STG Soundlabs muSonics Japanese Modulation - Moog format module

Japanese Modulation is a two-output LFO based on a small patchable synthesiser from the land of the rising sun which I had only seen looking like it had been in a bar fight and barely functional until the company that made it re-issued it 5 different ways over the past twenty years, which solidified its position as a true modern classic.

There is a rate control but also a shape control. The shape knob controls the wave angle of the triangle output from ramp to saw with triangle in the middle, and the duty cycle of the pulse output.

The outputs have attenuators but they perform different functions. The triangle attenuator functions in a straightforward fashion, from null to maximum. The pulse attenuator is a bipolar attenuator where null is in the centre, and counter-clockwise maximum gives you maximum negative output and clockwise maximum gives you maximum positive output.

An interesting quirk of the circuit is that the shape control actually affects the rate of the LFO. This is part of the original design and if I wanted to make it perfect I would have used a microcontroller and then it wouldn't have been the original circuit and I would have had to call it simply Modulation.