1U & 3U Eurorack Modules • Re: Stereo VCAs

Any dual (or quad) VCA with a stackable or a mult can be a stereo vca?

Almost — as someone pointed out on the last page, it requires you to match the levels and CV depths by hand, which is a different experience from using one knob to control both channels (as in a "real" stereo setup). This is what my last post was addressing; adding a single offset+atten to the CV path gives you the "true" stereo experience, in the sense that one knob controls both channels together, with a trivial amount of effort to set up.

Panning is more cumbersome though. My take would be that if you only want the ability to control both channels with one knob (or one each for CV and bias), this approach makes a stereo VCA fairly unnecessary if you already have a multi-VCA module, especially if it cascades, and an offset/atten. If you want panning as well, a pre-packaged stereo VCA becomes much more worthwhile from a UX point of view.

Even panning isn’t that hard if you have cascading CV inputs. I do it with the Intellijel Quad VCA.

I totally agree that it's not that hard. My point is just that if you want to implement all the stereo functions — linked level bias, linked level CV, and panning, you need either 2 channels of CV mixing (to combine the pan control with the level CV), or another pair of VCAs (to implement the panning either before or after the overall level control). With the intellijel quad VCA (and most similar modules), you also need something to invert the pan CV for the second channel, since the CV depth knobs on such VCAs are often unipolar. None of this is "hard," but IMO it is considerably more involved than the single extra patch cable needed to set up stereo level+CV control using an offset+attenuator on the CV controlling a pair of mono VCAs. If someone knows they're frequently going to want to use CV panning, especially in a small-to-medium-sized system, they might not want to spend all the utility modules involved building up the panner every time, and a prepackaged panner or stereo VCA starts to make a lot of sense.

Statistics: Posted by clwilla — Sat Apr 20, 2024 8:59 pm