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i fell backwards into modular a few months back during a lengthy study into the nature of continuous physical systems and chaotic resonance.

i've intentionally avoided forums, cultural events, and music-in-general for the last ~year as a means of incubating endogenous emergent patterns. i decide to build modules by reading their description and if the purpose is inscrutable then i buy it or build from schematic. manuals and instructions are discarded.

i have no idea what i'm doing.

but i made this a couple nights ago. this is a single track recording of a live jam... i popped a microphone into my amp box and the record button on audacity, then recorded that output into my iiphone.

again, no idea what the hell i'm supposed to do here.

the only thing programmed or sequenced is the kick and snare, which are happening at regular intervals. the remainder of the variation is either emergent from the system itself, or me twiddling on a time control delay knob, or a set of ADSR sliders. that's about it.

a colleague said that this sounds like something from the blade ii soundtrack but i think it sounds like complex nonsense.

Thanks, the cat appreciates it :)

I'd completely agree on your priorities...

if you keep the 4ms modules you can always leave them in a drawer for a while see if you miss them or not before selling them! then the question is either: what to take out or get new case... my answer to this has always been new case... which is why I have 8 of them!

yeah I didn't know how to update the thumbnail ... if you click it you should get to the actual rack.

yep, ensemble & sampler. might keep them tho, still unsure. my priority is adding an es-8, some fx & possibly some useful utilities atm.

EDITED Jul 17th 2022, 13:09

thumbnail & rack don't match - but as you say you have elements, I guess the rack is correct?

which 2 4ms modules to get rid of? the ensemble & the sampler?

hey guys, thanks a lot for both of your replies, I'm reading them attentively.

here's my current rack (click to expand):

I've noticed that I am using mostly the elements, delay and erbeverb for sound design, and feeding in a lot of sound sources from my computer. Because of this workflow I really have come to think for me the way to go is to add some more effects modules and maybe even sell the two 4ms modules (much as I like them, just not using them much), hence the original post.

@Lugia: thanks for your suggestion but I really feel comfortable with using effects in modular like that, and for my workflow atm it makes a lot of sense to continue in this direction.

EDITED Jul 17th 2022, 10:49

It's like an ode to fermentation (this interpretation is obviously under influence ;) Anyway, a nice track. Smooth and relaxing (not to mention the cat).

Hi Nick

wow that's a big case... I think I'd have gone for 2*9u instead of 1 big case... which would have left an extra row for expansion!

mixing really needs to be addressed... especially with so many voices

lpgs - take a look at the jolin labs - 8 in 6hp
filters - alm dual dagger - dual filter 6hp
switches - doepfer a151 - 4 way switch in 4hp

what are the low priority modules? which modules are you still to purchase, if any?

have you tried the harmonic oscillator in stages? might be able to replace the verbos - don't know never tried either...

do you really need the data - could you replace it with the korg - or vcv rack when you need a scope?

I count 37 audio rate outputs in the top 2 rows - some could do with sub-mixers by the look of it - maybe 3 or 4 4hp cp3 style ones...

doesn't seem to be much for cv mixing - obviously I'd want a matrix mixer...

I think we need to see how much space there really is for the mixing solution before working on it...

Mixing lanes: Jim's been big on the Tesseract TexMix series, and I've come to appreciate the simplicity and size aspects they've got. Plus, you can build onto a TexMix if/when necessary...with quad mono or stereo strip modules, and you also get a really nice AUX send/return implementation.

The only other thing that jumps out at me as far as changes to the present build is that you might want to move the buffered mult and precision adder in row #2 to the left end of the row. That way, they're a little more convenient (you don't have to dive into a patchcord jungle) and the cables to the oscillators can be dressed over the top of the unit if needed.

E370: Don't take it out! If it fits as well as it does here, then that's a sign you're doing something right.

Switching/logic: BassBow II might be able to do that, but it might be even more interesting to use a bunch of branched 3 or 4-step sequential switches (like Doepfer's A-151), and then drive them with various clocks. With that, you can whip up some really complicated sequencer line behavior. Screams for Boolean logic!

Ya done good, Nick!

