Yeah this was a fun episode with a real book worm of module knowledge. And as always, thanks for your kind comments.
FF

Hi Mowse,

Oh it's so good to have you back here, I was missing your jams! Your music is pretty addictive and my body and ears need at least once a week something coming from you to make it throughout the week ;-)

By wishing you good luck on your new job, I hope you soon can maintain a situation where there is more time for you left for creating great work like this track and I hope you wouldn't forget us, the junkies who need regular be fed by your music :-D

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

Ah no, I don't plan on using a case anywhere near this small! I just created this for illustration with these modules.

Hi Fred,

Ah one of your nice long sessions :-) Wow, and this time you straight away set off with some nice oscillators accomplishing each other in that first minute, nice!

He, he, there is nothing better than a live jam! :-) If you, like yourself, are able to do that, I for myself need already an half hour to set one LFO right, so me and live jams, I don't think that goes good together ;-) It's therefore for me very enjoyable watching someone knowing what he's doing during such a session, great work!

He, he, that Death of HudsonSoft reminds me of the good old Vangelis years ;-)

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

Thanks Jim,
Yes one or two Mantis would seem like a smart move once I feel the need to expand, also fairly affordable for 208hp of space!

don't drown in debt - go as fast or slow as your budget allows!
and a mantis is still quite portable, for example, unless you are a small child!

EDITED May 25th 2021, 21:01

cheap and custom do not usually go well together in the same sentence

you can usually have one or the other but not both

I know that’s good advice, but I love the portability and I think I‘d rather get this case done and then look for an Analog Four or something.. before I drown in debt.

But on a more serious note, some day for sure. For now I think I‘m good with 120HP though, thanks for the Advice!

you could swap out the og veils for the reissue and get 2 hp back - and then upgrade the fx aid to an fx aid xl

other thing I would do - start saving for the next case!

I'd spend the money on a bigger case!!!
PNW is great
if you can find a kinks buy one they have been discontinued

some advice you can take or leave - ditch the beauty case

work out the modules you want and those that are actually needed to support them (probably at least as much space again) and then add 30-50% for expansion and then find the case - allowing at least 25% headroom on all power rails - I allow 10mA/hp/rail for unfilled space

this way you will have a modular that will accomplish your goal and you may not get the urge to buy another case in 2 months when you outgrow the beauty case

you do not have to fill the whole case at once (you may want some blind panels so you don't short anything though)

I started with a 6u/72hp case - it lasted 6 months before, with only 12hp left I decided I wanted Maths and bought a mantis as well - 4 years or so later and I have 1500hp...

I‘ll take that as a compliment @JimHowell1970!
Yeah I looked at your collection half an hour ago or so and noticed just that! :D

Yeah not sure if the Doepfer Atten-Offset will stick around, what would you replace it with if it was your rack? Maybe get PNW for clocking instead of the Noise Engineering Module, I almost feel like that might be overkill? Or just get a logic Module in the 4hp?

EDITED May 25th 2021, 20:39

looks kind of like a beauty case I could make up from my rack!!! - I have 11 of the 17 modules in the future rack!

in such a small rack I would probably drop at least one of the modulation sources - although peaks is pretty handy!

not sure I'd need both shades and the doepfer offset/atten in such a small case

hhehehe good luck

Great to hear, Jim, thank you. Yeah, I want to keep things relatively small (otherwise I'll be tempted to spend more money than I should on this), and therefore gradually add modules to this case and see what sounds I can get out of it. Ultimately I'd love to have one of these cases set up for straight-up techno, one for straight-up ambient, and then combine them from time to time to do experimental things, but I'm a few years and a lot of experimentation off that yet!

@Cangore That's the matter. I want to play and record sounds that fits in my music, and the most obvious would be buying a synthetiser but in the other hand i feel atracted of modular synthesis hobby. So i would like to build something that fills the two things. For your reply, the best thing is buying a semi-modular, which im atracted by the moog mother 32, the noise 0-coast and the neutron as more affordable.

Thx for your Help!!

I suspect you‘d get more for less with a standalone synth like the Microbrute or a used Analog Four, and you could always get something semi-modular, again Microbrute or any of the Behringer Clones if you enjoy patching.
Atleast that‘s my reply if all your looking for is a little flavor for your productions.

Don‘t underestimate the rabbit hole and price of modular.

But I‘m sure someone more experienced will chime in soon!

All the bestest
Chris

I would use it to put some analog sound in my productions, and step back from software cause i got bored xd. I decided going modular because the fact there is tons of modules that I can assemble in one case, instead of having multiple synth ocuping space. What do you think?

https://cdn.modulargrid.net/img/racks/modulargrid_1581672.jpg

EDITED May 25th 2021, 18:54

Well to my ears and that of a very experienced picky modular jam buddy, the Hexinverter Mutant Snare is quite tasty.
He even told me the demos sucked and in person the Mutant Snare sounds great.

Lots of good information on Turing Machine here:

https://musicthing.co.uk/pages/turing.html

Pamela’s New Workout does provide a source of random but it is really meant to be the clocking heart of a system with several other modulation functions and even basic quantization. It is “menu divey” but fast and intuitive. Again, an entire system can be powered by PNW. In my own system, I use it for roughly 80-90 percent of patches, either as a main clock source of source of modulation.

Go slow. There’s lots to learn. About now, I ask: do you have a good quad VCA and do you know how and why to use it?

Thought I might as well add a visual representation of what I‘m planning currently so here you go:

Nice! This is a really interesting track. I listened a bunch of times trying to wrap my head around exactly what's going on. Well done! Curious how many different sequences are used throughout the track and exactly how you transition. I also followed you on SoundCloud. :-)

That's a stale image, even though the correct one shows up when you click through.

