All Posts

Let me show you this acrylic modular case build. If you have any question about, let me know! Enjoy.
This is the first part of some other videos will be publish soon. Stay tuned on my Youtube page.

EDITED Jun 28th 2020, 09:35

Awesome. I like how every sound has room to breathe. That's something I am trying to work on in my music, but I have a tendency to always add more and more until all of the space is gone. You have given each instrument plenty of space.
I need to invest in some of the ACL modules. I'm always impressed with them.
Thanks for sharing!

Goes to check his Hyperdrive

Thanks

Nice transition and progression at about 3:45. 7:45 really got my attention. Same with 11:20. My kind of ambient jam.

I really enjoyed listening to this a few times. Nicely done!

Nice to see you share some work @GarfieldModular! I really appreciate the density and voice breadth here (well explained by your patch notes), and the ebb and flow from clusters of notes to reverb-y sustain. It feels a bit 20th century classical at times, and at others the modular part of synthesis really comes through. Well done on an interesting and varied piece ᕕ(⌐■_■)ᕗ ♪♬

Sat down this evening for a little jam on my Mother 32's. No agenda. Just started poking and patching. Found myself here. I'm thinking that a DFAM would be a nice way to tie off this little Moog rack that lives next to the modular system.

A little kick from BIA and light reverb from Clouds.

Hello All,

After a lot of doubt and still not sure ;-) I kind of decided to publish one track of my test album "Netherlands - A", the last track called Azewijn (Conclusion). It's a kind of a "small" summary of the rest of the album.

I have been for more than one year now member of this forum and I have now almost exactly one year my modular system but so far never published here anything, so let this be the first publication ;-)

This kind of test album I did, was for me a test to see how difficult it is to create an album, pretty difficult I would say, especially then when you like to have it all perfect like me, being a perfectionist, realising that it's no-way near any kind of perfection, far from it, I would say :-) But it was good that I did it, I guess. Most of it is really just test material but this track above here is the one I would like to share with you.

I would appreciate your feedback on it, especially if you see (rather hear) which parts I could improve to increase the quality of: recording, mastering, stereo effects, well and whatever you can come with and I have no clue about ;-)

I have to apologise to everyone I have commented about the stereo effects I was mentioning in my feedbacks over the last half year or so. When I did record this album, only then I realised how difficult it is to get some decent stereo effects in your tracks. It's so difficult to get that properly done, so my huge respect to those who are able to do so! As well as a lesson learnt for myself...

The track has no percussion at all other than the Tea Kick from Bastl Instruments. I had the percussion parts not really ready within my rack and still wanted to record something. So one of the reasons why my track is rather boring, it's the lacking of percussion.

Since I am always begging you for details on how you did create that sound or that track, etcetera, I can't withhold such information for my own publication I guess ;-) So here are the details on this track, it exists of 12 voices:

Voice 1 - Mutable Instruments - Plaits
Voice 2 - Doepfer - A-110-4 QZVCO
Voice 3 - ACL - Variable Sync VCO
Voice 4 - Doepfer - A-111-4 Quad VCO
Voice 5 - Make Noise - STO
Voice 6 - Make Noise - Wogglebug
Voice 7 - L.E.P. - Lumanoise, 808 Cymbal Drone Generator
Voice 8 - Intelllijel - Rubicon2
Voice 9 - Doepfer A-111-2 VCO
Voice 10 - Bastl Instruments - Tea Kick
Voice 11 & 12 - Synthesis Technology - E330 (voice 11 through LP+HP filter, voice 12 through BP filter)

Beside the above voices of course used several other modules, the main central component for most of the sounds (not all though) is the ACL - Sinfonion.

I didn't use any input device for playing tones or something, my name is still Garfield, hence lazy, hence not putting any notes into the system ;-) So everything was produced somehow by the modules themselves.

All the "noise" has been produced by my modular system with the exception of two effect pedals: the Ventris Dual Reverb from Source Audio (beautiful reverb effects pedal) and the Grand Canyon from Electro-Harmonix. Other than these two components, everything else was done by modular. Other effects, i.e. by modular, were: Erica Synths - Black Hole DSP2 and Intellijel - Springray2.

