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It's not really a Behringer issue, unless you consider copying the original design TOO exactly to be an issue.

isn't that one of the main gripes about the behringer eurorack modules though in general - along with them being generally poorish quality in terms of panel furniture - cardboard knob inserts that fall off easily etc

Smallest and most basic complex VCO: https://www.modulargrid.net/e/void-modular-gravitational-waves While it's missing a few controls you'll find on other complex VCOs, it's still very capable with its internal ring mod, plus you can use other modules to get deeper into the complex oscillator mojo...linear VCAs + an envelope source = oscillator signal that can rise after the note-on to alter the timbre across the sound's attack when you feed the audible oscillator the other oscillator's signal into the FM input.

Also, it's exactly $250...fits your budget perfectly.

ARP 2600 VCA sections have been annoying synthesists since 1971. Typically, they need a good voltage WHACK to fully open, and that's been a thing forever. The two ways around that are to either open the VCA slightly, then start applying an EG per taste via the "LIN" input...or to use the VCA control input marked "EXPL". When the 2600's VCA gets an exponential envelope, then you get the right sort of result. It's not really a Behringer issue, unless you consider copying the original design TOO exactly to be an issue.

However, since it IS a known issue that's been "modded around" in past versions, a good synth tech should be able to apply the same mod to Uli's version. And there's other potential mods in there, although B. gave us a few of them (like VCO sync). But unfortunately, the 2600 is rather infamous for DC on its outputs, which is probably why the original ARP spec had that tough-to-open VCA to prevent DC from going out all the time when the VCA is outputting audio, but at the same time having it also capable of level control over CVs and modulation, which requires a DC-coupled VCA.

Yet another reason why the 2600 is perhaps THE teaching synth of all time. How many other patchables do you know that offer that flexibility + an opportunity to learn why you use exponential responses for audio and linear for modulation? 50 years on, and the 2600 STILL can strut its stuff!

Don't forget to consider the Make Noise - STO module, great little VCO that's easily to be under estimated and it's affordable.

Hi Sacguy71,

Is that just me or do have others the same problem? If I click on this post of yours, it doesn't display the video and I have to open it in YouTube itself, not here; like the previous post you did today.

Great part 2 movie! Ha, ha, it might not be on purpose but in the beginning of your movie when you move with your hand the "curtain of cables" away that blocked the Beads module, it's pretty nice way of introducing Beads :-)

Great sounds you are creating here! It's a good video showing some of the important modules of Mutable Instruments, it regenerates my appetite for some more Mutable Instruments modules :-) Thanks a lot for the demo and kind regards, Garfield.

While a complex oscillator would offer a lot of variety, I would say that Dixie II+ is a good choice for an analog oscillator within your price range.

Get a complex oscillator like Instruo CS-l, Rossum Trident or Endorphin.es Furtherrr Generator.

There is a panel selector that lets you pick different face plates for modules; the other, pre-existing Malekko Quad VCA module has both black and white face panels available.

dear modular grid community!
I need some advice for my last module I want to add to my system (right now).

this is my current system:

I think that my pamelas new workout and my new nerdseq are a little redundant, especially for my little system I want to build. I guess I will trade my pamelas for a new sound source.

Just some information on what I'm doing or want to do in the future: these are some examples I sequenced with pamelas:
https://soundcloud.com/user-206782857

I was happy with it for quite some time, but I wanted more control and keep some randomness in my sequences. this is where the nerdseq came in. it's probable a little overkill but in the end besides the supreme sequencer capabilities I got a lot of modulation outputs (lfos, envelopes), a sample player + basic digital oscillator voices. I'm planning something in between ambient / electronica music production (complete without the computer).

