I’ve been thinking about how to create interesting “homemade” stereo effects that create a good sense of change between left and right channels - by homemade I mean processing both channels in a different way to create separation without just slapping it through a stereo effect. Don’t get me wrong, I love stereo effects, and I think running sound through a good chorus is great and one of my favorite things to do, but I am curious about ways to create my own version of this, since that’s the fun of modular (for me, anyway!). Creating stereo interest is something I’ve been curious about for a while but after I read about the new Make Noise stereo oscillator I was intrigued and started wondering how I might be able to accomplish my own type of stereo effect with what I already have.
One example I came up with was to take a mono signal from an oscillator and crossfade+pan between the original sound and a version that was run through a filter with bitcrushing and sample rate reduction (Qu-Bit Prism). Using a 4 channel VCA I run the original signal and a copy of it through channels 1 and 2, and the bitcrushed version through channels 3 and 4. Then, using another 4 channel attenuator + offset + mixer I take the modulation source that will do the panning, input it into channel 1 of this module, apply an offset (it’s a Sloths signal so it’s positive and negative range, offset to keep it positive) so it moves between about 0 and 5 volts. I take this final signal, run it into channel 3, invert it and apply a positive offset so it falls into the same overall range as the other signal but goes up when the other goes down and vice versa. Now these two opposite signals are the CV inputs to the original 4 channel VCA, where the unchanged signal gets a regular and inverted version of the modulation, and the bitcrushed one gets the same but reversed. Then these 4 outputs go into 2 2-channel mixers so each channel L and R each get a version of the regular and bitcrushed signal. This essentially makes the two different sounds swap between the left and right channels opposite of each other and blending in the middle, according to whatever the modulation from Sloths gives it. Apply any modulation here to change how it sounds differently. As I’m writing this I just changed it to an audio rate output from Tides and waveshaping this modulation creates all kinds of madness! Here’s a recent picture of this patch: stereo patch
This is probably a lot of patching for something that could be done with a CV-controllable panning module but I’d love some feedback!
What’s your favorite way of creating stereo interest in modular? Any tips or tricks to share? I’d love to hear it!
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