Recording was done with the Zoom - H5 recorder at 24 bit/96 kHz, reduced it here for publication to MPG3, sorry about that...

Thank you very much in advance for listening, have a nice Sunday and kind regards, Garfield.

Edit: Removed typo.

EDITED Jun 28th 2020, 02:28

I'm definitely looking forward to it!

You will enjoy the Serge stuff a lot more than Rings, for sure. :)

I've been thinking to get a Rings but I just dropped literally a zillion dollars on Random*Source Serge, so maybe not lol. I should move it up the list though.

Thank you troux. That was Rings in the Roland RS09 string synth Easter Egg mode. I use that mode more than the standard Rings sound.

Really digging the synths around the 40 second mark ᕙ(⇀‸↼‶)ᕗ nice work here.

Thanks as always for checking it out!
Just about anything I share here is just a single live take with only my modular setup. I rarely do any overdubs and usually just use GarageBand as a tape recorder with very little post-processing. I'm not averse to doing things more professionally, but I'm just having fun with this limited lo-fi approach right now as a way to challenge myself and learn.
It seems Ochd is turning out to be one of those "must-have" modules. In some way or another, it has made its way into every patch I've done since I got it. Best $190 I've spent in a long time.

Hi Wishbonebrewery,

Oh yes! After Troux (see his post here in the You section as well) let me travel with "my spaceship" (I wish that was true) into space at an undefined destination. I was just about to arrive at my space-destination when Troux album was finished. Luckily I took your track with me on this space journey as well. So I hit the button and wow, I am now beyond our galaxy, not really knowing where I am to be honest, but enjoying your music while travelling here in the dark with here and there a star-light at the horizon ;-)

At about 3:00 you kind of hyper-spaced me even further, that hand-clap rhythm is nicely done! And further down the track that's getting nicer and nicer.

You bring me so far into the outer space that the Internet connection is getting weak here, so I must hurry sending this post before you even hyper-space me where no longer Internet is possible ;-)

Thanks a lot for sharing this, enjoying this a lot and kind regards, Garfield.

Hi Farkas,

Wow that's impressive, all modular :-) Interesting how you "processed" the vocals with Plaits and via the Ochd. Looks like this Ochd I am going to put that module on my wish list :-)

Thanks a lot for sharing the details and kind regards, Garfield.

Hi Garfield. Yes, all modular. The glitchy vocals were actually from the speech algorithm on Plaits with modulation from Ochd. No samples on this one.
Have a great weekend.

Hi Troux,

Yeah! Nice long tracks, if you let your mind go, I could imagine being in a spaceship (not too big one) with glass all around looking at the "space" passing by, while listening at your music.

Not just one track, no-ooh, a complete album! :-)

So I continue listening at your music and once I arrived at my destination in space and if I got Internet there too, I will let you know ;-)

Well done, thanks a lot for sharing and kind regards, Garfield.

Hi Farkas,

He, he, very creative and interesting visual effects :-) Good that you warned us ;-)

From a music point of view everything done by modular? If yes, those samples by Disting?

I am curious to see what you come up with next :-) Kind regards, Garfield.

I thought I'd share some of my recent work after putting together my rack maybe a month ago:

https://stevehand.bandcamp.com/album/modular-drafts

Lots of drone, in particular this track that I made today https://stevehand.bandcamp.com/track/peace-drone and a little bit of stupid dance with an acid influence thrown in: https://stevehand.bandcamp.com/track/dumb-acid

All best on headphones I think, as the caveat goes!

Everything was made on this rack and thanks to everyone for their help and perspective on putting it together, especially you @farkas (^-^)/

Lots of helpful info there @Lugia, thanks for sharing. I'm pretty sure I'm going to go with a couple RS panels and see how that turns out, no magic expected per se but I'd like to supplement my excessively digital main rack with something a little more old school and that rewards reflection and understanding of synthesis.