I only have a VCA and the multi from XAOC, but I can feel you're totally right. The design is one of my faborutes on the Euro sphere, and yeah, I almost clicked "add to cart" a few times bout the Batumi. Odessa seems to be a wonderful generator...

-- -ADR-

And actually, one of their least snazzy modules is perhaps one of their very best: Bytom. I honestly don't know of any other pulse integrator in Eurorack that offers the capabilities this does for that price, with their excellent ergonomics in effect as usual. IMHO, if you've got a lot of clock manipulation and logic happening, the Bytom is a killer module.

Hi folks,

My new 15Ux126HP Case from Lake! has arrived, and with it I am re-racking some modules, and arriving at this:

I'm curious to hear your ideas on this and if there are any obvious improvements. Below I'll go through i) my purposes for this rig and ii) my current ideas for likely changes.

The purpose for this rig is to have an inspiring and powerful mobile rig, mainly for use at my GF's place in the company of her and the cats(!!!), but more broadly to have a good mobile modular instrument. It is indeed mobile, thanks to Case from Lake!, but fully loaded a bit of a pain to move around, about as much (or little) fun to move around as a small drum kit. The musical purposes for this rig are:
1. provide a playground for sound design
2. provide some deep sequencing capabilities, including opportunities explore extended sequencing techniques (e.g. sequencing sequencers)
3. have enough perc voices and lanes to do some interesting rhythm programming in modular
4. have enough basic mix and FX capabilities to do a rough mix in modular
5. be able to record several tracks of audio and CV to a laptop (currently covered by ES8&6). I don't plan to get a full song out of the rig at any one time, but to get some key pitched and perc tracks out of it (via ES8&6) should be doable. Net net I'd like to be able to rough out track ideas on this rig, suck them into the DAW, and finish them there.

My current sense of this rig:
a) it feels both inspiring and unbalanced. Yay that it's inspring! I doubt I'll ever fully balance this rig, but a little more balance might help.
b) yes, I've gone OTT on oscillators (top two rows). Note that maybe half of those work well as perc voices also. I intend to keep 75%+ of the top two rows dedicated to "voicing."
c) middle row is sequencing. Of course mainly these will be doing pitched voice and perc sequencing. Vector's 8 tracks would be enough for most applications. The other sequencers are there to give me some options: different UI and workflow, some more lanes, some more opportunities for complex sequencing (e.g. switching or sequencing sequencers, etc.). I DO plan to run some sequencing to Xaoc Lipsk when that arrives, which should allow me to sequence timbres / wavefolding; Flux to Lipsk is an intriguing possibility. On the middle row, I feel like Vector+Extender will always be there, but some of the other stuff might get swapped out for more "workhorse" alternatives.
d) 4th row (from top) is CV and utilities. I feel >80% good about this row. Sum & Difference I don't seem to use much. I might try to free up space for another Quad VCA.
e) bottom row is sound mangling, FX, mix, and output. Module order is kinda strange (due to case depth limitations in some places). Basically on the left I've got sound mangling (XAOC Leibniz units, wavefolder, filter), middle is several mix & fx units, and right hand side is signal out. The WORNG unit is in that row to fill some rough-mix / spatialize duties.

My current sense of opportunities for revisions:
-- more filtering. I'm not a huge filter user, but this rig could benefit from more filtering options. Any suggestions on i) stereo filters that would fit well here or ii) LPGs with lots of lanes per HP (which might be great adds to the perc sound design)?
-- more mixdown lanes in small HP: the Doepfer + WORNG units are not really cutting it presently. I would gladly take suggestions for simple but HP efficient mix solutions to consider swapping in.
-- more switching / logic for complex sequencing: BossBowII (when available) or similar might be good for helping me get the sequencer lanes interacting musically with each other
-- another obvious possibility is to move the E370 out of this rig, as it is so huge! But for the near future, it is staying.
-- obviously most of the HP is already claimed, so any swap ins will require removing a lower priority module. And FYI I already own a lot of these modules (I've been re-racking them to the new case).

Curious to hear any ideas / responses you might have to the above rig, thanks!

