Multiphonics CV-1 modular synthesizer Key answers from:

How can I create more complex LFO shapes?

Benoit / One way is to use two LFOs: the first one modulates the rate, pulse width and/or phase of the second one. Different modulation depths and ratios between the LFO rates will produce a wealth of complex shapes. It’s also possible to take advantage of the End trigger signals on the Multiphonics ADSR envelope to chain multiple envelope segments together and loop them.

How can I make longer sequences?

Benoit / Whether a step sequencer has 5, 8 or 16 steps, the pattern will quickly get repetitive if you drive it with a clock playing straight 16th notes. Instead of using ever bigger sequencers, a good strategy is to vary the length of each step. This can be achieved by replacing the sequencer‘s clock or step input with a source that can produce pulses at varying intervals.

In Multiphonics, a simple trick is to use two sequencers. Start with a Gate Sequencer triggered by a straight clock, and use its output to trigger a melodic Gate+CV Sequencer. When an 8-step melody is driven by a 5-step rhythmic pattern, it takes 40 steps before we hear the sequence loop.

Another approach is to play with clock divisions. Send a clock signal through two clock dividers, combine them with logic gates, and use this to drive the sequencer. This work particularly well with odd clock divisions. Experiment with different logic gates and try inverting either clock with a „not“gate.

My patches sound too clean, what can I do to spice them up?

Benoit / Multiphonics doesn‘t have modules yet for distortion or bitcrushing, so someone looking for edgier tones might find it too tame. This can also be a concern on a hardware modular synth that doesn‘t have dedicated modules for sound mangling. For distortion, the usual solution is to overdrive the input of a resonant lowpass filter. For something less predictable, you can use the filter output to modulate its own cutoff frequency—this can get very chaotic with filter sweeps. We like this effect so much that we built it into the state variable filter‘s growl parameter in Multiphonics.

For lo-fi sounds, a quantizer can be used on an audio signal for a bitcrusher effect. A low sampling rate can be simulated by placing a sample and hold module in the audio path and triggering it with a high-frequency oscillator. Logic gates can be particularly destructive: combining two audio signals using any two-input logic gate will produce insane lo-fi noises. Even a simple „not“gate will sound like an extreme distortion with hard clipping.

When will you add new modules?

Benoit / We chose to have fewer modules to begin with, but they often offer more modulation possibilities than their hardware counterparts so they can be used in different contexts and unexpected ways. For example, our ADSR can be chained, looped and run without a sustained gate signal, so it can be used much in the same way as a west-coast function generator.

As a manufacturer, it is challenging to strike the right balance between quantity and the general ease-of-use and cohesion of the modular environment. While we agree that new modules and features are always fun, it is often the case that simple patches are more interesting than big ones. Not only are they easier to understand and control, but they also encourage the musician to learn everything the modules have to offer, which can be very rewarding. In other words, less often means more in the modular world.