Welcome. This is a simple blog/notebook/website about patch ideas and compositional techniques for modular synthesizers. Occasionally I’ll post images and sounds related to those ideas. Most (if not all) of the things posted here are culled from various internet blogs and forums, old synth manuals, venerated music and synthesis tomes, and/or any other scraps of paper, html, or pdf I can find. I’ve been keeping notebooks and little *.txt files of ideas and notes for years. This site is an attempt to elucidate some of those ideas into something that others will find interesting. Also, it’s an excuse to write for fun, which I don’t do enough of.
The “manual” in the title is a reference to the linux “man” command to show the manual for a program at the command line. In terms of this site, think manual in the loosest possible sense of the word. This site collects patch ideas, strategies, inspiration - anything that can be applied to produce interesting sounds and structures on a modular synthesizer.
I absolutely don’t claim expertise in the realm of modular synthesis. I consider myself a committed amateur first and foremost. These notes and ideas are recorded for my own edification, as much as for yours. I hope you find them useful.