Nothing new about Elby/Ken Stone. Ken's been a module designer for decades now, and has a history of adapting Serge circuitry for Eurorack purposes, as well as Elby's own "Euroserge" variants. Even other manufacturers use Ken's designs, such as Doepfer on their A-171-2.

FYI, if you expect to get Serge results out of 3.5mm jacked Eurorack, you're likely to be underwhelmed. Part of the Serge's appeal was the ability to branch signals off of a single patchpoint, because all points were banana jacks and therefore stackable. Typical Serge patches would sometimes output the same signal to several different destinations, which contributed to the "magic" of the format. As for interconnecting Serge with Eurorack, this is really simple, as Eurorack offers numerous banana-to-3.5mm adapter modules, plus there's standalone adapter boxes for this. But...VERY important...you have to establish a common groundplane between the Eurorack and "proper" Serge format gear, since the Serge relies on its own internal groundplane, and the patchpoints only connect "hot" input and outputs over a single conductor. It's easy enough...but necessary, as the two formats don't play nice with each other UNLESS they have a common ground.

A new contender has appeared: https://elby-designs.com/contents/en-us/d69_ES_-_Euro_Serge.html

Interesting wrinkle... anyone have experience with Elby?

The latest patch + Roland TR-09

I've been Tap-clocking the Pittsburgh Microsequence to use as my main clock source, this isn't ideal and I'd like to get something like Pam's Workout to have as a main clock. In the meantime I thought I should try using the TR-09 as main clock then into the Divider and divide down to slow-clock the MicroSequence for some longer gate times.
Kinda just fooling with the TR-09 played in live varying the patterns on the fly.

Cheers for listening.

Here is the newest installment of my ongoing glitchy lo-fi modular synth and dual VHS project. This one turned out kind of trippy (flashing light warning).

Thank you for taking an interest. I've only recently returned to making music and so the stuff I have put on Bandcamp is just rough sketches at this point. I'm mostly just recording lo-fi live jams and experimenting with different styles at this point, but I am planning to work on some more structured and polished songs soon.
This ADX-1 sounds great. Thanks for the heads up!

Thanks for checking it out Garfield and Sweelinck. Vorwerk Chicken is definitely a cousin of my track!
This one was made using the Moffenzeef Mito to sequence a Buck Modular DrumF*ck and the Loquelic Iteritas Percido (which is too quiet here). I was just messing around and it sounded cool, so I recorded part of it.
I just finished a new video that I may share later.
Thanks again and take care!

Using Mutable Instruments Marbles as a sample source, playing Plaits and DPO with DivKid's awesome RND STEP S&H. After a several seconds of listening to what Marbles decided to make, I play over the two VCO's with Rossum Electro-Music Trident. Make Noise QPAS, Clouds and Eventide Space for lush, modulated reverb.

A little more noise than desired from M.I. Clouds. Texture modulation too wide. Sorry about that.

Anyhow, enjoy this nice, evolving ambient track and some footage of yesterday's evening paragliding session.

EDITED Jun 27th 2020, 15:55

I was expecting something weird out of this but it got even weirder. Not everyone's cuppa tea and there's definitely some pun intended :) Details in the video.

Thanks for the kind words. Got something brewing with the new RND S&H.

I recently got a Chord V2 and I've been enjoying the chord function on the Akemie's Castle a lot, but doing it all analog with a Harmonaig sounds pretty rad.

I don't have the Harmonaig, but I'd love to have one. My next move will be to work on putting more chords into my patches and the Harmonaig would be great.

Hi Troux and Jingo,

Both thank you very much for your kind words and trying to convince me :-) Give me some more time and once I know on which platform I want to publish it, I will try to publish here something in the You section.

Jingo, your second demo is just what I need after a bit hectic Friday of work, relax a bit, I love that repetitive patern, indeed subtle but yet interesting enough for the listener never want to stop listening at it. So yes, well done!

Thank you, enjoy your weekend and kind regards, Garfield.

Hi Sweelinck,

Thanks a lot for sharing your "Vorwerk Chicken", that's lovely creative! :-) There is a lot to discover in that track, it's the not so obvious approach that I like here a lot!

Do you have more of such nice surprises? Thanks a lot and kind regards, Garfield.

