The Subharmonicon features two VCOs, each of which provides two clock-divided sub-oscillators. All this is mixed into one signal that goes through one EG, VCF, and VCA. While you can achieve fantastic results with that alone, I was tempted to split the two VCOs into their own signal chains so that you can pan them in stereo. Turns out it’s quite easy to do!
All you need are two separate EGs. I’m using Mutable Instruments Streams since it’s not just a pair of EGs, it’s also (or rather, mainly!) a pair of analog VCFAs. I’m using one channel as Left Pan and the other as Right Pan.
Now, having Streams is handy as it integrates an EG, a filter, and a VCA, in an elegant small package. But you need some mixers to blend the three voices per oscillator into one signal that you feed to a Streams channel. So, for each oscillator, I used the built-in mixer on a M32 to mix the subs with each other, and then two VCAs in Mutable Instruments Veils to mix the main OSC with the mixed subs. Since I have two Mothers, and Veils have 4 VCAs, it’s enough to end up with two separate channels per SubH oscillator.
I hope you can hear this in the video, this opens up the instrument in an interesting way: you get two paraphonic synths in one. Sure, each channel is still using one EG but now each sequencer only triggers the revelant oscillator. That lets notes resonate and generates an organic stereophonic ensemble.
