How to patch your own oscillator

The charming world of analog modular synthesis offers many choices regarding how to construct one's instrument from components. There are lots of oscillators, filters, VCAs, LFOs, signal processors and utility modules to choose among. In that setting, it can be very interesting to build something as elementary as an oscillator out of even more basic components. Here is an example of how it can be done with two modules, neither of which functions as an oscillator on its own.

The modules needed are a utility module that mixes, offsets and inverts signals, and a dual slew limiter (or two separate slew limiters). In particular, this example will work with Doepfer's Slew Limiter A-170 SL and wmd's Invert Offset mk II. However, there is nothing magic about these modules, so other modules that offer equivalent functionality may replace them.

Five patch cords are needed to connect the modules as illustrated. Then, with some tweaking of the knobs, slow oscillations should occur. It is possible to influence the frequency by the settings of all the knobs. By adjusting the two lower knobs of A-170, controlling the rise and fall times, the wave shape can also be varied from rising ramp through triangle to falling ramp. The amplitude may be low, and the frequency usually sub-audio, although low bass frequencies in the audio range can be obtained. The effects are best observed if the CV out of the Invert Offset is routed to the frequency input of another oscillator.

What is actually going on in this patch? To a first approximation, the slew limiter can be regarded as an integrator. In fact, it is probably more accurate to think of it as a leaky integrator. The Invert Offset consists of two identical blocks with two signal inputs and two outputs each. Let us introduce the labels x₊, x_-, y₊ and y_- for the output signals, and u_x, u_y, v_x and v_y for the inputs, as shown in the sketch above. The knobs, labeled c_x and c_y, add a constant offset to the signal. Inferring from the user's manual, the following set of equations should describe what the module does.

Expressing the action of the slew limiter as an integral, and following the patch cords that go into the inputs of the Invert Offset module, the system is given by:

After a number of substitutions, and taking derivatives to get rid of the integrals, the system simplifies to:

If the constants are both zero, the eigenvalues of this system are 1±i, indicating that the system is unstable. Clearly something in the model is wrong, since the actual patch does not blow up in any way. As hinted at earlier, the slew limiters do not actually integrate the signal. If they did, there would be infinite gain at dc so any constant signal fed into one of them would keep increasing linearly. What happens in reality is that, starting from a relaxed state and feeding a constant signal into a slew limiter, the output grows from zero until it reaches the level of the input. If one had two true integrators and an inverter, the equations for an harmonic oscillator

could be realized quite easily. 

The moral of this failed attempt at modeling two quite simple modules is that even seemingly simple modules may hide more complex behaviour than one would naively suspect. In any case, it may be surprising to find that five patch cords connecting these modules in the right way are all it takes to turn them into a low frequency oscillator. Although there are more than one way to patch up an oscillator from these two modules, there are many more ways to patch up systems that do not oscillate. Bistable systems with hysteresis is the result in most cases.