Hi Gabor and Sweelinck,

Gabor: Thank you very much for sharing your demo. I like it because you didn't went the obvious way but instead you made it nice subtle and controlled. Yeah, quite nice :-) You didn't overdo it and because of that less is more in that case; to use a phrase from Sweelinck ;-)

Sweelinck: Ha, ha, just teasing you :-)

Of course you are right that less can certainly be more, it depends I believe a bit on the situation and circumstances. In my opinion it's also quite personal if one rather prefers less is more or more is more. I guess I am usually more following the "more is more" motto but in certain situations I can understand certainly the less is more approach :-)

By the way, my comment about one never can have enough VCAs, etc. Yes I stick to that but with a lot of humour in it as well, so one shouldn't take that too serious and as already mentioned, depending on a situation it's more or less applicable.

Kind regards, Garfield.

Hi Joelstj,

That's a bit difficult, because you have for yourself to build up an opinion on modules. That's why the "homework" of reading, checking and listening at demos is so important to create for yourself a view on a module and after done all that, just buy a few modules (not too many), get experience with those modules and then you will realise that you have to adjust your own opinion on certain matters a bit, once done that you can do a kind of "second round" of checking everything, buy a few modules again, build up experience again and you will again realise that you might have changed here and there a bit your own opinion on how you are looking at modules. That's something you have to do yourself, nobody can do that for you.

To give you a few ideas (and please keep in mind that doesn't mean the rest is not good or not interesting, there is so much that it's undoable to discuss everything):

VCOs: Plaits & STO are nice ones, a simple but good one is Doepfer - A-110-1 for example or the E330 from Synthesis Technology is a nice one too. The Dixie II+ from Intellijel seems to be nice (it's on my wishlist)
EGs: Doepfer - A-140-1 ADSR, simple plain but good, especially to start with. A lovely tripple AD is the one from Hikari Instruments - Tripe AD, I love that one, Make Noise - Maths but you got that one already and also the Contour is doing well
LFOs: ALC - QLFO, Doepfer A-145-1 (I use this one a lot, straight forward but reliable in almost every patch), Erica Synths - Black Octasource if you want to go really crazy but consider this one only in your 3rd or 4th round, this requires some experience with modular synths
Filters: Doepfer - A-124 VCF 5, Wasp filter, fantastic filter, Euporie from I/O Instruments, rather new brand, I just got this filter but I think it's good, I need to further explore this one, Erica Synths - Black Dual VCF --> interesting filter with quite a few interesting options, Instruo - Tràigh filter is quite good too.
VCAs: The VCA I love most at the moment is the Waldorf - DVCA1, it's a fantastic module, Erica Synths - Black VCA is nice too, Doepfer A-130 (lin) & A-131 (log) are good too. Patching Panda - Punch lovely bitey VCA
Effects: Intellijel - Springray II, lovely spring ray effect with up to 3 tanks, Erica Synths - Black Hole DSP2 is not too bad either

For a mixer you could consider the Doepfer A-138p & 138o combination, that's chainable, so if after a while 4 channels aren't enough, just add another A-138p to it and you got yourself 8 channels :-) But it costs HP space...

This is such a small selection of so much there is outside, you really should look for yourself around. If possible have them tested at your local dealer. I have done that (testing of modules) a lot and I had to keep adjusting my opinion about certain modules.

Well that should give you some food for thought ;-) Good luck and kind regards, Garfield.

Looks pretty good! How do you like the Harmonaig? I've been thinking about getting one but haven't pulled the trigger yet.

another try on something I would call "ambient". Since I like repetitive music with only subtle changes dont expect fancy moves ;)...

Best,
jingo

Nice tribute to Florian Schneider.

Discovering your works published in Bancamp, a special mention for 'Kapital'.
Do you know the Mode Machines ADX-1? It is not a modular drum but an analogue drum expander. I finally got one and I think it could fit with your style. Wonderful tones and a lot of modulations in the box.

This is my rack currently: 6/15/20

Thanks - any recommendations of the modules you recommended?

