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Hi fellow knobs wigglers !

THANK YOU FOR YOUR COMMENTS !!
I actually wrote an answer yesterday, forgot to save somewhere else and didn’t have time to write it again after that. Oh well

@Lugia: My God, this is excellent, are you getting tired of me thanking you for the knowledge sharing ? Because I’m not tired of reading your rack rehauls, so many ideas !! I have many questions as well, sorry for the wall of text but I feel it makes things clear at least.
- Modulation section: Finally, it looks like something that makes sense as a whole. I was not considering those logic functions you included, for some reason those eluded me during my VCVRack training sessions, but I’ll definitely go try asap as it sounds like fun. I really like the group you made, with crossfader, mixer and VCA, I think I’d feel more at ease even with only the modules I own but grouped like that.
- Quad LFO: I have the O&C that I use exactly for that when I need slow LFO’s, the Quadraturia app offers an incredible range, from audio rate to several hours for a single cycle (lol) and also offers the tap tempo functionality (which I never use, maybe I should, here’s an exercise). Plus between Ochd and the Octasource, there’s already a lot of LFO fun to be had. Zadar can also do some crazy stuff.
- Quadrax and double ADSR: same remark as above (makes sense, EG and LFOs are similar in nature), there is the Piqued app which offers me 4 envelopes when needed. Not the same as above though, this is the app the O&C ends up on most of the time, and Stages is often used for that as well. I’m not sure I need yet another EG, but freeing the flexible O&C and Stages for other things on a permanents basis isn’t a bad thing. Quadrax (how useful is the expander ?) will therefore stay if there is room, or the ADSR, maybe both. I prefer the added crazy functionality on the Quadrax of course…
- Fractio Solum: I like the idea of having a separate clock divider, or rather I should say I hate “wasting” PNW’s outputs for clock division duties; I’m thinking I could, instead of investing in a 3U modules, get one of those Shakmat Time Apprentice to replace the 1U passive mult on the second 1U row. Big bonus is that I get to build that one myself from a kit, that’s always fun (and cheap).
- Varigate 8+: I’ve been hesitating a lot with including another gate sequencer in my rack. In fact, I still have my Robaux SWT16+ for sale right now, an excellent 16 tracks (!) gate sequencer with a bunch of cool features. I just felt like I was hardly ever using it, it was meant to be used with percussions modules most of which I sold after getting the MPC but now I usually generate simple patterns with PNW or use one of the Hermod tracks to trigger the HH and Bitbox. The way I use Bitbox is mainly to record loops out of other voices, and trigger them by hand, I’ve considered getting rid of it too, the MPC can do all that very well, and turning it on next to the rack isn’t a big effort. Am I crazy, should I keep the SWT16+ or buy a Varigate ? Really can’t decide here…
- Mutes: nice gotcha on the cv control over AUX sends, I always forget that. Not sure how useful that would be for me though, I don’t see myself modulating that so much, I usually set and forget values. Mutes is a nice to have, but since I’m hardly ever using both inputs on the Mixer, I often can use the A/B switch as a mute, by not using the second input. I’d probably skip this, especially if it means I get space for something like Tetrapad.
- Panning Mixer: whaaaaat ? I had no idea something like that existed. Can you use something like that with different VCO outputs ? Imagine that… If I can get my hands on one, I’ll bite, the issue will most likely finding one at a decent price but I definitely want to try it !

This is where I’m starting to get lost:

• Percussions and Bionic Lester n°2: Hahaha, excellent, hadn’t realized there was a second Lester hiding behind the PH (at least that’s how I see it). I don’t actually have 2, unfortunately, that’s just a bug I have sometimes. And I like the thing, but 2 of them, one on percussions? Sure, I’ll try my BIA into the one I have, that experiment is due anyway, but the Lester is in my view, somewhat of a specialist filter, I’m not sure I’d know what to do with it on a percussions section. Using it on the output of the Bitbox makes sense to me though, but again, do I prefer that over using the MPC and its very decent filters ? I guess not, if I’m honest. The more I think about this, the Bitbox is extraneous, I’d just keep the BIA (is it drums, is it a synth ? who knows, who cares, it’s bloody awesome), and the HH just because I built that myself, but I don’t think a Eurorack rhythm section is for me…
• Voices: I’m very lost here lol. You grouped the 2 main VCOs, do you see them more as a single voice ? You removed the Dual filter from Erica, you didn’t like the idea (as I said above, I’d like another stereo VCF if I consider having 1 C-sL and PH as separate voices, plus I think the many simultaneous outputs are a really interesting feature that could go well with my setup) ? Is the Lester at the end of the 1st row meant for the LIP or for the big synth voice ?
• What about Tetrapad ? That’s probably my most desired module right now, mainly to greatly improve the way I can play my patches, to play the thing more like an instrument. I’m willing to make sacrifices to include it in the rack.
• I like experimenting with feedback, so what about that Matrix Mixer ? I feel like that and an Instruo tanh[3] could be very useful for that kind of noise, and could perhaps make my desire for a ResEq much less pressing.

@GarfieldModular: I had never considered that side of things, I only have Intellijel VCA’s for now and found them absolutely clean, I should probably carefully experiment and compare when I get a chance. Also never considered feeding both exponential and linear CV into a single VCA, but now that I think of it, it has a few interesting implications. But I can’t bring myself to dedicate 20HP to 2 VCA’s.
Re QPAS, I actually had it for a while, but just didn’t gel with it. I liked having the simultaneous outputs there, and the interface is great, but the sonic character of it wasn’t for me. I tried to make it work and even had fun with it (of course), but didn’t see myself keeping it in the long run. The Erica one sounds great with audio rate modulation, from what I hear in demos, what is your experience with that ? How controllable is resonance, when you bring it at the edge of self-oscillation ?

Take care !
Diego