Dear Voltage people,
I'm new here. Hello!
As of yet I've been playing with VCV Rack. Eurorack has taken me by the throat about 6 months ago and never let go yet. It's a perfect storm for a person like me. Musically educated IT guy with electronics tic that loves EDM but hates the DAW workflow. Proficient on the drums and piano. I started listening music seriously in the 1980s when synthesizers started to become mainstream. I used to be a gamer, until I discovered Eurorack..
I'm planning to take this journey further by building my own hardware rack. I watched a ton of vids and read many best-of lists to arrive at this setup:
The direction I want to take this in Musically is percussion-heavy, dark, gritty, industrial. I like the idea of generated sequences with limited random (mix 7 step sequence into 16 step base sequence to introduce controlled chaos, for instance). Genres I like and want to experiment with are DnB, Neurofunk, Elektro, Retro-wave, (industrial) Tekno, maybe even some Gabber. I want my sound to be dark, cold, gritty, snappy and heavy for this build.
Of course I'm looking for advice on the obvious things. Glaring gaps in the setup my noob eyes missed, better modules for the ones chosen, etcetera. As I'm painfully aware I didn't even scratch the surface yet concerning Eurorack, I hope you can help me "perfect" this box so it is the best I can get. I am planning on buying this bit by bit while practicing in VCV Rack, so being able to produce sound/music early on is not that hugely important. I also have no kids or wife, which certainly helps in freeing up some funds to do this ;-)
Thoughts on choices made:
TOP ROW (1U)
Steppy: Small sequencer with large application
Mult: well, mult.
Quadratt 1U: I learned attenuation/attenuverting is something you can't go without and this module seems very well equipped to do that.
SHTH 1U: same goes for S/T&H, can't go without. This module seemed nice because of small size and "no room in the main rows".
Audio I/O: get my music out of the box into PA. Planning on connecting headphones there if needed, so that interface can potentially be kept out of the rack.
MIDDLE ROW
Turing Machine: I love working with this thing in VCV Rack so I included it in the setup.
Euclidean Circles: Easy rythm setup with easy polyrythm access, without having to manipulate a lot.
BitBox Micro: Chopped up breaks with custom replay options and CV, Sample box if not used for breaks.
LIP: Noise Engineering seems to be the bomb for dark and gritty. I also like Instruo very much, but in vids I watched this thing kept on sounding darker and more industrial than the Cs-L for instance which steered me towards NE.
MIA: Same reasons as LIP, really.
AIA: Idem
BIA: Idem
DATA: It didn't take long for me to realize visualising things is super important during the learning process, and this module offers much more than an oscilloscope which also makes it useful when not using the oscilloscope for anything. So it looks to me like an auto-include.
BOTTOM ROW
PPW: Clock source and limited sequencing, quantizer without adding a separate module for the task (I see mentioned it can quantize, just not seen it in action yet). Had the clock expander besides it but with all the sequencing options already in the box I assumed it's not really needed.
Function Junction: "the easier Maths". I will probably swap to Maths later on when my addiction is permanent, but to cut a little cost and cut some complexity as I'm still a beginner of course I went for FJ. I thought about rampage which is available in VCV Rack, but it's wider than this one so wouldn't fit in the box in the current setup.
Branches: Love to use this in VCV Rack as well so sort of auto-include for me.
Ochd: This is not even a question. I use this thing in close to 100% of my VCV Rack patches. auto-include.
VC EG: I was looking for a CV addressable EG and I use this in VCV Rack too so familiarity made me go this way.
Freak: Awesome sounding multimode filter, also available in VCV Rack so again a familiarity thing.
MFX: FX option with big bang for buck in a small formfactor.
Ghost: Became a fan of it watching Andrew's tube. I know separate dedicated FX options are much more powerful but as these are notoriously expensive and take up quite some rackspace I've cut some corners here. The Ghost also seems to offer options that aren't availble to us when using separate modules.
Channels MK II: I felt the need for a mixing option and this felt extensive enough for the setup. I assume I don't I need more than 4 channels together with the other options I have in the machine. This will give the much needed control when this thing hits the live-scene (if ever).
Doubts:
MFX/Ghost: Although these save a ton of space (and money) I am not completely sure on if I really should. Of course there is plenty reason why the lot of you use separate modules for FX rather than a combined system like Ghost so I might have chosen the wrong option here.
5 voices: Bitbox, LIP, MIA, AIA, BIA. Maybe one or even two too much? Which one would you cut and what would you put in it's place?
Branches: Replace for something with more logic options?
SHTH: I understood that some Sample & Hold modules don't actually hold the Voltage that well over time. Is this one a good one?
I kept myself away from dedicate drum sound modules to force myself to make percussion sounds from scratch using the modules available in the build. I just don't know if that's the right way to go when you are planning on going percussion heavy. Separate Kick to gain more control over it? The one from Erica Synths for instance? Or Kickall from Befaco?
I'm looking forward to any thoughts and remarks you might have on the rack! Thanks in advance for any time and effort someone decides to put into educating and helping me!
Sjleegketting.