Amos has already added a lot of functionality in a very short time: delay and hold for envelopes, aftertouch for filter, velocity for decay and release, gain amount for exterior input, and envelope looping. I’ve only had my Sub Phatty for a few days, and I’m still getting a feel for the basic sounds. But while I was out walking this morning, I had a couple thoughts about the suboscillator. First, it sounds smoother (to my ear) than the subosc on my DSI Tetra. Second, I wish I could modulate it in some way, either with an envelope or LFO.
At the rate Amos has been adding new features, we are going to run out of shifted knobs pretty soon. So far, only one of the mixer knobs has been assigned a shift function: that’s noise, which controls the gain for exterior input. (Thank you, Moog, for including this.) What to do then, with the OSC mixers? I can think of a few uses, and I imagine there could be a switch to select among them, the way you can switch filter poles now. My first idea was to assign aftertouch for swells. I think this would be especially good for the subosc! Or, if aftertouch is too esoteric for a monosynth, you could make the subosc follow the filter envelope. (I have no idea whether that would be useful.) What I’m guessing would be most popular, though, is to make each of the oscillator mixer knobs an LFO amount for amplitude. (This is one of the few things on the Little Phatty’s front panel that didn’t make it into the Sub Phatty.) Let’s use the suboscillator as an example again. You go into shift mode, and you turn the subosc mixer knob all the way down to 0. This means the LFO has no effect on the suboscillator (except indirectly, through pitch). Turn it up and the LFO will start to modulate the amplitude of the suboscillator. You get a rhythmic bass pulse. Turn it up all the way, and the LFO will pump your subwoofer cone into a beating frenzy, like when Pris dies in Blade Runner! I imagine that this would be especially effective with LFO synced to MIDI clock, because the subosc would be surging on the drumbeat. Another interesting effect would be to LFO the amplitude of OSC2 but not OSC1. Or to LFO all three but in different amounts.
Mind you, I don’t know whether routing the LFO to OSC volumes is even possible; and Amos has other products that need his attention. But even if it is possible, I think it would be useful to discuss first: what is the best use for these three knobs in shift mode?
cheers