Love this!
Minimalist, essential, no decorating superfluous kind of stucco melodies around.

This track (and the birds in the video) reminds me an 'old thing' I did a few years ago.
May I introduce to you the glorious and glitchy 'Vorwerk Chicken'!

No modular at that time.
Btw, DFAM and Basimilus involved in your 'Trees And' I suppose?

Cheers!

Hey together,

dont hesitate to record some noise and put it up on sc, nothing wrong with that!

I will do some wiggling this evening, hoping for some happy accidents :)!

Best,
jingo

ochd was an instant love for me. Like others here, I use it in most of my
patches.
Here ochd modulates mostly the Morpheus filter.

You asked for another VCO that might go well together with the Plaits (I would go for the original one, better user interface, which is important, for me at least), I think the Make Noise - STO might be a good choice. I use these two (Plaits & STO) quite often together and I am with both more than just happy, they belong to my favourite oscillators.
-- GarfieldModular

I will not address the whole rack (I have new modules in my rack so burning to go patch those), but since this is between parenthesis here and haven't seen it mentioned elsewhere, I want to direct your attention to the presence of many "mini" versions of modules and what it implies: it's not for everyone, and the more of them you have, the harder it can become for some people to play the system. I say "for some people" because the Erica Pico System seems to be well received but I find it very hard to operate a system comprised of only tiny modules, possible but not confortable.
I guess the point I'm trying to make is please do not dismiss that aspect as being inconsequential and think about whether or not you could be bothered by the concentrated nature of the UI in the proposed rack.

Good luck for the rest of the planning ;-)

Diego

@defragmenteur
@GarfieldModular
...and Hi again Everybody!

'You can never have enough'. I don't know when and were it appears for the first time on the modular planet (apparently talking about Vcas), but it has always sounded to me like a vacuous statement or worst, an advertising slogan: 'You can never have enough' clamps, guarantees, smoked salmon, or whatever!.. And curiously, this has met a great success in this community.

This is quite funny because at the same time it is proclaimed loud and clear in music making that 'Less is more'...

Shall we eventually hear 'You can never ever get enough less for more'?
Sort of Woody Allen assertion :)

Well, I use OCHD for a few months, and had the chance to receive last week the brand new RND STEP by DivKid and SSF (a random module in the same vein as OCHD).

We all know that DivKid is an excellent reviewer. But he is also a very clever and a rather visionary man. Obviously, Ben has understood a lot of fundamental modularist requirements. Less Hps, reasonable price (though RND STEP is a bit more expensive than OCHD and Mutes), the need for easy to use but strong modulation tools, and of course a well-known and appreciated signature.

We can notice that he didn't choose to begin with innovative oscillators or samplers, no more with delays or reverbs. He worked on simple but proper tools that BRINGS LIFE... 'To bring life': another common expression, but this time, a really major concern in modular music. Because bringing life is exactly in the DNA of modular synthesis and a permanent quest of every modularist.

Nearly 10000 Eurorack modules according to ModularGrid...
Probably enough, and we should need more DivKids to 'Clean up the mess!' ;)

@GarfieldModular, just my two cents but I've found that opening up the posting gates can open up the creativity and flow. I used to keep my tunes really close to the chest but earlier this year I decided to just post anything I made, or just about anything, and it lead me down a really nice path for 3-4 months, which I of course upset by deciding to pick up a whole new instrument and build a modular lol.

We can often be our own worst critics, and sometimes the most important thing is just to let it live. Those are my thoughts for the day!

EDITED Jun 26th 2020, 00:14

Hi Gabor,

Thanks a lot for your recommendations on music, I will check those out (I am a bit slow on that, so that might take a while; but of course Ramstein I know ;-) ). Another band that impresses me with their usage of electronic sounds and also their quite good recording quality of their albums is Yello. I am not always too much fond of their music style but they have some very interesting tracks, with tons of nice electronic sounds to discover in their music and because the recording of their latest albums is quite crystal clear so it's really enjoyable to listen at them doing their great job :-)

While writing this message I was listening at some of the Elektro Guzzi stuff and yeah, that sounds pretty interesting, I think I am going to try out one of their albums. Thanks again for the recommendation!

