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Comments
And here’s the triangle LFO??
I have to be doing something wrong…
Are you getting these by connecting the LFO out to the VCA? I saw that months ago but shrugged it off as maybe some sort of way to prevent DC offsets in the output, but maybe there's more to it
Yes. LFO straight to via in, echo decay all the way off. Maybe I'm using auSCOPE wrong or something.
The sin wave looks as expected, but that's the only one.
humm ... LFO outputs from miRack into auSCOPEx look as they should.
... and the effect on the vco pitch from Solderbox's LFOs sounds like the shapes I'm seeing.
'tis a mystery. 🤔
Showing the patchbay and the settings on auSCOPE maybe this will help
Those are some wild scope pics haha. I don’t own Solderbox so I’m not sure of it’s specific routing. And by routing lfo to the vco cv input, I’m assuming that input acts as a v/OCT input to change pitch. So in theory the pic you posted should work fine. Have you tried a separate lfo source like others mentioned to see if it’s the in-app lfos that are buggy? Shot in the dark, do you have to tweak the knob a tad to get it working kinda like the filters in Model 15?
I think we're getting a few things mixed up here because of the range of topics covered.
The oddity is with the shape of the LFOs. If you patch an LFO into the pitch of the oscillator, the effect isn't what I would expect. So, I started investigating the shape of the LFO itself by sending the LFO directly out to the vca and looked at it with an oscilloscope output. The shapes do not look like they should. Doing the same with other apps such as miRack and Ripplemaker shows the expected LFO shape.
Thanks @offbrands for the screen shots. Those confirm that when I was looking at the oscillator output, I was doing things right. Looking at the vco output on the scope in that case would show the oscillator shape. The shape would remain the same as the pitch changed, but the frequency would change. It's harder to see the time effect that way, but does work.
Based on what I'm seeing by outputting other apps LFOs to the scope in the same way, and based on the pitch not fluctuating as expected when patching the lfo into the vca pitch, I have to conclude that there's something not expected in Solderbox's LFOs.
I hate to bother @brambos, but it would be nice to understand if possible.
The manual is really informative - Solderbox - Manual
A few good notes to remember about this app from the pdf
I throughly love this app, it’s got character with this instability engine, the delay goes so hard, and it’s just ready to be musical quickly.
Glad I could help confirm. 🤘🏽🙏🏽
That Instability Engine sounds rad! Added to the watchlist thx
Yes, all Bram's manuals are excellent. The only one I find lacking in a few areas is the Rozeta Suite.
@wim @Squishy @offbrands thanks again for taking a look. I originally thought that this was a bipolar vs unipolar thing because the looping EG, which I believe is unipolar, works as expect it to, and using the LFO to modulate the VCA or filter cutoff works fine too. I think we really do need @brambos to clarify
Those waveforms look like the derivatives of the nominal waves. Square becomes pulse, triangle becomes square. Sine becomes cosine (same shape, different phase), so you cannot tell. This could happen if there was some AC coupling (or HP filter) in the circuit. From the descriptions of the effect of the LFO on pitch, it sounds like that is happening inside the app, not some funny AC coupling in the scope app, etc.
Right on the money there.
The VCA output is not a 1:1 "clean" output. Among a number of other things, it has a soft saturator which wave-shapes anything approaching or exceeding maximum amplitude (which LFOs often do).
Additionally, there's a big capacitor on the output, which does two main things: removes DC offsets (so everything looks perfectly centered on 0, even if in the internal signal path it may not be) and it works as a high-pass filter, which only cuts out inaudible (but high-energy) low rumble. Those are typically the frequencies that LFOs fall into. So it's very hard to see the real shape of an LFO on the scope if you send it out of the VCA.
The reason sines look like sines is that they're single-frequency waves. There's not much to take away from a sine other than amplitude
Thanks for the thorough explanation, it makes total sense in regards to trying to analyze the LFO behavior this way. Can you comment on its effect on the VCO frequency that I mentioned here?
Yes, thanks for the explanation @brambos. But I'm confused as to why the effect on the vco frequency sounds (to me) effectively like the way the lfo looks on the scope, and nothing like, say, a square wave modulation would sound.
Yes, that mystery is easily solved: CV input for pitch-voltage should always be positive, so whenever negative values are received they are simply inverted by stripping the sign.
That's why the square LFO responds like an extreme pulse when fed into the pitch, and why the up/down sound like triangles. They all flip down the middle.
If you feed the LFO into the filter you'll hear they actually behave like they should.
Speaking of pitch CV: our CV-->Pitch algorithm should be compatible with VCV Rack's and a bunch of other software modulars'.
I haven't tried with miRack, but I'm 90% positive it will conform to the same 1V/O CV convention too so if that works you could use miRack as a sequencer (not sure about Drambo).
By the way, there is a hack to make LFOs unipolar, using the Utility section.
When you don't patch anything into in 1 it will simply output a constant voltage.
Now patch your LFO into in 2 and use att 1 to shift the mixed signal up or down.
Wow! Awesome.
Thank you so much for taking the time to explain all that in detail @brambos.
Whoa, that cv out to other software is pretty damn cool…
@brambos thanks again! So it was indeed a polarity thing, I feel validated
Disregard. Misunderstood the original post 😎
Thanks for the explanation @brambos , particularly about the utility section. When I tried something similar it didn’t work because I’d forgotten the constant voltage only works with input /output 1 - I should really re-read the manual as it’s clearly explained there. 😳
RTFM 🤘🏽🙏🏽🤷🏻♂️
In fairness, it’s a really exotic power user feature (one that I use a lot on my 0-Coast though).
Totally. It was meant in total jest.
I just like reminding people to RTFM 😎
I use this app a ton and I’ve learned no less than 7 new things this week from this thread, and I’ve read the manual a few times.
PS - Entropy on the manual is numbered ‘12’ but I believe it’s supposed to be 11.