Design lessons from guitar pedals

Re:Design lessons from guitar pedals by swatcoder on Friday July 01, 2022 @03:22PM (#31951427)

I don’t know what exactly the OP means by depth of information, but modular synthesis is a lot richer than what you describe.

You may be pulling in signals from bananas (literally), driving them through a dozen modules with three times as many patch cables and using them to drive a video signal and a few stepper motors alongside your audio out.

And you’re doing it with a lot of bespoke little modules made in small batches, sometimes with faults, and almost always capable of things that were neither envisioned or documented by their original designer.

It’s a whole different world than guitar pedals or even a single big commercial synth (which is what your description sounds like).

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Re:Design lessons from guitar pedals by LegitShady on Sunday July 03, 2022 @04:10PM (#31970609)

I know what modular synths are, I just don't consider them to be good design, or to offer 'depth' of information when you have to trace wires from module to module to figure out what things are doing. The mod matrix on a microfreak or polybrute are great design that summarize many ideas in a small space. Modular is the opposite of good design - its a totally custom system that you have to have built to understand what the heck is going on.

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