I'm fairly new to the modular world, and my current feeling is a need for a new voice / oscillator. There is the disting ex and I use it a lot for all kind of sound sources, but I also want the other functions of it as well (you know what I mean?). I sometimes use the filter 8 for oscillator, but then I don't have a proper filter. That are my thoughts right now. I'm currently looking at the make noise telharmonic, sto or intellijel dixie. I don't want to spend more than €250 (used) - maybe a little more. are there any other good sound sources you think are out there that would my system pretty well? If you have some other recommendation I should consider as well, please let me know! :-)

I appreciate your help a lot!

Thanks Garfield.

Yes, I am using iMovie on my Macbook to edit videos to improve content and quality. That makes life way easier and let's me add things not possible otherwise. Youtube is funny it may have been still processing the final version of the video after I uploaded it. Beads is super fun! I have perfect modular ambient machine in Mutable Instruments Beads, Plaits, Rings and Marbles. I want to try the new filter Blades with it in the future.

More tweaking and using Quadrax , Batumi and Marbles for modulation.

Hi Steve,

Thank you very much for the information regarding the Polaris, it's good to hear it's super solid, I like that from modules. I will move the Polaris higher up on my wish list :-) Kind regards, Garfield.

Hi Sacguy71,

Oh yes, finally a video from you again! :-) I like your new style of video, did you get some new tools to make videos?

By the way, your video link here in modulargrid.net didn't seem to work, I managed to watch it on YouTube though. Hmm, and around 4:30 I am getting an error from YouTube saying: An error occurred. Please try again later.

He, he, the musical change around 1+ minute is fun. Thanks a lot for demoing the Beads module, hopefully the issues with YouTube will be solved and kind regards, Garfield.

Hi Cmb_,

I just returned from Superbooth and promised you to report about it, especially Rabid Elephant. I had been in the main building, i.e. the FEZ Building and arrived at the second last booth and I was getting worried that perhaps Rabid Elephant wouldn't be at the Superbooth, perhaps because Covid? You wouldn't know, right?

That second last booth was Rabid Elephant though :-) The good news, on the stand of Rabid Elephant the Portal Drum module was part of the rack that was on display at Superbooth, so lucky :-)

I will be honest with you, till the moment I met the guy from Rabid Elephant (my apologises to this person, I forgot his name :-( ), I was for myself not too much interested in Rabid Elephant modules however after this very friendly guy explained in a detailed and nice way his modules, I am getting some serious appetite for his modules :-) I still feel they are somewhat expensive however at least I do understand now why you are interested in modules of this brand.

The fellow is pretty young, at least compared to myself however his explanation was clear, good and understandable. Our main focus was, on your request, the Drum Portal module, which he had there on display. I can talk most probably for hours about this module however to summarise this a little bit: It's amazing how much functionality has been packed into this module without being over-complicated and though the module isn't small (sorry I forgot the HP size definitely more than 10 HP, towards 20 HP? Not sure about its size, sorry) it's a hell of a drum module! Besides the "usual drum possibilities", like tone, attack and that kind of stuff there are seriously many (but can't remember them all by heart) extra functions possible with either knobs or the many small switches that have been provided with this module. The knobs are... how to call them? Double knobs? So one knob exists of two elements that can be turned, so per double-knob you can adjust already 2 parameters, that seems a bit odd, the knobs are quite tall, he said he wants to look for a bit smaller versions of that, but after a short while you really get used to it and at least to me it didn't really disturb me from a user interface point of view. For myself I felt the switches were a little too small however his argument was that he didn't want to make them too tall since that would cause the chance of accidentally switch them over while turning for example a knob. That might be indeed a good point (though I never had that with any of my modules ever, so far), so if you don't mind those quite tiny small switches, I guess the user interface is just good, nothing really wrong with it.

The price, he wasn't sure yet, for the North America market he guessed it would be in the 700 - 800+ category somewhere, for Europe he doesn't know yet, because of import taxes, likely higher though. So for me, living in Europe, I feel that's a steep price on the other hand I have to be honest here that looking at what this module can do, that's seriously amazing! So for people who are looking for a serious good drum module that has tons of functionality (no menu diving at all, just knobs and switches) perhaps indeed this is worth it.

