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Can this be done with the Doepfer A-138o? I have only used it as an aux for modules in the past.
-- isolatediguana
I don't know if the A-138o (with the A-138p) has sufficient gain for external return. Doepfer's documentation is not very clear on this point. I suspect something like the A-119 Ext. In is needed.
I just ordered a Versio as well (Melotus, but I plan to flash Desmodus and Electus to try them out) but for more intrusive or modulated effects. If I want a quality blackhole or shimmer, I will still go to an external pedal.
-- plragde
i can tell you now its not got enough gain to do this. i had this setup, doepfer a138 p & o, with alm busy circuits external guitar pedal interface @ 4hp - SBG. that did the trick.
I sent the endorphines back for a few reasons (quality/LR balance issue/loss of signal), and I really like my FXaids but I recently have added the Timiszoara and I must admit there are a wonderful set of very cool algos, and the "classic" ones sound great too!
Hey fam, I come to you all to know your thoughts about this one sequencer ? I should get it soon or sooner to give it a bit of space on the channel, but I am very curious of what you think bout it.
Mavis is 44HP, a Mother is 60HP, so together you get 104HP with the jack fields next to each other. Moog have 104HP cases and also provide rails to extend their 60HP rack to 104HP. My main gripe (so far) with Mavis is the lack of USB as a power source so it's not really portable, which makes the case cover kind of redundant. And also makes firmware updates problematic - though there may be a way to attach something directly to the board (perhaps something like the Silicon Labs USB flash debugger).
I guess the design could have been done with the jack field being a separate component which could have been attached via a ribbon cable at either end of the case, so you could position it left or right.
i guess youd chuck your mother 32 or whatever 60hp'er on the left side, some modulation in the middle, and the mavis on the right. patch cable clutter contained to a central area with both moogs free for wiggling.
i think focus your gripes elsewhere, like behringer for instance. /sued.
OK, so it's a little 44 (45 in its case) hp box, but it's not exactly what it appears to be. For one thing, it doesn't arrive assembled; you have to slap it together like the Werkstatt. But unlike the Werkstatt, it's got 3.5mms on it. And a keyboard(ish), plus a wavefolder, costs $349.
Right away, the size factor is actually similar (off by 1 hp, even) to Make Noise's 45 hp trio of 0-Ctrl, 0-Coast, and Strega. The presence of the much-touted wavefolder also hints at them trying to get a bit more West Coast. But I don't buy it. Rather, I'm of the opinion that Moog's trying to make inroads versus their Asheville neighbors by tossing out a dog's dinner that fits the 0-Coast format (mostly).
F'rinstance, if you want to use it with one of Moog's 60 hp devices in a multi-tier, you're going to have an IMMEDIATE problem with a rat's nest of patch cords that's now established a home across the front of one of them. Yeah...the usual Moog 60s have the patchpoints on the right, but the Mavis has all of them on the LEFT. Not the smartest hardware move, nope...
OK...so, I'll put it in a 60 hp Moog skiff! Hrmmmm...that won't work. 60 - 44 = nope. Put two in? Also...nope. So if you want to rack THIS one up, you'd better have the right space or a big blank panel handy. You could put modules in the space, too...but after using 4 hp for power (remember, the BLANK Moog skiffs have no power circuitry), you've only got space for 10 hp of Eurorack. But then, this gets us back into the point of "why buy one with the case/power if it's going in something else with a case/power" thing. But here, your extra case is all but useless, as it's VERY shallow and doesn't seem like it's got a proper P/S or distro in it.
Even Moog's website is sort of pants here...for example, they show a Mavis in a 60 hp Moog skiff with a couple of modules (a Make Noise (them again!) STO and what appears to be an inverted (?!?) Intellijel uJack), but unless all of the power is coming through the Mavis, it'll be a cold day in hell when those two other modules are usable in that configuration.
If this were JUST a follow-up to their Werkstatt, I wouldn't be so irked. Y'know...something like a "mkii" that's got the 3.5mm points instead of pinwires, without the need for the dongle-ish patchboard. Yeah, it probably sounds great and all that...I just question what's going on with the Mavis minus the sonic factors. It seems like something that was scribbled out on a bar napkin with ZERO thought as to what might be wrong with the idea in the first place! Maybe they're trying to take a few marketing ideas from Uli's bag of tricks...? I mean, there's that 0-Coast form factor there...but jamming a wavefolder into a typical subtractive synth doesn't make that synth "West Coast".
