I am trying to understand something basic and failing.
Consider a very simple patch, a VCO’s output patched to the audio interface.
Say I am performing live and I want to add delay to this amazing patch. I have to unplug the VCO and plug it into the delay, then plug the delay into the audio module. So while I am doing that there is no sound.
I thought the solution to this was to create a patch bay with some “bay norm” modules from Venom. Something like this:
But the problem is, I can’t seem to figure out how to get the signal to go through the Bay Norm module. I can set the “source” of both Bay Norm and Bay Output to “Bay Input 1”, but it seems like I need to set the source of Bay Output to “Bay Norm” and that option is not available.
What am I missing here? Or maybe I’m totally going about this the wrong way and using the wrong modules. If that is the case, what’s a working way to do what I am trying to accomplish (namely to patch things into a chain without momentarily stopping the signal going through the chain)?
Thanks. Now that I am looking at this, it seems I could also use Vult’s Send module. After thinking about it even more, it seems I have done that before…
Send seems better than Bypass for my use case as I don’t need to have anything plugged into the “B” jack. So I can just put in a Send between any two modules where I may want to add something later, without putting in one and then not using it initially. I can also fade in the delay (or whatever) to avoid sudden changes.
The Normal panels do not work quite the way you imagine.
Bay input goes to output of the norm panel, however I can “break” that normal path and insert a new signal that goes to the output right next to it, seems silly at first, but it allows you to lift you insert and return to the normal path. It is not a send/return mixer.
So with your setup above it goes to the audio out and the delay at the same time, no mixing of signals at all, and the normal signal when inserted breaks the vco path, so no signal makes it to the input of delay or the audio out.
the normal concept is cool, but comes from the prepatched synths of yore, that had a few patch points to insert new signals and break the normal connection internally, not mixing but switching essentially, it may be easier to visualize with the Hetrick CV Normals with the line drawn to indicate signal flow
definitely use a mixer like Send or Bypass to get this the way you had imagined
Yeah for adding effects like delay and reverb I would highly recommend using them as sends as dub mixers tend to do.
That doesn’t require any pre-planning, you could do that on the fly with a couple VCAs and your effect at 100% wet. But if you know you want to do stuff like this, you could of course set up a dub mixing desk beforehand.
Highly recommend MixMaster + AuxSpander for this purpose btw. Gives you 4 Aux sends with independent send control for each channel and group on the mixer, and return levels from each Aux. Very useful!