I also asked about the availability, that was the question where he had most difficulty to answer that. Not because he didn't want to however because he is missing an IC chip that has a shortage on the current market situation. He told me that in fact the module is ready, just except the IC that's missing. So he couldn't give a clear answer to that, just because he wouldn't really know when he would be able to get that chip on stock.

I have to admit that it is pretty difficult to check out a module for someone because there is the difference in how we each of us are looking at things and how to judge certain experiences. I hope I could be of some help here to you and that at least some of the information is kind of helpful to you.

To summarise this: this drum module is certainly for people who really want a serious drum module that is way beyond the average drum module. This module is able to handle so much, can do so many things, yet it is still very easy to handle its functionalities with a good user interface experience.

Kind regards, Garfield.

Hi @Garfield and everyone check this out

Spent time last night patching Mutable Instruments Beads and had tons of fun. Here is the demo video:

It is a very deep module and tons of fun with Rings and Marbles especially! I now have an infinite tonal palette for ambient music.
I used Mutable Instruments Plaits and Noise Engineering Cursus Iteritas as the audio sources and fed these into Beads and tried various settings for the grain playback. I am still learning it as well as diving deeper into Marbles and Rings. Marbles is quite the complex modulator!

have fun...

but remember in order to have fun sometimes we need to do a bit of reseach - and RTFM

if you don't mind drilling holes in your case, can do basic soldering and crimp an idc cable then it's reasonably easy to DIY a solution

EDITED Sep 19th 2021, 16:39

There's also the 2HP sized breakout: https://expert-sleepers.co.uk/tinymidibreakout.html

Then that plus a disting mk4 is 6HP.

Are there any other MIDI-to-CV modules that can work with this breakout module? I'm looking for something really slim (2hp) that I could connect this breakout to that would then do the conversion.

Thanks, that definitely helped me a lot

Fantastic development, balance, and really digging all the textures here. Thanks for sharing @Manbearpignick

Thank you, franq - yeah I kinda feel many Krell type patches only scratch the surface in that you’re hearing the immediate signals coming from the randomized AD loop at the heart of a patch like that. You can obviously take that signal and manipulate it in so many ways and still keep it rhythmically related. That’s what I was going for so good to hear your feedback!

i got a mantis case for sale if you are interested and live in the EU?

‘(...) I'm going to extend my rack to another 3U of space’.
Honestly, investing directly in another RackBrute 6U would be wiser...
-- Sweelinck

or better yet a mantis or a doepfer lc9 - best bang for buck cases (price/hp), excluding b-company clones - and no rack warts stealing valuable hp!!!

good work, I get some jerry goldsmith vibes here, haunted melodies and far away from boring like the most common krell patches along internet

‘(...) I'm going to extend my rack to another 3U of space’.
Honestly, investing directly in another RackBrute 6U would be wiser... Then a few suggestions:
Dirty textures: NE Viol Ruina ?
Melodic: Stochastic Inspiration Generator ?
Noisy: EI Liquid Glitcher ?
Enjoy your trip! :)

I don't think of Maths as a utility module... it's it's own thing - sum of parts greater than the whole - see the 'maths illustrated supplement' - so replicating the centre section of maths is a good start - which to some extent you have with 321

I always recommend links, kinks, shades and veils as a good starter set for utilities

links is useful in that it can be 2 buffered mults and a utility mixer (always useful) or a buffered mult and a precision adder and a mixer, or a buffered mult and 2 utility mixers - what are you using for mults? stackcables or headphone splitters? it's always useful to have a buffered one around - I often need at least one for Maths to funciton properly (it doesn't like being patched into unbuffered inputs, at least in my racks)

kinks is discontinued - if you can't find one then the wmd/ssf toolbox is a good substitute

321 I think covers shades, but it's much more useful for adding offsets etc that are often needed than for straight mixing - are you currently using this as an end of chain mixer?