And one other point...the Mavis is supposed to have two VCOs. I only see one...which means that either the ad copy is wrong, or the batshit insane idea of having BOTH of them under the same control is in effect here. C'mon, Moog...Bob wouldn't EVER have done that. One function = one control...that was the whole damn point of Moog's synths all along!
At this point, I'm sure there'll be a bunch of Moog fanboys jumping in to go off on how this is all wrong, etc etc blahblahblah. My take on that is this: go ahead and drop your money on a Mavis, but I 100% guarantee you that you'll be VERY annoyed by it before much time passes. It might have that Moog ladder VCF...but who cares, as you can buy the exact same VCF from a source as cheap as Uli, or others at numerous price-points beyond that which aren't anywhere near $349. Wavefolders are cheap, too...and you can get 'em with the right "provenance", such as Dannysound's Buchla 259 waveshaper, Timbre, which sells at $110 and change. Plus...LPGs? Anywhere? Buehler?
TL;DR here is this: Mavis is a joke. A bad one. Copying Tony's form factor is bad enough, but laying the patch panel out so that it's BACKWARD from Moog's similar lineup is dumb as hell, unless you like patchcord snarls when using this with those. You DON'T put two modules under one knob without a way to differentiate the controls somehow. And some of what I see on Moog's site leaves...questions. But at least you can rack it this time out, since the cab it comes in looks like a piece of crap with a slit for directly connecting a power cord to the Mavis. Better hope there's a Eurorack connection there!
So, I liked the setup with multiple dual VCAs and two VCOs, but I don't like having the same module multiple time. For me a fundamental thing with modular is the mixing and matching of brands and unique takes to create one system.
-- Alltvin
Bad idea. So, let's say you have two oscillators, one being a Plaits, the other is a basic VCO. You'd LIKE to get the Plaits to sound really huge and fat, so you...oh, wait! Your VCOs don't have anything resembling the same waveform, so you can't exactly do that, because that detune trick requires (when done right!) two identical VCOs with identical waveforms, and if one's a Plaits, the other should also be a Plaits.
The same applies to the VCAs. Since those are Veils-topology VCAs, they'll all have the same sort of operating method, the same(ish) sweet spot on the variable response, same sort of gain factor, etc. That way, when you set one in the voice chain, the same sort of settings are applicable to each pair. This makes it much easier to get a patch set up, but if you go with all sorts of different VCAs, you won't get that. For example, in your new example, there's one of the After Later duals...but then, the next VCAs are those Doepfers, which DON'T have variable response. So if there's a certain curve you like on the After Later...well, that won't be happening with the Doepfer.
Couple of other things...for one, you really won't find much need for the Pam's MIDI expander. If you want to lock up drums to the modular, you can just use one of Pam's trigger outputs as exactly that. And if you need the drum machine to be the master clock, just send its timing sync from the machine to the Pam's clock input. Solution simple. And as for the question about the A-118-2, yes, the intention was to provide a noise/random source AND the sample and hold. You now have neither, save for the 2hp dual...but without any random sources, you can't use those to S&H noise/random signals to get a random CV output. But worse still, if you want to add a percussive "hit", you're now missing the audio source that you'd probably use for that.
Tell ya what...instead of progressing further with the hardware build, get hold of a copy of VCV Rack, and explore the why behind things like the identical VCOs, VCA behavior, and so on. For the most part, you should be able to put together various bits (I know there's Mutable module clones in the set) that explain the issues. VCV's free as well... https://vcvrack.com/
Modulargrid says it's $375. It's $299 at Perfect Circuit (not in stock). And it's $420 at Detroit Modular (in stock). The dealers seem to be getting worse than the profit taking Reverb sellers.
Great stuff this, I could listen all day to this, cools me down, especially after a stressful day. Today somehow lots of things didn't went the way I want, gave me a bad mood but this music of yours puts me back on track :-)
Therefore a big thank you for this great experience and I hope you will continue sharing your good work with us. Kind regards, Garfield.
For review reports of Eurorack modules, please refer to https://garfieldmodular.net/ for PDF formatted downloads
Holy Smoke! This is great stuff! You got a beautiful packed rack there and the music you manage to get out of there is sublime!
When did you say your next concert was? ;-) Kind regards, Garfield.
P.S.: Big thank you to Modulargrid for solving that issue with underscores in the link. I usually don't follow simply a link but like the above video it's clear what you get: a rack full of great modules & music ;-)
For review reports of Eurorack modules, please refer to https://garfieldmodular.net/ for PDF formatted downloads
Big thank you @Lugia! Knocked another one out the park
I've studied the setup and the different functionality you've added and made a little remix. Fun to mess around with and great start to work from.