Nicholas

EDITED Jul 16th 2022, 21:22

Sounding great, I quite fancy a Verbos harmonic oscillator but its a chunk of cash I don't have. I need to sell the wife or something!

Great stuff :)

Thats some Twinkly $h!t right there

Using Monsoon Clouds in Resonator mode, split to Disting on Stereo Tape Delay and Mimeophon. Marbles is in control, Divkid/Instruo Ochd is modulating and the 2hp RND is modulating Ochd. There is a Water sample playing in the Prok-RadioMusic. Some noise through a filter sweep and some base Triangle wave through the DannySound Timbre. SSF Vortices on panning control of these last two parts.

Gorgeous stuff

Very nice track and great artwork too. Thanks for sharing. Cheers!
-- TumeniKnobs

Thanks T. Her artwork is indeed wonderful. Decided to go simple with the audio and leave plenty of room to absorb the art.

@Lugia

It's Xaoc. Which I think might be Russian for "kickass!" There are so many sneaky and hidden functions in those (particularly when you add a module's expander) that you can just go on and on with them and it'll take you a while to exhaust the possibilities with ANY of their stuff. Batumi and Zadar are more or less "go-tos" for adding big bangs in small spaces, for instance. And when they go ALL OUT (think their Odessa module here), it really IS all out! Feckin' amazing design going on there...on both sound AND ergonomics.
-- Lugia
I only have a VCA and the multi from XAOC, but I can feel you're totally right. The design is one of my faborutes on the Euro sphere, and yeah, I almost clicked "add to cart" a few times bout the Batumi. Odessa seems to be a wonderful generator...

EDITED Jul 16th 2022, 05:52

as far as i know moving a row to a specific position is not possible
i already made a suggestion for this feature in the feature requests thread
but you can swap rows in the Edit -> swap rows menu:

-- modular01

Ok great. Cheers!

I agree, but I also think it's good to remind people that the extra 10% is going to cost them an extra 90% - just like it will do with modular in general...

-- JimHowell1970

My sentiment exactly. As an example, I've been scribbling down some diagrams for a multichannel sound projection system, and for shits 'n' giggles, I also did a version of this solely in Eurorack.

Original version, using Chinese copies of dbx speaker management hardware for the multichannel splitting and initial delays + inexpensive used processors for the effect delays and reverbs = about $750.

Eurorack version = about $2500.

So, yeah...it would be easier to implement the Eurorack version, since it would probably take up most of a Mantis and you would just have to jack into your amplified speakers. But when you're doing art on the sort of budgets we've had for art in the USA for a few decades, you're gonna be reaching for that AliExpress malt liquor instead of that Eurorack champagne. Just simple economics.

Like "It's Bond, James Bond"...
-- JimHowell1970

And if you can get someone to intone that slogan with the proper accent, it would be the PERFECT opening card bit for one of their promos. Yep...I like!

I bought into the hate for in rack percussion
-- xnax

I absolutely hate the use of the word "hate" in this sort of context, it's far too over the top... excessive hyperbole!!! hehehe

& don't get me started on the use of "gatekeeping" and "rules" (mostly on reddit, tbh) in relation to advice given on here and modwiggler...

brilliant rant though!!! and your percussion rack sounds great...

I agree, but I also think it's good to remind people that the extra 10% is going to cost them an extra 90% - just like it will do with modular in general...

EDITED Jul 15th 2022, 23:02

hehehe I knew you knew!!!

maybe "It's XAOC, kickass chaos" would be even better!

Like "It's Bond, James Bond"...

