search

JordanAceto / josh_Ox_ribbon_synth

ribbon synth for Josh Oxford
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
1 stars 0 forks source link

VCO audio mixer switches different order #19

Open JordanAceto opened 2 years ago

JordanAceto commented 2 years ago

On the main VCO board, there is a 5 input audio mixer.

Each input can be turned ON/OFF with a toggle switch, and several of the inputs have 3 position switches that go:

For example, the suboscillators have switches that go:

For performance reasons, Ox has requested that these switches instead go:

This way, you can quickly turn a signal OFF by jamming the switch downwards. This is easier to do quickly than setting it to the middle position.

JordanAceto commented 2 years ago

Note that the FM mixer uses 3 position toggles too. If we change the audio mixer order, we should probably do the FM mixer as well for consistency.

JordanAceto commented 1 year ago

Another sticky point regarding this: The original switch arrangement of MODE 1 - OFF - MODE 2 allows you to enter any setting from an "off" state.

With the proposed MODE 1 - MODE 2 - OFF arrangement, you need to go through MODE 2 from OFF to get to MODE 1. If this is an audio or modulation source there will be some discontinuity as the middle position is temporarily engaged on the way to the top position.

IMO the original arrangement has some merit. I personally prefer the middle-off setup. There should be another meeting with Ox to talk about it before deciding anything final.

JordanAceto commented 1 year ago

Yet another reason to prefer center off: The second suboctave generator gets its input from the last "on" state of the first one.

Meaning, if SUBOCT1 is in -0 or moved to OFF from -0 mode, then SUBOCT2 will get its input from the undivided SUBOCT1. This means that SUBOCT2 can be either the same base octave or one octave lower than the main oscillator.

But if SUBOCT1 is in -1 or moved to OFF from -1, then SUBOCT2 will get its input from the already divided SUBOCT1. This means that SUBOCT2 can be either one octave lower or two octaves lower than the main waveform.

If we put the OFF position downwards, then SUBOCT2 will always get the divided SUBOCT1 output when SUBOCT1 is turned off. We can't make SUBOCT2 the same base frequency of the main oscillator when SUBOCT1 is turned off. This seems like a pretty bad situation to me.

That's a lot of confusing talk to say "if we put the OFF position downwards, some useful actions are impossible to do".

JordanAceto commented 1 year ago

New twist: Ox has suggested small LEDs near each of the audio attenuators to show you which signals are on and off.

These would light up when a signal is on. For signals with two "ON" settings (RING MOD XX, RING MOD XY. etc) it could either be a two color red/green LED, or two individual LEDs.

This solves the problem of not being able to easily tell which signals are on while letting us keep the original switch order. Food for thought as we continue to hash out the ideal main VCO board layout.