VCV Merge

Plugins & Modules
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I am merging 4 different V/OCT signals into one polyphonic signal with VCV Merge. It seems that - in the polyphonic signal - VCV Merge adds an information to each of the four V/OCT signals related to its Left/Right position. So in fact, although I have only one (polyphonic) cable (not two!!), not only do I have the information on four different pitches, but also each note has its own pan (L/R) position so that you can clearly differentiate the positions of the four signals over the headphone. This is totally unexpected but at the same time an extremely welcome effect in a patch that I am currently finalizing.

Can anybody confirm this and possibly point me to further information / documentation of this effect? I don’t really understand how one cable can contain L/R information, unless you consider 4 different polyphonic signals to be two pairs of stereo (L/R) signals.

Maybe that is the answer to my question: that depending on which mixing/audio module you use, a single 4x polyphonic signal is automatically interpreted as a 2x polyphonic stereo signal??

Any clarification highly appreciated. Thanks!

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I think that’s the key - I’m fairly sure poly cables are mono, as in monophonic not stereo. If I patch a poly source straight into a Mixmaster channel, it seems to pan all the voices centrally. I usually use a seperate spread module to pan the voices out, maybe whatever you’re using has that built in.

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Mixmaster has the spread build in

afbeelding
afbeelding555×505 107 KB
Choose Sum to stereo(L only)

And you can then use the pan to collapse/spread the stereo field

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4

corrected version

Thanks @Yeager, you hit the nail on the head.

Nevertheless, somewhere there is an issue, and I was not able to reliably reproduce it.

  • Sometimes, if you connect a single polyphonic cable (with 4 different notes/pitches) to the L input of MixMaster (e.g. Track 01), you hear only the 1st and the 3rd note (mono), but not the 2nd and the 4th note. I observed that behavior now at least two times.

  • But, after initializing the module and (re-)setting the Poly input behavior to “Sum to Stereo (L only)”, I hear all four notes via a single cable - note 1 and 3 left, note 2 and 4 on the right (correct behavior).

  • If you connect the same polyphonic signal with a 2nd cable also to the R input of Track 01, you hear all four notes in mono - perhaps not what you want. That’s why the setting says ‘L only’.

  • You can also connect the single 4-voice polyphonic signal to the Grp/Aux input and hear the stereo effect, but you don’t have the Track Settings (like Stereo Width, see below). Interesting, the first and 2nd note appear under GRP 1 (first note L, 2nd as R), and the 3rd and the 4th note under GRP 2 (again, 3rd note under L and 4th under R).

  • Also, I observed that using low values for Stereo Width (also in Track Settings), like 5%, gives already a very distinct L/R differentiation.

This will certainly help me better understand where in the L/R spectrum each voice of the polyphonic signal appears.

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