Oh, yeah...I know it's supposed to be "chaos", but I see a slogan possibility there: "Xaoc. Chaos. Kickass."

the way in rack drums are tossed out as unreasonable is silly to me as the entire point of modular is to build the instrument you want to build.
-- xnax

I totally agree @xnax. It's YOUR instrument. Build what you want and re-sell the parts that aren't working for you.
Personally, I've taken a hybrid approach with drums, incorporating a desktop 808 clone with modular drums. In fact, I've dedicated 104hp just to modular drums (not including various trigger sequencers and switches) and I couldn't be happier. I may even pick up a DFAM again just so I can (*gasp) take it out of its own dedicated case and put it in my rack, because THAT'S WHERE IT WILL GET USED THE MOST. All of these "rules of thumb" for building a rack need to be taken with a grain of salt. If you want a drum rack, build a drum rack. If you want to rack up a bunch of semi-modulars together, do that. It might cost a little more than alternative methods, but that's on each of us to weigh the costs and benefits. If I listened to every piece of advice given on this forum, I'd have ended up with a bunch of stuff that's great for generative ambient or West Coast-ish Buchla bongo sounds but useless for what I actually find myself doing most of the time.
Only you know how you will make the best use of your gear. Experiment and have fun.

I bought into the hate for in rack percussion when I was first getting started and bought a drum machine and immediately regretted it. It takes up more room on the desk. It's another power supply, bag, and cables needed to carry to gigs. It's more wires and connections to remember to make at the show. People say it can do what in rack can do, but it's just not true. Yes, it can make drum sounds and can even have accents. Yes you can program sequences and store multiple sequences to switch between. Yes it can be clocked from your system or be a clock for your system. That's about it though. It can't be immediately tweaked and adjusted to fit an improvised set. It cant react to changes you make in the melody as you make those changes, or build and swell and fall with an LFO that is building dynamics within your set. It is not immediate and it is not a part of your system. It is a thing on the side that needs to be adjusted constantly or preprogrammed methodically to not just be a constant rhythm marching through your set and not allowing it to breathe and move. Yes, it will cost you more money, but what you get is miles beyond what a drum machine can do. That argument is like saying don't build a modular synth, just buy a keyboard synth. It completely ignores the whole point of modular. The setup I am building towards will be about $10k and it will have one acid bass line with a simple VCO, filter, distortion, delay. It will have a kick drum that uses three different modules to get the shape and flexibility I want. It will be using Erica Synths Sample Drum with two different noise samples being triggered at a time(and the two samples being triggered cycle via CV from Mimetic digitalis for variety/accents) and crossfaded into one voice. It will have high hats that probabilistically cycle between two variable noise sources fed into two low pass gates which are then crossfaded together into a hit and an accent which will also be varied by the gates/triggers sent to the LPGs. There will be multiple feedback sources that can be shaped into tones/textures that can be modulated by the rhythm, or an LFO, or both. Feeding all of it, I have Pams, Knights Gallop, Time Wizard, and Bin Seq feeding two different rhythms into a sL3kt to switch between on the fly, so I can be shaping/modifying one rhythm while the other is playing. They will also be providing timing for the bass line, effects, feedback shaping etc. From Sl3kt the triggers get fed into Idum which can mutate/modify the rhythm at will. I have mutes to shut down or change gate routing at will. There will be effects after all this, but the effects could be after your drum machine if you wanted to do it that way(which you should). The point of my rig is to be able to play it spontaneously and be able to shape and shift the rhythms to fit the feel of whatever I am doing in that moment. I am an improvisational person so this is ideal for me and was the whole draw of modular synthesis for me. I'm sure that a drum machine fits a lot of peoples needs, but the way in rack drums are tossed out as unreasonable is silly to me as the entire point of modular is to build the instrument you want to build.

Yes.

thanks !
waiting this extra for perfection.

Is the entire world slipping closer to recession?

Love this. So simple and beautiful. I’m a sucker for slow Rings melodies into a huge reverb. Could listen to this for hours. Cheers!
-- TumeniKnobs

Thanks for listening! Slow rings melodies -> big verb describes most of what I've been doing lately. I think I might actually sell my rings module though, I tend to spend more time flarfing with it than producing sounds. Might have to get my greasy mitts on a Basimilus...

I generally agree with @Lugia's advice to avoid in-rack percussion, especially in smaller racks, and followed it myself for a long time. However, I got a good deal on EC + SS while filling my fourth 104hp row, and after working with that and external drum machines for a while (using a CV-to-MIDI module), I bought QD. This still may not be the right decision for you, but here are a few points in their favour. EC is very playable. Euclidean capability is relatively rare in standalone drum machines or sequencers, and even when it is present, it's unlikely to have a good UI. Pam's gives you the capability in-rack but I didn't consider it playable (it's fine for set-and-forget).

