I’m not sure where people got the idea that “the concept of modular synthesis” is to take the longest, most meandering possible path to creating a sound, or that if you’re not constructing everything from basic building blocks, you’re doing it wrong.
The first modular synths were… sort of that way, of necessity. Circuits were mostly quite simple. But even in those earliest days, the need was recognized that combining simpler circuits to serve a coherent musical function, as a module, made sense. Thus, oscillators with multiple shape outputs, instead of separating the waveshaping from the core — one never sees a complaint that the oscillator has built-in pulse width control instead of forcing you to use a separate comparator to convert triangle or saw waves to pulses. Or the sequencer, which combines a sequential switch (itself made of flip-flops made of logic gates) with a set of attenuators and a mixer. Or the frequency shifter, a complex network of ring modulators and phase shifters. These modules were designed for musical utility. My argument is, so are modules like Rings, Plaits, Entity Ultra Perc, Pamela’s New Workout, etc.
And there’s nothing stopping one from taking those more complex, comprehensive modules and using them in a patch with fundamental building blocks. Or processing the audio, modulating them, sequencing them in uniquely modular-ish ways.
I’ve started reading Your Anxiety Beast And You. The premise is familiar at this point: anxiety is a vital survival mechanism, but as with other things, human social/technological process has outpaced human evolution. So we should treat anxiety not as an enemy to avoid and dread, but as a well-meaning, vigilant but obnoxious and irrational primitive friend who’s trying to look out for us.
It’s like pain. You absolutely do want to be able to feel pain when it’s an appropriate warning that helps you prevent or minimize injury. But any pain that lingers after you already are aware of a problem — especially chronic pain — is extremely unhelpful.