WMD/SSF Amplitude VCA

[stylesforfree]

I don't see many people talking about this one, I saw matttech post about it a few times over the years and I have seen it crop up in the old "vintage sounding/warm sounding/best sounding vca" topics.

After seeing matttech mention it and having a quick scan for more info/demos/insight I found very little to go on.
I couldnt even see it being used in many WMD videos and I couldnt find many places that even stock it...but I did see it mentioned how nice it sounds especially when driven. My interest was piqued and I found it for a nice price where I thought to myself "lets pull the trigger on this".

Lo and behold, it arrived today along with the roland 540 and I plugged both straight in and ran the Dixie II+ through the VCA.



I then ran the Dixie into the polaris which I cranked up to full drive and then ran that into the WMD VCA



While the sequence was playing I adjusted the gain, cv offset, cv response and cv level. I find it very easy to get the response from the envelope I want and I am loving how it sounds.

[mdoudoroff]

I believe it. WMD and SSF make good stuff.

[Fog Door]

If I had unlimited rack space, I would get one of these, they sound great and I love all my SSF, WMD modules. Maybe I could slot it into my plan for rack number 5?

I tend to play it safe with VCAs though, I don't want anything bringing too much colour, I tend to use outboard gear if I need that. Why aren't people talking more about this? Just too many great sounding modules! This is another for the list then

[drewfx1]

I've had one for quite a while and the adjustable saturation is indeed wonderful.

[skreetis]

I have one of these and love it. It can be nice and clean if you want, but the saturation sounds fantastic. Perfect for beefing up any sound, but especially bass.

[tebs213]

I'm a big fan of this one. It's a very organic sounding saturation that also works well for mixing purposes too.

[MindMachine]

^ What skreetis said. It is my most used VCA for audio signal. In broad terms I find it to sound more 'organic' than say, the Intellijel uVCA II (clean/electronic sounding) or Tiptop VCA for example. I only use it for audio. The CV out can be pretty cool if you remember to use it. The Response and CV of the Response are great tone makers without actually changing the tone of your original signal. They are a great cost value, not much HP and give an exceptional variety of response and 'tone'.

In my Euro rig :

WMD/SSF Amplitude - most used for all types of synth 'voices' (sequences/lead/double/bass)
AJH MiniMod Cascaded VCA - (lead lines w/keyboard/bass lines/sequences)
Intellijel uVCA II - cv processing, electronic/bright sounds, effects
Tiptop Audio Variable Slope VCA - crisp lines, raspy bass, effects occasional cv processing
Erica Synths Black VCA 2 - (less sharp lines more thick: sequence, ribbon, sequencer)
Doepfer A-132-1 Dual Linear VCA - used w/ mixers and attenuators for cv processing