Moving forward by documenting Voltage Modular

Post any handy Voltage tips or tricks you've come across here.
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tladb
Posts: 4
Joined: Tue Jun 04, 2019 11:47 pm

Moving forward by documenting Voltage Modular

Post by tladb »

In going beyond initial tutorials for synths I found it useful to have a systematic way to explore the presets. Exploration and experimentation is a fun way to learn the capabilities of Voltage Modular but the results should be documented to record the new knowledge and reinforce the experience.

In Voltage Modular when confronted by a rack with a mass of cables and modules. With many of the modules may be unknown or used in new combinations.

The quick version:

1. Colour code the cables. It help to highlight the difference between audio and CV

2. Use Voltage Modular labels to differentiate modules and specific connections.

3. Use the Voltage Modular blank panel or notepads from the VM shop to make notes on important parts of the rack.

4. Make notes on each the output and inputs from the various modules. Following the flow and making notes gives increased familiarity with how the rack works.

It may seem a lot of work for each rack and at the start it can be. Just work a few racks of the type you are interested in. As you develop more understanding there may be less need for notes.

Here are some links to provide more detail:

Documenting Voltage Modular
https://tladb.com/post/185192162836/doc ... ular-racks

Examples

Baby Lead Notes
https://tladb.com/post/185236877986/vol ... lead-notes


Venus Theory Generative - a derivative
https://tladb.com/post/185329734576/vol ... from-venus
(Original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dfb0i8zXIEc )

Notes on the Patchbook Specification I use to document racks
https://tladb.com/post/185212794996/spe ... opatchbook
sdv
Posts: 70
Joined: Fri Mar 27, 2020 7:21 pm

Re: Moving forward by documenting Voltage Modular

Post by sdv »

I like your article about documenting patches. For me, the most important thing would be to have a standardized patch coloring scheme. I like the one you created (while I'm not a fan of Black cables I would use it if it were the standard):
Audio RED
Pitch ORANGE
Gate GREEN
Trigger YELLOW
Clock BLACK
CV BLUE

Having a standard color scheme would help ppl to (1) immediately grok other patches and (2) make their own patch creation sessions more deliberate (via subconscious associations). As for the punctuation documentation scheme, that's very interesting and is reminiscent of UML, XML and other coding meta-structures which are great for software among teams but probably overkill for synth nerds.

Anyways, we should come up with at least a color standard and place it as a 'Sticky' at the tip-top of the Patches forum page.
JayBee6244
Posts: 29
Joined: Sat Apr 18, 2020 9:18 am

Re: Moving forward by documenting Voltage Modular

Post by JayBee6244 »

Completely agree with this. Omri Cohen (VCV expert) uses a colour-coding system which makes it much easier to understand signal flow and sample patches. It would be great if we could set this in VM rather than have to set each cable colour individually - even if it were not enforced, it wouldn't be too tricky (?) to set colours based on the in/out connection type.

color code.png
color code.png (46.84 KiB) Viewed 3433 times
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