You can get a lot of MIDI to CV/Gate interfaces today, and some modulars even let you manage presets so you can at least store parameter values. But I think th

You can get a lot of MIDI to CV/Gate interfaces today, and some modulars even let you manage presets so you can at least store parameter values. But I think the hands-on experience of playing the instrument is important. Of rewiring it as you go, of having happy accidents when you plug the wrong wire into the right socket. Even something as seemingly inconsequential as the physical resistance in a knob can make a difference. For instance, I have one synth that has a very light filter cutoff knob and one that has a slow and heavy one. This tiny bit of tactile difference invites different kinds of uses. The light knob invites me to flick it rapidly -- the heavy one doesn't invite that kind of playing so you end up sweeping it more slowly. I think the best example I've seen was a friend of mine playing a Doepfer Dark Energy synthesizer using a Dark Time sequencer. You can make the sequencer skip and jump by flipping switches to make it repeat a section or restart the sequence etc. So with without changing the pattern at all he made this entire performance just by creatively messing with the timing and playback. This hadn't really occurred to me when playing similar instruments on a computer before. You would have had to make a very conscious decision to do exactly what he did in the software, but given the physical interface of the sequencer, this came naturally.