I realise one can never have enough of these things and appreciate that you've striven for a one-page design that must have its compromises.
But I'd really like at least a second LFO. They are just too useful to have only one and be constrained to a single rate/shape.
Is it possible you'd add another?
m/
If I can do it without changing the panel, I might. I've thought about adding an A/B kinda thing where one panel could control two objects in an expert mode. Thanks for the feedback.
@Sandbags you probably realize this but if you send VOX to the LFO rate, each voice will have a different LFO rate, and all the rates will be mathematically related to each other. I know that's not the same as having two LFOs.
I never get tired of how VOX can make every single module into 2 or 4 or 8 different versions of itself. And the emergent interactions between the modulations in each voice can be very different from each other.
Just coming back to this and considering Aalto now … watching some demos and the same thing pops to mind. In an instrument this versatile being able to have only one LFO feels somehow "limiting". I realise this sounds entirely crazy given how versatile the whole thing is but that's how my mind works.
I guess I am used to Reaktor where I can plaster LFO's all over the place and while that's not necessarily a good thing either I think a happy medium where you have 2 or 3 is kind of a minimum working set for me (much like envelopes). In particular the ability to contrast slow variance and fast variance in the same sound.
Also is it possible to have an "inverse" output for the LFO? Again the ability to have co-varying signals could be interesting.
@christianhuygen I don't follow what you've written although it sounds interesting. If I come back to Kaivo I will check it out. Thanks.
m@
Have you tried Bitwig as a host? Its modulators make it easy to effectively have an LFO for every parameter you can modulate. I've tested it with Aalto and they work well together. Most any host could be used to set up a bunch of LFOs, but having a good interface as Bitwig does helps a lot.
Anything you can send an LFO to in Aalto you do via the attenuverters—and these give you the ability to invert the LFO and modulate the destination up or down.
The vox technique Christian wrote about also works in Aalto.
Thanks for the response.
I'm already invested in Ableton Live and not likely to switch.
I guess I could route external LFO's (e.g. the Max LFO) but that rather spoils the fun of playing in the patcher and, of course, can't be saved into an Aalto patch.
But, fair enough, I'm hearing that dual-LFO it's not part of the roadmap.
Thanks.
m@
p.s. "attenuverter" is a new one on me. I tried searching the Aalto manual and came up empty.
You may or may not have noticed: ENV2 in Aalto has a repeat dial that makes it into another LFO.
Oh sorry re: attenuverter! They're the little dials on patcher outputs. Attenuator + inverter. I could have sworn this was in the manual. Some people started calling hardware modular knobs this originally.
Ah, no I had not appreciated the repeat dial function. I'll have a look at the manual on that. Thank you. As an aside do you know if any presets do this? I've sampled a reasonable number and haven't come across any yet. (I am enjoying a lot of the machines though, this is the kind of stuff I built in Reaktor and looking forward to playing with this approach in Aalto).
Re: the manual a small omission and your manuals are really excellent. Where I feel most people often do them as an afterthought yours appear a labour of love and kudos to you for that.
Thanks.
Matt
The sequencer can make a good LFO too.
Sometimes I also think about features I’d like but honestly what I enjoy most of Aalto is that is “limiting”. So simple and yet so deep.
And it sounds beautiful.
Thanks for the kind words.
I can't think of any presets offhand that use the repeat dial. The value on it is the frequency in Hz. Turn it up to 1.0 and you should see the output light start blinking. You can set the attack and release to values near 0.5 to get a nice ramp up/down. And the envelope diagram will show you what's going on with the sideways bracket at the bottom showing the repeat duration.
Could have sworn I'd replied to this but, apparently, only imagined doing so.
Thanks for the tips Randy, I will be giving them a try as I'm on the cusp of buying Aalto. Which is odd because it was Kaivo that originally drew me in…
m@
On the subject of LFO's, looking at Kaivo again I noticed it has the 2D LFO where Aalto only has a regular LFO.
Any plans to introduce the 2D LFO to Aalto?
For that matter, I could see uses for the noise generator in Aalto as well.
I know, I know, moon on a stick… I just love… possibilities :)
m@
Someday I want to make a modular environment...