The core ideas
Signals & patching
Resonode has one cable type and one rule: control voltage is just audio-rate signal. There is no separate "modulation" system — any output can drive any input. Everything else in this page is a convention layered on that rule.
The one rule, in practice
Because every signal speaks the same language, the boundaries you might expect from other synths don't exist here:
- An LFO into a filter cutoff is modulation. The same LFO, sped up to audio rate, is a sub-oscillator.
- An oscillator into another oscillator's FM input is synthesis. A kick drum into a Sample & Hold's trigger is a clock.
- Audio into an Env Follow becomes CV; CV into an Output becomes (probably unpleasant) audio. The engine doesn't care — it's all just signal.
Signal conventions
Modules agree on a few ranges so patches behave the way rack intuition expects:
| Signal | Convention |
|---|---|
| Pitch CV | Measured in octaves (1V/oct style): freq = base · 2^cv, with MIDI note 69 (A440) at CV 0. Because pitch is a number, quantizers, octave shifters and CV Math all compose. |
| Gates & triggers | 0 or 1; anything above 0.5 reads as high. Gates hold, triggers pulse. |
| Envelopes & velocity | Unipolar, 0 to 1. |
| LFOs | Bipolar, −1 to +1. |
| Multiple cables into one input | They sum, exactly like stacked patch cables. Two sequences into one pitch input play a combined melody; three LFOs onto a cutoff pile up. |
Knobs and CV inputs
When a parameter has a CV input, the incoming signal is added to the knob position and the result is clamped to the parameter's range. Set the knob where you want the centre of travel, then size the modulation with the sender's depth (or an Attenuverter in between — attenuverters are the volume knobs of the CV world).
Normalled connections
Some inputs have a sensible default signal that applies only while nothing is plugged in — the software version of a hardware jack's switch contact:
- Sample & Hold and Shift Reg inputs are normalled to noise, so clocking them unpatched yields classic random voltages.
- The Output module's left input feeds the right when only one side is patched — mono patches stay centred without a second cable.
Why the distortions sound clean
The memoryless waveshapers — Drive, Saturator, Distortion, Wavefolder — run through a shared 4× oversampler, so pushing them hard adds harmonics rather than digital aliasing. The band-limited oscillators (Oscillator, Wavetable) stay clean up the keyboard too. Chiptune is the deliberate exception: it's proudly aliased, because that's the sound.