Reading Patch Notes

[HenryBukowski]

Hi all,

Nice to be here.
I hope this isn't a bad question - I am totally new to synths and to reading patch notes for synths. I found these patch notes (they relate to the Arp 2600, for a track by Todd terje).
I am unsure about conventions on patch notes but on the image there are many areas where there is no settings, preset or annotation marked in.
My question would be what assumptions should I make for the areas of the plan which are unmarked? And more simply why would these have been left blank?

[madtheory]

There are no conventions. I would've said no marking means set slider to minimum (because there are no middle=0 sliders on the 2600) but he's marked VCA Ring Mod and ADSR in as minimum so that could well be wrong. But I think it's most likely he's probably being inconsistent. Try the unmarked ones at min and see what you get?

[desmond]

In general, if a slider/knob is blank, then it's setting is irrelevant and shouldn't contribute to the sound of the patch.

If a slider *does* contribute to the sound of the patch, is position will be important and thus should be marked.