difficulty with things like Marbles would be finding a way of changing all the controls on different channels.
I’m going to check out the LFO mode of Funes though, thanks. That’s bound to do something interesting!