veils - you already have - but you can never have too many vcas!!!! they are useful for controling all sorts of signals in the system

on top of these the next thing I would add (unless multiples of the above make sense and often do - remember there is no such thing as redundancy due to duplication of function in modular - there is only redundancy because you don't use it) would be an end of chain mixer (unless you are mixing outside the rack) and then a matrix mixer - I mostly use my 2 for mixing copies of modulation sources to create more interesting modulation, but they can be used for many other purposes - setting up send/returns for effects for example

after that maybe a more complex logic module - I like the joranalogue compare2

I also cannot agree more with the others who are saying fx aid (xl) not black dsp... it;s way too big for what it is in this size rack - quite frankly I'd see it as an utter waste of space in my racks and I've got roughly 1500hp, I do have the fx aid xl though which is excellent - and could potentially see my self adding multiples of it in the future - especially if I decide I need an end of chain reverb in there - I can currently patch in outboard for that though

Upon further investigation I think you're right. I connected the gate from the KSP into the cv input of the VCA, output of VCO (saich) into VCA input. VCA stays open with the signal from Saich, note on and note off from the KSP works, but it's on top of the open signal from Saich. If I reverse this and connect KSP gate to VCA input, and VCO output to VCA cv input, no open signal from saich and note on works, but when I release the key note on happens again... hope that makes sense

-- TheSoundGardxn

in that case I would try to find a thread on modwiggler regarding the vca - this may be a known issue - is this the v1 or the v2?

it sounds as if the vca is not closing properly - nb I don't have any of these modules

try taking the vca out of the patch - try gate from keystep straight into the vca cv input... does that behave as expected - ie when you press a key the note starts and when you release it the note ends? remember a gate is a type of envelope that just goes fully on, sustains (whilst the key is pressed, in your case) and then off again

if this is working what happens when you ignore step 4 above and then manually trigger the envelope with the button on ceis?
-- JimHowell1970
Upon further investigation I think you're right. I connected the gate from the KSP into the cv input of the VCA, output of VCO (saich) into VCA input. VCA stays open with the signal from Saich, note on and note off from the KSP works, but it's on top of the open signal from Saich. If I reverse this and connect KSP gate to VCA input, and VCO output to VCA cv input, no open signal from saich and note on works, but when I release the key note on happens again... hope that makes sense

Maths and 321. What else would you recommend?

Thanks Garfield. I made a new video with Beads and will upload tomorrow.

EDITED Feb 27th 2023, 07:16

Thank you, Garfield and yes, it’s a hybrid system. So far I’ve been relying on VCV for effects but can feel the urge to get some of that in the rack…

@GarfieldModular the Polaris is super solid, great modulation capabilities and a nice range of sound. Unlike some of the other filters I've got (VCFS, VCFQ, QPAS) it isn't exactly too "characterful" which you might think is bad but that can be nice at times too, it doesn't dominate or stand out and is really responsive to what you put through it. Definitely worth checking out. I should also note that @farkas recommended it to me in my very first post on this forum, good suggestion!

EDITED Sep 19th 2021, 03:08

Hi Sacguy71,

Sorry to hear that you have allergic reactions regarding vaccines :-( Glad to hear though that you still enjoy modular :-)

Having said that... haven't heard from you much lately, any nice video for us to share? :-) Kind regards, Garfield.

Hi Manbearpignick,

Great track this is! Do I understand you correctly that you have here a hybrid system, one part is your (physical) Eurorack system and the part is your (virtual) VCV system? Interesting and nicely done! :-) Thank you very much for sharing this with us, congratulations on your 2nd price and kind regards, Garfield.

Cool deal @Garfield yeah I cannot take vaccines due to allergic reaction. Years ago I had one that put me in the hospital and almost killed me. Masks I can do tests I can do. But not able to vaxx so that rules out stuff for a while longer. No worries I’m having fun at home with modular and trying things out now with Beads such fun with Rings and Marbles for generative ambient music.

