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Formation

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scanner-darkly edited this page Mar 23, 2024 · 2 revisions
formation panel

A mono to polyphonic voltage converter - take a single voltage and convert it into a swarm of eight voltages. This module is useful for controlling sets of 8 parameters where you want them to be similar yet slightly different, or where you want to be able to control all 8 at once. One patch example would be a patch with 8 voices sequenced by Orca's Heart v2 where you'd like each voice to be unique. You could use Formation to control 8 filter cutoffs, for instance, which would make for a richer sound and allow you to highlight certain voices in a very natural manner.

Lines module is a perfect companion for Formation, allowing you to see exactly how the voltages are spread:

lines module patch

To use:

  • Plug an LFO or some other voltage to the Input jack. You can control the input level with the GAIN attenuverter.

  • OFFSET knob controls the amount of voltage that gets added to the input. This can be useful if you just want a static voltage without having to plug anything to the input.

  • SPREAD controls the amount of spread - the knob value is in volts. The maximum value of 1.4V was selected so that at the max you will get 7 * 1.4 = 9.8V, almost a full 10V spread.

  • DIR switch selects how voltages are spread - up from the reference voltage, down or in both directions. SPREAD value can be bipolar - this way you can change the direction without changing the switch.

  • TILT tilts the distribution towards one end (or towards center/edges when DIR is set to "center").

  • RANDOM adds some randomization to each voltage. The knob controls the max amount (up to 1V). New random values are generated whenever a trigger is received on the TRIG jack (the last generated random values are stored until the next trigger is received). Randomization takes the current direction into account (and negative RANDOM values will reverse the direction for random).

SPREAD, TILT and RANDOM can be CV controlled using the corresponding jacks and attenuverters. You can get some interesting results by using an LFO with multiple outputs and using some of the outputs to control these parameters, so you could get increased randomization when the LFO voltage is higher, for instance.

OUT jack is a polyphonic output containing the 8 generated voltages. REV is the same, but the order of the voltages is reversed.

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