Joranalogue Audio Design Generate 3

This VCO module is rather unique, if you're reading reviews you probably already know that. It's everything you want it to be and more. Paired with another VCO for modulation/synchronisation you can get a really full spectrum of sounds out of this beast. The Divkid video about this module (go watch that instead of reading this review) covers this extensively. I've had this thing for over a year now and I still haven't tried every possible way to patch it into itself or other modules... Heck, I spent a week or two just getting to know the module at first just to be able to get it to behave like a bread-and-butter vco in a live-rig with some added flair. Subtlety is really key to get it to behave like a 'normal' VCO. Then again, you could just turn everything to 'zero' and just patch one of the outputs into VCF/VCA etc and call it a day, but then you just as well could get a Dixie VCO or something along those lines. In my opinion it's best to have a 'regular' VCO besides the Joranalogue Generate 3, if only for modulating it, but also because sometimes you just need a VCO to be plain and simple.

Everything feels very very sturdy, turning the knobs feels really smooth, flipping the switches feels very satisfactory. The only downside to the broad range of sounds this module provides is that it's really sensitive to little knob-turns. Whenever a finger, patch-cable, (a gust of wind... no just kidding)... brushes against one of the tuning knobs it actually does what it's supposed to do: change tuning. This is normal behaviour but nevertheless it can be very annoying. When using this module as a main VCO in a live-rig I suggest you use rubberbands wrapped around the base of the knobs to keep the module in tune. Talking about tuning: I've never noticed any drifting whatsoever, not even right after powering everything on, so in my experience this is a very stable and reliable VCO.

As an LFO it performs just as well but because I have those rubber bands wrapped around the knobs essentially locking them in place it's not a feature that gets a lot of use in my rig.

Joranalogue really delivers quality, even the packaging and included mounting screws are some of the best I've ever seen.

The Generate 3 oscillator is meant for interesting modulations. It has through-zero FM, phase modulation and level control over even/odd harmonics. The level controls are all through-zero so you can do ring-modulation (aka through-zero AM) as well, which is ace.

The sound has a lot of character, especially the full output (there are also four partial outs) so stick a filter after it. Also, Generate 3 likes to talk to other VCOs through the various modulations, so you want to have another oscillator in the rack – with hard or soft sync – so that it doesn't feel lonely.

My favourite thing to do with this module is self-modulate the phase with the core, but putting a VCA in-between to modulate the amount of phase-modulation with an LFO. To me this sounds a bit like a pulse-width modulated sound, but a bit more, in lack of a better term "aggressive".

The drawbacks I find for this are mostly in the tuning ergonomics department – I would have loved an octave selector. And it would have been cool if the bias could be something else than +5V. Using an external offset for the stuff in-between is a bit of a hassle. But perhaps I am just using it wrong.

I bought this because I found that I constantly have plaits in "pair of classical waves" mode and and Generate 3 is similar to that, but with lots of more controls and modulation options. Generate 3 is absolutely what I wanted, and my Plaits can now go on to other duties, such as chord mode or do its wonky percussive stuff.

At its heart this module has a triangle wave oscillator, that you can manipulate using through-zero linear and or exponential FM.

But you do not hear that triangle. Instead, what you hear is a definable mix of three waves derived from that triangle.

A fundamental channel (sine wave one octave above the core triangle), an even channel (saw wave two octaves above the core) and an odd channel. All channel share the frequency modulation of the core and the mix of each channel can be individually be through-zero modulated.

With enough modulation sources the module can behave similar to a wavetable oscillator.

However, this complexity is also its drawback. It is easy to make standard, boring VCO sounds or very experimental sounds.
But finding a musically pleasing middle ground can be a challenge.

Sound and built quality are excellent.