Hi Sacguy71,

Yes indeed, I can imagine that you feel that's too troublesome. I just came back tonight from the Superbooth. One had to show at the entrance the QR code for the vaccination and indoors as well as during the concerts/shows one had to wear a masks to cover mouth/nose but other than that it was pretty relaxed regarding Covid.

Superbooth was for me this year the first time, I had already hotel & tickets booked for last year but as we all known for the same reason it had been postponed to this week/weekend and this year instead. I enjoyed it very much, there was a great relaxed atmosphere, tons of time to talk to the manufacturers. Everybody, at least to those I spoke, seem to be in a good mood, friendly and willing to share tons of information, making the Superbooth a great event. At least that is my impression.

Due to Covid situation, less manufacturers were participating, logically of course. Due to that fact, I was missing some of the major North American brands like Make Noise, Intellijel & Co however totally understandable.

Let's see if next year things are getting easier regarding travel and meeting at events, would be nice to meet you at one of the future Superbooths :-) Kind regards, Garfield.

Hi Lugia,

Thanks a lot for the tons of information, very interesting! You mentioned the 2500 modules from B., those I just discovered that they exist :-) Are those any good?

Regarding the ARP 2600 Synthposium, beside your remarks, I can't say the planned date was very carefully chosen on one of the Superbooth days...

Do you have already the B. 2600 Grey Meanie? If yes, are you able to confirm that there seems to be issues with the B. 2600 that the triggers aren't fully open at the Eurorack 10 V triggers/EGs? I just arrived back this evening from Berlin (Germany), Superbooth and I heard there that the B. 2600 needs a 14 V trigger to be fully open... Do you have any experience with this? If this is correct, I feel this is pretty disappointing :-( From the source I received this information I actually fully trust and believe this person, it's just so ridiculous that I almost can't believe this to be true :-)

A workaround seems that you can use MIDI but that's something I actually would like to avoid. I would liked to have a possible future B. 2600 (I am looking/considering for the Blue Marvin) integrated into my Eurorack system.

Any info regarding this matter, please do let me know and thank you very much in advance for that. Kind regards, Garfield.

Hi Steve,

Nice to hear you did a collaboration with TumeniKnobs! The first 1+ minute of this above track, that filter sound of the... I assume Polaris sounds quite nice! I am considering the Polaris too, are you happy with it any pros & cons you would like to share?

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

I keep messing around with it. I think it makes sense to make most/all of the top row mod stuff. Would love suggestions on what could fit in there and satisfy most of my needs

Hi Ryanthegecko,

Yeah, keep it coming! :-) Nice and funny video, I love that kind of underwater effect unless you managed to develop a waterproof system? ;-) Thank you very much for sharing and kind regards, Garfield.

Hi Cmb_,

Nicely done video, especially the "integration" of the walking steps, nice touch! :-) Kind regards, Garfield.

That 6mod6 really does look sharp though...

That was all just a bit before my time, but I hear you @Lugia with one exception: this is an officially pro-booty house thread, please respect the rules 😜

https://www.modulargrid.net/e/modules/browser?SearchName=&SearchVendor=954&SearchFunction=&SearchSecondaryfunction=&SearchHeight=&SearchTe=&SearchTemethod=max&SearchBuildtype=&SearchLifecycle=&SearchSet=all&SearchMarketplace=&SearchIsmodeled=0&SearchShowothers=0&order=newest&direction=asc

Have a look at this module line, especially if you're contemplating a build with a tile row. This Schreibmaschine Modular firm seems to have something you'll find interesting...alongside their other timing/sequential toys! Not only do those odd-numbered sequencers have cross-rhythmic uses, they're also great as transposition sequencers. Three steps? Well, now you can wail the blues on your modular!

Simply put, TINRS needs to stop listening to Felix Visser. Lots of big noise and plans, but no follow-thru out of that guy. Visser's NEVER going to put the new Fenix version out, period, as he's been saying that the new version of the Fenix was "coming soon!" for longer than I even know!