Unsurprisingly, QD works very well with EC, and is also quite playable on its own. With both EC and QD, you can do most of what you need in a straightforward manner, but for some functions, you will need to consult the manual to understand what the lights mean (often these are just configuration settings). QD can play your own samples (it comes with a good library) and it has the mini-Rings part of Plaits and, I suspect, the percussion models (or something very much like them). You also have Plaits and One in your proposed rack, but I would encourage you to instead consider for that space some of the more complex and unusual oscillators available, such as the new Bastl Pizza. QD also has a compressor and (as an Easter egg) a delay and reverb. You could eliminate the tiny 2-3hp effects modules, which are going to be a nuisance to work with. (If you don't think QD's effects plus Beads is sufficient, consider the 6hp FX Aid XL.)

I can't speak for @Lugia, but we often have similar points of view...

the main reason that it's often better to get a standalone drum machine as opposed to a modular one is expense - drum modules and modular drum kit synths etc and sequencing them is always going to be much more expensive, especially when you take into account case space, than a similarly functional standalone drum machine - most of which include both sequencing and drum kit oriented effects and are reasonably easily and cheaply synced to modular and often have way more channels for different drum sounds

this pretty much equally applies to everything related to percussion - with the exception, perhaps, of using more generic modules to generate drum sounds and either sampling them or recording track at a time in a daw or similar, this to some extent covers both modules such as plaits or peaks and rolling your own sounds from fundamental synthesis modules (vco, noise, vcf, etc etc)

take the quad drum for instance - it costs more than a cheap drum machine to start with, it needs to be put in a case, it needs sequencing, it doesn't have any effects, it needs to be fed into to a mixer and it's only 4 voices...

take say erica or wmd drum modules - you really want a few of them (probably at least 3) which adds up in cost very very quickly - and then you hit the same issues as with the quad drum...

take something like the queen of pentacles or blk_noir - mostly the same issues again - except mixing and effects are on board

the only advantages of modular percussion are convenience, "it's in the rack with everything else" and modulation - but you pay a major premium for that, generally many multiples of that for not necessarily that much gain...

saying that I have an in rack drum synthesizer (FSS Portland, which I DIYed), Peaks (which I often use for kick and snare), plaits (which I sometimes use for hats or other percussion), a general cv, a few lpgs and marbles, erica black sequencer and a zularic repetitor (which I often use for drum sequencing) and a befaco cv thing (again that I built) that I will use for sequencing my external midi drum synths - & I'd like (but not so much I'm running out to buy asap) a blck_noir and a crucible...

that's at least a couple of thousand in modules alone + at least a couple of hundred in case space (most of my 8 cases are DIY & under £1/hp) - when in all reality I could do 90%+ of what I use it for with a pretty basic and inexpensive drum machine... and get 90%+ the same results much quicker

at the end of the day it's your money... do what you want with it... find your workflow and make your peace with your money... no one cares, except you... take or leave advice as you see fit... etc etc etc

Elevator Sound in the UK has it listed on preorder, and the manual is available from the VPME website.

Love this. So simple and beautiful. I’m a sucker for slow Rings melodies into a huge reverb. Could listen to this for hours. Cheers!

Very nice track and great artwork too. Thanks for sharing. Cheers!

I was planning on buying the QD and a new sequencer, but I bought Elements and Cloud Terrarium because both makers are no longer making new modules. I’ve had my eye on both modules for a while and learned early that supply of Eurorack stuff is fleeting, so I just went for it, and glad I did. It is a shame to see synthesizers.com in trouble and other manufacturers closing shop these days. Hopefully it doesn’t get much worse.

@Lugia @Vow3ll Many thanks for the suggestion of Tiptop Mantis, I'll definitely switch for that: more space and more power with roughly the same cost! My French patriotism led me to Arturia too fast haha!

