Doepfer A-132-3 Vintage Edition

As far as I'm concerned, this should be the "default" VCA module for the Doepfer. As there are two VCAs in this single module, you can use them in serial, so one of them can be controlled by the ADSR, and the other by (for instance) the note velocity. You can't do this with the regular A-131 as its CV inputs are in effect added together, whereas this in effect multiplies them. So even though the tradeoff is that it's less featureful in order to have two VCAs in one module, in practice, I find it to be a more useful result.

Of course, you can instead use them independently, so patches which don't require velocity sensitivity can use that second VCA in other interesting ways, whether it's attenuating a control voltage in linear mode or an audio signal in exponential mode.

If you only find yourself using half of your A-131's features, yet needing a second, I'd recommend doing what I did: sell it and buy this instead.

This is a solid VCA! For me it is extremely responsive and can be very snappy if controlled by a sharp envelope. It is handy being able to switch between a linear and exponential response meaning it is great for both control and audio voltages. Unlike some more recently released VCAs, this one has enough room for tweaking, and attenuators for both input and CV.

This is a module which on the outside seems quite boring, but in practice will find it's way into every patch. There is a popular saying in the modular synth world: "You can never have enough VCAs!", I certainly could never have enough of these!