How the modular side works

A module is Drambo’s basic building block. It either makes a signal — an oscillator, an envelope, a sampler — or changes one, like a filter or a delay. The library has well over a hundred, in groups: generators, processors, modulators, mixers, MIDI tools, utilities and maths. Oscillators and noise starts the full list.

Modules live in racks, in a row. Some modules have a rack inside them: a Track holds your instrument, an Instrument rack holds a synth you’ve built, a Delay rack holds whatever should happen inside its feedback loop. Nesting like this is what keeps a large patch readable — and what lets you save part of one as a preset.

Every socket carries one kind of signal, shown by its symbol. In Drambo all signals are equal: you can feed a modulation signal into an audio input or audio into a modulation input. The one exception is MIDI, which only connects to MIDI.

The module reference also lists Wave sockets on the wavetable modules and Variable sockets on the Code and Rack modules, whose type you choose.

Signals in Drambo travel in one direction: from left to right along a rack, then on to the racks that follow. A module can only take signals from modules to its left. If you want module A to modulate module B, A has to come first.

That rule is what lets Drambo make connections for you (Automatic connections and colours) and keeps patches readable at a glance. It also rules out instant feedback loops — see Feedback loops for the ways around that.

Drambo has no cables. When you add a module, it connects the inputs it needs to suitable outputs of the modules before it on the same track, matching signal types. It never connects an input to a module further right.

Instead of cables there is colour. Each module has its own colour, and every input socket connected to it takes that colour. A green pitch input on an oscillator means it gets pitch from the nearest green module to its left; a grey input means nothing is connected. Drambo assigns the colours itself.

Automatic connections cover most simple patches, but they’re only a guess. When Drambo can’t tell what you want — two oscillators could be mixed, ring-modulated or frequency-modulated — it leaves inputs for you to connect. See Make and change connections.

You can override any automatic connection, and connect modules in almost any way you like, as long as the source is to the left of the destination.

Some modules — mixers among them — show a + for adding inputs. Tap it, then tap the output you want to add, and a level knob appears for it. Double-tap an input’s knob and choose Remove to take it away again.

Knobs with a small triangle on their left can be modulated. Each modulation source you connect to such a knob gets its own small amount knob beside it, so one parameter can be moved by several sources, each by its own amount.

To cancel while choosing a source, tap the knob again. To remove a modulation, double-tap its amount knob and choose Remove.

Knobs respond to the direction you swipe, so you can be quick or precise without a modifier key.

Holding a step while you turn a knob sets a parameter lock instead (Parameter locks); holding UNDO while you tap one clears its automation (UNDO, and clearing things with it).

Everything you do to a whole module, you do from its coloured header.

Cut modules go to a clipboard. Paste them into a rack from the bottom-left corner of the library browser — the way to wrap a patch in an Instrument rack (Wrap it in an Instrument rack and save it).

Tap + at the end of a rack, or in a gap you’ve opened, to open the library browser. Modules are sorted into categories and sub-categories — PROCESSOR / FILTER, MODULATOR / ENVELOPES and so on — and there’s also a view by tags.

This guide’s module library chapter follows the browser’s groups, and the module explorer lists every module in one searchable page.

Every signal in Drambo is stereo and polyphonic by nature, and that carries through the patch: a module that receives a polyphonic, stereo signal works polyphonically and outputs the same kind. Up to 16 voices are available, and each voice can be modulated on its own.

You set how many voices a track plays with the Voices setting of its MIDI to CV module (or the instrument’s polyphony). Everything after it then runs once per voice — which is powerful, and costs processing.

When a patch doesn’t do what you expect, look at the signal. Hold any input socket and a monitoring window opens, showing what arrives there as it happens.

Since 2.57 the monitor also has a recorder for catching audio or MIDI on the fly — see Catch audio and MIDI on the fly. For a monitor that stays in the rack, use the Oscilloscope module or the MIDI Monitor module.

Because signals only flow one way, you can’t route a module’s output straight back into an earlier module. That keeps patches organised and lets racks run several polyphonic stereo voices. When you do want feedback, there are ways to get it with a little delay in the loop.