Kind regards, Garfield.

Hi Jingo,

Yes, I can't wait to hearing more nice stuff from you :-)

Ha, ha, good question. I think, if I have to be honest and that's what I want (to be honest), then I have to admit that I don't make any music...

I make noises with my Eurorack, certainly :-) I think I can manage even a little bit of sonic journey kind of stuff (to use a few funny words), getting quite close to that I guess. I am especially good in disturbing ears ;-) But making music, as in: pleasant to listen at and really enjoying a good piece of music? Nah... I am still far away from that.

Then the other thing is that I haven't released any "noise" yet, still a bit hesitating about that actually... Slowly thinking about it however and I am not sure if I should go for Soundcloud indeed or You Tube. Perhaps starting with Soundcloud?

I am also not sure yet about the music, eh I mean, noise-style yet. Either experimental ambient or just generally I prefer to name it (as in the old days how it was meant) "EM" (Electronic Music), however in the way as we know it from the 70's & 80's from bands like Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, Vangelis, JM Jarre, Kitaro, Tomita, etcetera. Nowadays, I do have the feeling though that Techno and related styles are using the Electronic Music style name for Techno & Co but I feel that's not completely right looking at what kind of music TD, Schulze, Vangelis, etc. make/made. But that might be just me.

To summarise: I would like to go more into the old days EM, not minding a bit of a modern touch though.

So once I have decided: If I am going to publish something and if yes, where I am going to publish it (Soundcloud or You Tube) then I will put that here in the You section of course :-) Still a bit nervous about that idea though...

Keep up the nice music and kind regards, Garfield.

Hi Joelstj,

Since you plan such a small rack, start with removing the Mother-32 from Moog and the Make Noise - Morphagene and then consider a classic setup of minimum 2 VCOs, 2 filters, 2 EGs, 1 or 2 LFOs, 2 VCAs, mixer, audio module you got already so that one can stay and the Maths module is large but if you wish you can keep that as well, almost half the world got one ;-)

Brutal on removing these two modules (Moog + Morphagene)? Yes indeed but they slurp up so much space that's not worth it for such a small rack. The Moog can work in it's own case so leave it there first till you got a mega rack and you don't care any longer about a 100 more or less HP space but till then better leave it out :-)

Doubtless, the Morphagene is a fantastic module (it's on my wish list too) but not to start with and not with such a small rack.

So consider at least 3 rows of 84 HP to give you a bit more flexibility in the near future.

Consider working on the above classic setup and then take it from there, build up your experience and take it slowly on increasing the numbers of modules. Don't buy in one go an entire full rack, that's not recommendable.

Good luck with your planning and kind regards, Garfield Modular.

Hi Mike,

Thanks for your extensive reply, also the information on the Deluge, very interesting!

Most of your arguments understood, still please consider a 3 row casing, you don't have to straight away put it full with modules but at least you have a bit of space to expand.

With either 2 or 3 rows, I would indeed drop any kind of sequencer stuff since you got the Deluge already. Use the Deluge first to save space in your rack. Once you got this rack full and you are ready to go for the next level then you still can consider what kind of sequencer should replace the Deluge but you will see that wouldn't be an easy task, so stick with the Deluge first.

You asked for another VCO that might go well together with the Plaits (I would go for the original one, better user interface, which is important, for me at least), I think the Make Noise - STO might be a good choice. I use these two (Plaits & STO) quite often together and I am with both more than just happy, they belong to my favourite oscillators.

Financially, consider to stretch your budget either now or on the short term, Eurorack is really fantastic but it ain't cheap! So don't fool yourself by believing you can keep this semi-reasonable... no it wouldn't ;-) At least not, if you are really going to "dive into Eurorack"...

But above all, just get a casing (or make it) and start with just a few modules (since you got already the Deluge) and then slowly start extending it while increasing your experience and then sooner or later you will find your way into it and of course you are always welcome to drop a few lines here so we can try to support you into your sonic Eurorack journey :-)

Good luck and kind regards, Garfield.