Tutorial : Patching

What is Patching?

Patch, patching, in the music world, was originally used in the age of the first big modular synthesizers, where you could create patches, linking Oscillators to ADSR envelopes, Filter (LP, HP, BC and NOTCH) modules, and so on. Of course this technique is still available on many modern modular synthesizers.

So by modular we mean hardware or software groups that can be subdivided into other smaller groups called patches. Furthermore, these groups can also be built with sub-patches, with these ones being built from modules (the smallest basic elements in Usine). This is also the way you’ll work in Usine.

In the same way, you can find parallelism between the world of electronics and Usine. Here’s an example with a LFO (Low Frequency Oscillator), which creates a sinusoidal wave you can visualize with an panel-oscilloscope-data module in Usine. You can also add an electronic switch, here connected to a Pass Flow module, to pass or block the signal from the LFO to the panel-oscilloscope-data.

What is a Patch in Usine?

A Patch is like a building kit where you can add and combine modules (the smallest part within the Usine hierarchy) and connect them together with virtual wires.

The structure of a patch can contain non-visible processing, math, or functions as well as interface-design objects such as knobs, faders, buttons, etc.

A Patch consists of two things:

  1. The underlying patch structure which is visible in the patch-editor.
  2. The visible design objects in the control-panel.

A simple reverb patch structure

control-panel of the reverb patch

A patch has its own preset-panel to memorize its state.

Video : Patching made simple

Before beginning these lessons, you should have read and assimilated the Usine user’s Manual and practicing the examples included can be a good idea too.

See also

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