The power of modular synthesizers is that you can patch a signal to flow the way you prefer through your system. This can also be a time-consuming bummer when you’re just trying to patch a “typical” signal flow. Therefore, some manufacturers have created “semi-modular” synths (such as the Arp 2600, Moog Mother-32, Roland System 1, Intellijel Atlantis, and many others) that have all of these typical connections pre-wired for you, with the important feature that many of these wirings can be overridden by inserting patch cables into the correct jacks. These pre-wired connections are often referred to as being normalled. For example: An internal noise source may normally be connected to one channel of a mixer that appears before the filter, but if you insert a patch cable into a jack usually labeled external input, this “normalled” connection is broken and replaced by your external connection.
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