Modular V 3.13.3. I’ve made a patch that sends three VCO triangle wave outputs under one VCO driver directly to a VCA without involving a VCF. I’m noticing that the effect of the Brightness and Timbre controls at the lower right of the window is pretty significant. But what I want to hear are bare triangle waves; what are these controls doing to my output? Do they have a “null” position?
Hi @NewNumbers ,
The 4 Macros control the parameters that are assigned to them in the right panel under the tab MACROS.
If your signal do not run through any of those parameters, then they have no impact on the sound. If they have an impact, then you have a signal running through.
How exactly have you routed the triangle waveforms to the VCA?
Do you have other OSC’s or Waveforms connected? If so how are they routed?
It would be easier to track down what’s going on, if you either posted your preset file or screenshots of your patch settings including which parameters the MACROS control.
Modular_Preset_Peace Three Sec 1 Pt 2B_20250908_21h35.modux (23.4 KB)
Patch file uploaded. OK, I see what you mean about the Macros tab. But when there’s no VCF included in the patch, why are the Brightness and Timbre controls having any effect?
The Timbre Macro is set to control the Width of Driver 1’s 3 OSC in your preset. That changes the shape of the Triangels.
That’s what change the sound.
The Brightness Macro in the preset.does’nt change anything.
I found this one vague sentence in the manual:
The impulse width affected to the “sawtooth”, “triangle” and “square” signals
of the 3 slave oscillators is modified with the “Width” knob.
It doesn’t say in what way sawtooth and triangle VCO outputs are affected and I can’t find anything in the manual at all about the Brightness and Timbre controls nor is there any mention of the Macros tab. I can see that moving the Timbre control is changing the Resonance control on Filter 1 and and the Pulse Width control on Driver 1, but what setting of that control is supposed to leave me with actual sawtooth and triangle waveforms coming out of those VCO outputs?
On the original vintage hardware Modular the Pulse Width parameter only affected the Square/ Pulse waveform.
On Arturias Modular V3 the Pulse Width parameter affect all waveforms except the Sine.
- The Square/ Pulse is affected so the Waveform can be a Square and down to a very narrow - nearly closed Pulse. The Square is when the Pulse Width is set to 0.50 - fully right position.
- The Triangle is affected so it goes from a Modular Triangle over a shark tooth like waveform to nearly a straight line. The Triangle is when Pulse Width is set to 0.50 - fully right position.
- The Saw is affected so it look like it does a sync sweep. It have the “normal” Saw when the Pulse Width parameter is set to 0.00 - fully left position, and it end as a Saw one octave above when the Pulse Width parameter is at 0.50 - fully right position.
This behaviors is something to look out for, when using different kind of Waveforms in a Driver section. It has pro’s and con’s. Personally i think the normal Saw should be at 0.50 so it matched the other waveforms.
I can suggest you use a oscilloscope in your DAW to see what happens for each waveform, when you use the Pulse Width parameter.
Also listen.
It’s true the manuals for Modular V3 is very old. At it does’nt cover newer things.
The Macros in all Arturias applications work the same. So i can suggest you read about using Macros in a newer applications manual.
Yes - but you are not using a filter in your preset. It will affect that resonance in Filter 1 if in use, as it’s applied to the Timbre Macro.
As said, then the Macros control the parameters that the designer apply to them.
You can remove parameters from a Macro by hoowering above a parameter - right click the mouse and select Delete in the popup
Hope this helps.