Utilities

Mult

Buffered multiple - send one signal to many destinations without level loss or pitch drift.

What is a Mult?

A multiple - usually shortened to mult - is the simplest module in a modular synth: it takes one signal and copies it to several outputs so a single source can drive several destinations at once. Patch one LFO into the input, take three identical copies out the other side, and you can modulate a filter, a VCA, and a pan parameter from the same swing.

Mults come in two flavors. A passive mult is just a metal jack tied to two or three other jacks - no electronics, no power. It works fine for gates and audio, but as soon as you split a 1V/Oct pitch CV across multiple VCO inputs, the input impedance of those oscillators loads down the source. The voltage sags, octaves drift sharp or flat, and your patch tunes itself slightly differently every time you add or remove a cable. A buffered mult puts a unity-gain op-amp between the input and each output. The buffer presents a high impedance to the source and a low impedance to each destination, so the voltage stays exactly the same no matter how many places it lands.

The rule is easy to remember: passive is fine for audio and gates; buffered is mandatory for V/Oct. A modular system that tracks 1V/Oct accurately across a four-VCO chord patch needs buffered multiples in the signal path, full stop. This is one of those quiet pieces of infrastructure that nobody talks about until tuning starts to drift mysteriously.

Our Mult

Our Mult is dual-section and actively buffered. Section A copies its input to three outputs (A1, A2, A3); Section B does the same with three more (B1, B2, B3). A seventh MIX output sums the two sections at unity gain - a small two-channel mixer thrown in for free, useful when you just need to hear LFO + envelope in one cable without spending a whole CV mixer panel on it.

Because the engine is digital and zero-latency, the distinction between passive and buffered is invisible at this layer - the same Float32 value is written to every output slot, sample-accurate, with no impedance physics at all. The mult is here for clarity of patching, not because Webrack needs the buffering to track 1V/Oct correctly. We still recommend you reach for it when a patch starts looking spaghetti-like; it makes signal flow easier to read at a glance.

In a patch

Mults sit between any one source and any group of destinations. The classic example: a keyboard or step sequencer outputs one V/Oct line, but you want a thick three-oscillator chord, so you mult that one line into three VCO pitch inputs. Or: a single clock drives an envelope, a sequencer, and a delay tap-tempo input simultaneously through a mult.

The other common use is splitting an audio signal into parallel processing chains. Send a VCO into a mult, take one copy through a low-pass filter, take another through a distortion, mix the two outputs in a mixer. You get the warmth of the filtered path and the bite of the distorted path layered together - a fuller voice than either chain alone.

Inputs

A (audio) — Section A input. This signal is copied to outputs A1, A2, and A3. Also summed into MIX.
B (audio) — Section B input. This signal is copied to outputs B1, B2, and B3. Also summed into MIX.

Outputs

A1 (audio) — First copy of input A. Identical to the input signal.
A2 (audio) — Second copy of input A.
A3 (audio) — Third copy of input A.
B1 (audio) — First copy of input B. Identical to the input signal.
B2 (audio) — Second copy of input B.
B3 (audio) — Third copy of input B.
MIX (audio) — Unity mix of A + B inputs. When only one input is patched, passes that signal through. Handy for quick two-channel mixing.

Inspired by

A textbook dual buffered mult with a small unity mixer thrown in. Buffered (rather than passive) so that V/Oct CV stays accurate when driving multiple oscillator inputs.

Doepfer A-180
Befaco Hexpander Mults
classic buffered multiple

← Back to all modules