I tried keeping the modules I have and still fit similar functionality and setup as you suggested. One thing to add is that I have an external Electron box I do drums and effects with right now. That's why I removed that effects module from the bottom right.
So, I liked the setup with multiple dual VCAs and two VCOs, but I don't like having the same module multiple time. For me a fundamental thing with modular is the mixing and matching of brands and unique takes to create one system.
1st row: I swapped the dual Plaits with a Twin Waver and two of the VCAs to other brands. The Ladik I couldn't find anywhere close to me, so jammed a Disting for the slew and whatever I might want to use it for, ended up with space for a little sampler. Haven't thought much about it, but might be fun.
2nd row: Added a midi out to help with the drum programming, but that got to tight for the A-118-2, so went with a 2hp one. Not sure if you added the A-118-2 for the S&H or the Noise? The rest of te row is the same except i manage to squeeze in my Quad VCA and output-module I already got.
Did I keep the spirit of your system, or completely missed the mark on some of its features?
Been having issues trying to get the video to embed, but apparently underscore characters in URLs are not parsed properly,
Thanks for reporting. If a Youtube link contained two underscores, the markdown parser interpreted this as text emphasis and rendered a beautiful em tags inside the video id code.
Should work now.
Listened and faved the other day on YT :) All good stuff.
Enjoy your spare HP, don't rush to fill every last space, this is not like filling sticker books. Resist the urge to 'complete' your rack, its never complete so just relax.
Hi All! Been having issues trying to get the video to embed, but apparently underscore characters in URLs are not parsed properly, so I can only provide a link this way:
I'm not sure what you call this kind of music other than modular synth jamming. Most of this is driven by the Stochastic Inspiration Generator, with a bass line from the MTM Turing Machine. I added some chords from the Prophet Rev 2 just to fill it in a bit. Frap Tools Brenso through Blades is used for the main lead voice and has Quadrax in Burst mode driving the filter cutoff. Make Noise DPO provides the main bass line and Piston Honda MkIII provides the steady bass oulse. Percussion is from Plaits and Erica Synths Black VCO 2 does kick drum. Moog Mother 32 is doing the little fast arpeggio.
I tweaked this patch for about two weeks and practiced performing it more than I care to admit, but still couldn't get in all the tweaks I made in my notes and keep it on the short side. It was a great learning experience though. :-) Cheers!
I have a few sessions on youtube, that have used this eurorack alongside the hydrasynth and a behringer mixer, the sessions where just eurorack and hydrasynth, no computer .......
Does make me wonder, though...how will HN's new version of the FX Aid fit into that lineup? There's definitely something rather different going on there, and I'm not just talking about the added display. Ostensibly, it could be another FV-1 module...or...?
The installed algo's are not convincing.
Happy Nerding's FX aid, beats it all the way .
If can't find other stuff to install I will definitely not keep it .
Quite disappointed.
Other FX I own to compare with :
FXaid / Mimeophon / Monsoon / Desmodus Versio / TipTop Z5000.
-- Sebastopol
Sorry to read that, for me it's quite the opposite, I love my FXAIDs ad I found the Timiszoara a very good companion, as it has a very diferent set of algos ! And I really love how it sounds. For exeemple, reverbs, on the FXAID it's quite impossible to get very short reverbs, where in the Timiszoara you really caan shape drum and perc reverbs with almost no tails.
The only - point would be the first slider that has a small latency, but not when driven via CV.
Hi Adr,
Great demo! Thanks a lot for demoing your Timiszoara to us :-)
I am saving money for the Starlab so this module and the mentioned FX Aid by Sebastopol have to wait ;-)
Thanks a lot for your video/sound demo, have a good weekend and kind regards, Garfield.
-- GarfieldModular
Thanks to YOU Garfield, you do an incredible, if not crazy job at your site! thank you for that.
Rackbrute alone is sort of...eh. The better idea, if you're going with one of those, is to pair it up with something like the Minibrute2 or the Minibrute 2S (my recommendation) to use the 6U of Eurorack as an "enhancer" to get the 2S to do things it can't do on its own. But if the intent here is to go with purely Eurorack, then I still suggest the Mantis. It's the very best bang-for-buck in cabs...and that's including the whole HISTORY of Eurorack cabs. And like I mentioned: expandable, great P/S, lightweight...hell, Tiptop even makes an accessory gig bag for the Mantis, so it can go anywhere with ease.