@Lugia If I understand your point correctly, you don't really believe in drum-oriented modules (voices and sequencing) like the QD. The reasoning would be the same with "fancier" modules like Queen of Pentacles or Erica Synth analog drum modules? The latest clones from Uli are definitely tempting either the 808 or 909, I might get one one day. That being said, they do not provide modulations option right?

any news on this?

as far as i know moving a row to a specific position is not possible
i already made a suggestion for this feature in the feature requests thread
but you can swap rows in the Edit -> swap rows menu:

-- modular01

Thanks so much for the help!

as far as i know moving a row to a specific position is not possible
i already made a suggestion for this feature in the feature requests thread
but you can swap rows in the Edit -> swap rows menu:

EDITED Jul 15th 2022, 05:01

Bump, also trying to figure this out.

EDITED Feb 27th 2023, 07:34

Thanks no I think I’d run it externally to save on rack space

@Lugia - it's chaos, not kickass, but they might be that too!

EDITED Jul 14th 2022, 21:24

It's Xaoc. Which I think might be Russian for "kickass!" There are so many sneaky and hidden functions in those (particularly when you add a module's expander) that you can just go on and on with them and it'll take you a while to exhaust the possibilities with ANY of their stuff. Batumi and Zadar are more or less "go-tos" for adding big bangs in small spaces, for instance. And when they go ALL OUT (think their Odessa module here), it really IS all out! Feckin' amazing design going on there...on both sound AND ergonomics.

I wouldn't recommend building an entire system to simply do audio effects, given that you can find a buttload of physical rackmounted effects processors for damn near dirt. Seriously...if you can pay something like $180 for a used Lexicon LXP-15 ii (it was about 10X that when new!), why in the hell wouldn't you go for THAT rather than trying to cram functionality on that level into a module that goes in a Eurorack cab? And if patchability is the key here, just route all of the outboard gear's I/Os through some patchbays. I've been working like that for decades...and the idea DOES come with a "pedigree" of sorts, since I cribbed that from Syracuse's analog studio...

...which Uncle Bob designed. Not much better in the way of authorities than that!

It's useful...but it also has its own case and power, ergo it's probably not a good idea to toss those aside to spend even more to house it in the more expensive Eurorack cab spaces. Plus, if you really want that Moog sound, it might be a better idea in this case to just get a proper lowpass ladder-filter clone of the 904 and a clone of the CP3 mixer. Those modules are where the "mojo" resides, and the rest of what's in the Mavis can be replicated in a more flexible manner by basic Eurorack modules.

TBH, Moog should've followed their usual pattern of releasing their Moogfest workshop synths, and given us the Spectravox to use alongside their other 60 hp devices. But they didn't.

First off, I think you'll be better-served by going with a Tiptop Mantis cab instead of the Arturia. They also expand easily; Tiptop carries an extension bracket for those that lets you add a second cab above the first one. And power-wise, the Mantis uses a beefed-up variation on Tiptop's uZeus which is built into the cab; the Rackbrute requires 5 hp right off for its P/S. But the best point: 104 hp x2 for $335, as opposed to the Rackbrute's 88 (or 89, depending on who you ask) x2 - 5 hp for the power for $359.

The other point here is that trying to build a "drum machine" into a modular rig is a losing proposition. It requires that quite a bit of the space go to voicing and sequencing modules, which then diminishes the space available for synth modules...so, in the end, you wind up either with a huge and spendy system, or a more sensibly-sized result in which both the synth and drums wind up being somewhat compromised. And then...the cost!

OK...we'll take the obvious drum machine function modules, namely the Euclidean Circles and the QD, and check those prices...which come out to $772-ish, depending on the exchange rate. Doesn't sound too spendy? Well, to my immediate left as I type this, I've got one of Uli's 808 clones, which nails that sound, adds a few useful functions that the original didn't have, and puts all that in your hands for $329. And if you think that's not sufficient, add another machine and lock it up with the first one. In the end, using these purpose-built machines is the RIGHT move; you cannot replicate the RD-8 mkii's functionality in Eurorack until you're on up in the $1k+ zone. It might seem more convenient to put it in the modular, but in the end, you lose too much and pay too much for that to be tenable.

have conviced me to keep it well preciously!