Talk:Modular synthesizer

Digital?
The word "digital" only appears once in this entire article. Sounds like an unfinished thought. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Justanothervisitor (talk • contribs) 19:00, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

In reply, modular analog modules with "digital" components are often referred to as "hybrid" systems. There are a few analog modules that have digital parts, for example Doepfer has a few, but these are mostly 'compound' modules that contain many functions, such as the step-sequencer, where 'digital logic control' is easier to implement than doing the same in much more complex TTL.

Kaustin6969 2013 - VII – 25 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kaustin6969 (talk • contribs) 14:52, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

"Function of modules"
A user asked me about this on my user-talk page, but the question is of more general interest, so here's a summary of my thinking.

The "function of modules" section was poorly written and formatted, but more importantly (and the reason I couldn't just edit it to fix the writing issues), the main point made in that section was basically wrong, and at best, is original research. The sharp audio/control distinction isn't valid in many modular formats (e.g. Eurorack, by far the most popular format), where the boundary between audio and control signals is deliberately blurred and audio-rate signals are routinely used for modulation. Some other formats do separate audio and control, even to the point of using separate types of connectors. Adding in "logic" as a separate category from "audio" and "control" is nonstandard; I don't know of any modular format that officially does that, and it's not how reliable sources usually describe modular patching. At the very least, the point of "logic" being a separate class of signals would need to be cited, but even with a citation it would be questionable for an encyclopedia article because it's not a standard way of presenting the subject material. "Logic" signals are more usually thought of as a type of control signal. (And if we're going to start adding classes of signals, why not "MIDI" as a separate class? That's be equally justifiable and equally OR.)  A detailed discussion of those issues, accurately presenting standard and nonstandard views with appropriate weight on each, would be far too much detail for this general article - and all the worse because the article is already a mess of specialist details mixed up with vague generalities anyway. I'm trying to reduce the confusion.

As for the block diagram, it was, similarly, far too confusing to be useful because it shows blocks connecting to each other but they aren't identified as specific blocks that do anything in particular. It only illustrates the concept that "synthesizers have blocks in them," nothing more; we could get much better value by including a block diagram that actually is of something specific, like a typical subtractive patch. The block diagram (and description) in this blog entry is the sort of thing that would fit better into the article:  That's a commercial site, and we can't just grab text or graphics from it to put in Wikipedia, but it'd be easy to write a similar description and draw a diagram that actually is of something, and that would be more useful than just illustrating "this is what block diagrams look like." 2607:FEA8:12A0:6FC:0:0:0:2 (talk) 06:19, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

Types of Modules
The article has conflicting material stuck in willy nilly. For example, we were told that modules are sources or processors. A couple of sentences later, they are signal, control and logic/timing. Then a couple of sentences were are back them being sources or processors. Then we are told they are basic or compoumd. All over the place: poor reader.

So I have rearranged the first paragraph, and also pulled out the "source/processor" material into its own section "Typical modules". The term "compound" is not a term of art in synthesizers, but an unnecessary category introduced inappropriately, so I am rephrasing the second para of the types of modules so that it is not presented as some kind of important key concept.

Rick Jelliffe (talk) 07:19, 24 March 2019 (UTC)