Good gracious, 'The Craft of Musical Composition: Book 2' by Hindemith has achingly specific instructions on what exactly to do within melody-crafting. Frankly @nickgreenberg, I'm impressed that you can recommend a book like this. I'm just trying to craft a system that won't get me booed off the dance floor. Thank you, I've ordered a copy and I'll see what I can make of it.
-- CardiacTasty
Another oldie but a goodie: Helmholtz's "On the Sensation of Tone". One of the first scientific works to deal with things such as timbre, reverberation decay, and on and on, approached from a not-quite-so-theory-packed perspective. And I can't recommend Nicolas Slonimsky's "Thesaurus" enough...just randomly flipping through it and choosing a scale at random can be a great way to approach the initial compositional steps.
A suggestion (much the same as 33PO above): get something bigger to do this in so that you can build out a FULL setup. At present, you're aiming at a Palette 62. Palette 62 = $299, gives you 62 hp in both a tile row and a 3U row.
I would strongly suggest looking at Tiptop's Mantis instead. It streets for $335 (ie: $36 more) and gives you TWO rows of 104 hp, plus a beefy P/S based on a kicked-up version of the uZeus. While you might be able to cook up an approximation of a full system in that Palette cab, you'll wind up having to compromise quite a bit to do that. Either you can put together a very small system with limited capabilities, or you can go with the Mantis and put together a full-on build...plus, the Mantis can be expanded to two joined cabs via Tiptop's extension hardware.
And I can't praise VCV enough. It's an exemplary way of learning the trickery of modular synthesis in the 21st century. Plus, it's free...and how can you argue against "free"?
Instead of a "normal" VCF, use one that has an insert path...and then drop something like a delay or reverb into that. Doepfer's A-106-1 fits into 14 hp, leaving 4 hp for an effect to screw with the resonance path...HN's FX Aid could work, and there's several others that fit in that remaining space.
The 106-1, fyi, is actually a version of the MS-20's Sallen-Key filter pair...which is definitely is capable of some weird filter interactions. Plus, this idea is pretty cost-effective and fills the 18 hp hole.
I would do this a little differently. Instead of the big Intellijel Quad VCA, I would suggest three After Later dual VCAs. They use the same topology as the Intellijel (and, natch, Veils), can sum to mono, all that. Put one after the Plaits, one after the VCF, and one after the Beads and then you'll get a voice path that's got 100% VCA control over amplitude. Maybe put the Quad VCA down in the modulation row then, so that you can have amplitude control (when needed) over your modulation signals. Gonna beat on this for a bit...
LATER: OK, this wasn't all that difficult to bang out, in truth. The voice row was already pretty well-implemented, so the big focus here was to load up the modulation row while still optimizing the voice row above. So...
OK...top row has the P/S, then next to that is Ladik's dual slew limiter for portamento, which you can have on either upward CV movement, downward, or both. I then doubled the Plaits, because 1 VCO = good, but 2 VCO = BETTER. This lets you do detuning, VCO sync and so on. After those is the first VCA pair, then we get into the VCFs. I put in a G-Storm Korg Delta VCF here, since this gives you smooth, pad-like responses...which complements the Steiner-Parker clone and its aggro sound. Then the next VCA pair, followed by this multiple-looking thing from Takaab which is actually a unity-gain fixed-pan mixer. The white-ringed jacks are your "left" and "right" outputs, and you use the seven inputs to place signals between them. This sets things up for a stereo feed to the Beads. After the Beads, one more VCA pair, then you've got an Alyseum QMix for your stereo mix. Output and headphone preamp duties are handled by the new version of Happy Nerding's Isolator.
Down below, things start with the Pam's, then a Doepfer Noise/Random/S&H is next. LFO duties get handled by a Xaoc Batumi (with the Poti expander) for four potential "raw" LFO signals. Maths follows, then one of Happy Nerding's 3xVCAs for linear, DC-coupled level manipulation of modulation signals (the Quad VCA was too big), and a Tiptop MISO for altering, mangling, inverting, and pretty much any other -ing you want with the modulation. And then, a Xaoc Zadar (also expanded with the Nin) offers four EG channels. One final addition with HN's new FX Aid Pro for extra processing, and that's it.
Should be easy enough to work with...but at the same time, there's a lot of raw power under the hood now.
Nah...those Tiptop Buchla 258s are only $200. Add a few "extras", like VCA control for the FM "modulator" VCO, a bit of waveshaping, et al...and you STILL come out well-equipped for cheap!
