I generally use my modular for sound design, multi-tracking the voices and then later I edit the good bits down to usable pieces. Often I will further load them into samplers, or process them with offline DSP in Metasynth or CSound or similar tools. I rarely successfully compose, or perform an entire song on the modular. That said I do rely on a programmer module, as well as some joysticks that I use to be able to have a baseline starting point, with the ability to radically depart from there but am able to work my way back into that zone. I also have a vector mixer with it’s own joystick that I use to dynamically fade between dueling voices.

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i have explored the following concept in various sessions (both studio and live stuff):

-start from a simple sequence that you can create\modify live (i use René mk1 for that)
-use an analog shift register to generate 3 additional, related voices.
-use a combination of flip flop and sample & hold units to derive sparser melodic lines from the original one
-send those to different voices
-mix live at will

how i use the flip flop\s&h combo:
lets say original melody goes to voice 1 (that means cv to oscillators, gate triggering envelopes)
then i have the second out of the analog shift register: cv goes to sample and hold, the original gate goes into a flip flop, out of the flip flop both clocks above mentioned sample and hold AND triggers envelopes for voice 2.
voice 3 uses the out 3 of analog shift register, sends it into another s&h, the second voice’s derived gate (output of the first flip flop) goes into another flip flop that both clocks the second s&h and fires envelopes for voice 3…
and so on and so on…
all flip flops are T (toggle) type.
if this isn’t clear i’ll explain it better.

p.s.: to avoid unpleasant intervals between voices i usually use simple scales like pentatonics or custom scales with few notes enabled. (in my case i use the ornament & crime Copier Maschine as quantized analog shift register)

p.p.s.: if you have Frap Tools Falistri you can use the 2 outputs of its cascaded frequency divider\flip flop (in unipolar mode) to derive gates for channels 2 & 3 from the original gate sequence.

p.p.p.s.: if you don’t have T type flip flops you can do something a bit more crude using clock dividers instead of flip\flops

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By “flip/flop” do you mean a switch?

What modules do you like for this functionality?

Thanks.

well, a T (toggle) type flip flop is not exactly a switch, it works like this:
starting from an initial condition in which it is resting (0 volts) when it receives a gate it goes hi on the rising edge of the incoming gate, ignores the falling edge of said gate and stays high. when it receives a second gate it goes low on the rising edge of this gate, ignores the falling edge and stays low until a new gate arrives, and so on and so on.

there aren’t many many options for flip flops in euroland. i use Falistri’s dedicated flipflop\frequency divider because its exactly what i need for this (two outs, cascaded).
intellijel plog has a couple of flip flop functions. maths can do it. i’m pretty sure there are others but cant recall which ones.

the sample and hold i use is doepfer a-148 dual s&h\t&h

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That makes sense, thanks! I hadn’t heard the term before.

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Old Intellijel FlipFlop is super and worth tracking down if you don’t have too shallow of a case.

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The Acid Rain Switchblade does this with three channels, and I think the Klavis Mixswitch does as well (haven’t used the Klavis).

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