Aug 14

Dynamic Randomness (support for multiple modulation signals from one source)

My apologies if my explaining is off, but lately, I've been doing more with the Random module, and it felt a little limiting that it only outputed a single random value for all of the parameters linked to it. The only way I would subvert this is by creating several single-cycle Random modules and assigning them to different parameters to imitate dynamic randomness. I wanted to suggest a kind of Random module/extension which outputs a uniquely different random value for each linked parameter. For example, assuming you can modulate up to 8 parameters, each of the 8 parameters would receive a different random value from the modulator.

Pending

Aug 14, 2025

@Ziru what is the problem with having 8 Random modules each controlling one of those 8 parameters? And they are single-cycle because you want to set those parameters to random values only once? Can you give me more details about what sort of preset you are trying to create? It will help me understand your use case.

Aug 14, 2025

Nikolozi I've made a simple snare generator patch in Mela. There are 3 single-cycle Random modulators all modulating different parameters within the module. While I was making it, I understood what you meant by having 8 Random modules controlling the 8 parameters, lol. I guess the main issue I was having was the potential for clutter with having 8 Random modules in one patch. [Edit: I'm just now realizing the video gets slowed down, probably due to the conversion to keep it under 8MB. I apologize for that, but the parameters should still be visible]

Aug 16, 2025

Ziru Cool preset, thanks for sharing a screen recording of it. One way to combat clutter for the 8 Random modules is to put them in a Stack. That way, they won't take up too much horizontal space and will be easy to navigate to quickly by selecting from the vertical scroll view. But to respond to your original request, I think there's space in Mela for creating modulators where each destination gets a different modulation signal. Another example of such a module is an XY modulator. It will naturally have 2 distinct modulation signals, and the Targets view somehow needs to make it clear which are being modulated by X and which by Y. But this new type of modulators will need to have different UI, or existing modulators somehow need to be generalised so they all feel like they work the same way. I'll revisit this post when I start working on the feature. Update: Also, you may find MIDI Source's "Random on Note-On" might be a simpler choice for your use case.