Strange Patching: Phasing Simulation with QPAS

Published on Apr 17, 2019 MAKEN0ISE

MAKEN0ISE Strange Patching

"In the section of his book that covers Phasing, Allen Strange uses a series of band pass filters to illustrate the concept. As he writes,

“A spectrally rich signal is taken, in parallel, to three or more band pass filters. The filter outputs, the three pass bands, are mixed at unity gain with the original unprocessed spectrum. Each filter must be offset to a different center frequency.. the filter should not be allowed to go into oscillation.

“A slow repetitive control voltage such as a sinewave from an LFO will then cause each filter to sweep through the applied signal, selectively passing different portions of the spectrum…. By mixing the pass-bands with the original spectrum, there will then be varying degrees of phase-cancellation in the signal, producing continually varying multiple notch cancellations or nulls. The effect will be more pronounced if the control voltage for each filter is attenuated a bit differently so that the nulls are not exactly in parallel.”

Allen Strange wrote the book on modular synthesizers in the 1970s. Electronic Music: Systems, Techniques, and Controls. Unfortunately since the expanded 1982 edition, it has never been reprinted, and in today’s landscape where more people have access to modular synths than ever before, very few have access to the knowledge contained within. This video series will explore patches both basic and advanced from Strange’s text. Even the simplest patches here yield kernels of knowledge that can be expanded upon in infinite ways. I have been heavily influenced by Strange since long before I became a modular synth educator. Please share this knowledge far and wide."