Also, all the text is missing when viewed on Firefox. Chrome works fine. Perhaps this is a known bug?

EDITED May 25th 2021, 14:48

I wish to create a small modular system (64 HP) for ambient experiments. It's essential that this has a stereo path. I am a bit confused about the output, so post this small fragment for your comments.

I cannot seem to find a compact module that allows me to send a stereo mix to line out, while listening to a different stereo mix. Every DJ mixer has this rather essential function, but I can only find very large mixer modules in Eurorack format. Please tell me I am missing something obvious!

In the meantime, I constructed what I need here. 13 HP is really too much for me to devote to output alone. 10 HP would be better.

This patch spans the gap between Harmonia and mid-70s Tangerine Dream. By this I mean to say, it sounds awesome!

subbed on SoundCloud! I really love what sounds almost like a ratcheting effect with a hand held tempo pot? Or is it modulated by a an irregular LFO? This is definitely one I'd love to see video on.

This week we speak with modular synthesist robby to discuss the collapse of the producer/consumer:

So here we go again, since I hit my Max Budget for now and am thus forced to take a little break from acquiring new modules. I recon this is as good a time as any to take a step back and reflect on what I currently have.

First of all thanks to @Lugia, @troux and @JimHowell1970 for ther contribution to my first thread and Rack.

Here‘s what I‘m currently working with:

Quite different from what I originally planned for.
One of the biggest changes might be Tides instead of Plaits, I made that decision after spending a few hours on VCV Rack and developing a deep love for Tides V2 PLL and Oscillator Modes and I don‘t regret it one bit, together with a simple Analog VCO it makes a lovely Voice (well actually even on it‘s own) and I wouldn’t have thought that I‘d enjoy two Operator FM so much, it‘s just a bunch of Fun to me. Also Chords: Awesome.

Currently debating moving disting into the upper (audio) row and exploring it as an effect, Filter, VCA or Oscillator, though I really enjoy the quantized shift register and Euclidian Patterns.
It would take the place of the LXD I had planned for. Since I got Ripples V1, at a great price, I feel like my Filtering and LPG needs are well met.

Next purchase will probably be Stages, seems to fulfill all my needs regarding modulation and beyond.

One thing I didn‘t plan for originally but I‘ve found myself wanting is a Clock/Divider in 4 HP. Options I‘m considering are the Noise Engineering and Ladik offerings, since more often than not I end up using my LFO as a Clock. (Any Opinions on Pamelas New Workout+Stages in such a small System?)

First thing I would probably replace when the Rack is full is the A-140, eventhough I really dig the Range Switch, would probably replace it with a second hand factory Peaks.

Overall I‘m very happy with where I‘m heading.

That‘s all I can think of right now, Any Opinion welcome. Thank you guys.

EDITED May 25th 2021, 16:08

Hi everyone,

I would like to share my little modular synth project with you, for some advices.

Here it is :

Midi and audio on the highest row :
- I begin with the Yarns as a midi interface, clock, sequencer and using channel 3 and 4 as synced digital lfos.
- a buff mult to rule the oscillators pitch
- Sto, which I like for its beautiful Sine wave, and the waveshaping. And Paradox for deep crazy fm modulations, working with the fm aid. Then comes Veils for mixing and vcas.
- Forbidden planet, multiple filter

Modulation and effects on the lowest row :
- fractio solum for wild clock dividing
- clep diaz pour stepped modulation
- contour, souvenir from my first semi-modular synth 0-coast
- A-147 LFO
- Sinc bucina, beautiful low pass gate and envelop
- kinks (sample and hold, sign and logic)
- MIA Attenuverter

Then the lovely reverb from noise engineering Desmodus Version, and output...

What do you think ?
Thanks a lot
Alexandre

Many thx for the reply.

I got a used 4ms RCD with the expander. Unfortunately the expansion was a DYI and the soldering points are very fragile. A couple have broke off so I need to resolder. Looking forward to see the effect of the 4ms. I was thinking of getting a PNW but for just random clock it seems the Turning Machine will work great. Any thoughts? Again, I have zero experience with this ;) ......

regarding dark mode, changing the blue of links could be nice ...

I agree with some of the above posts, that for really precise inharmonic spectra and corresponding tuning, you should use software synthesizers. It should be relatively easy to come up with inharmonic, additive synths and custom tuning in PureData and bring that to some programmable DSP module like Befaco Lich: https://www.modulargrid.net/e/befaco-lich

However, if you want the challenge and stay in the analog domain, then there is another option. You can use any standard VCO and route its output through a frequency shifter. When you couple the FM input of the VCO with the right amount of frequency shifting CV you can get inharmonic spectra and custom tuning. The downside is that high quality analog frequency shifters are expensive modules: https://www.modulargrid.net/e/cwejman-fsh-1-

anyone having trouble with power?
as soon as I plug it in many modules stop working correctly.
2 mantis cases, 2 super power blue power supplies, regardless where I put it, it happens.

A Rotating Clock Divider is an essential utility. Mine lives next to Pamela’s New Workout but gets fed by many clock and pulse sources, including sources of random. 4MS makes nice ones. You really can’t go wrong owning at least one.

Lots going on with the new job role but ample spare time for bleep bloops. Dropped a bunch of new jams on the YouTube channel. Here’s one from last night. Hope you dig it.

All good ideas. Though I am so picky about snares. I think I mostly don't like them so I'm always looking for some modulation that I like.

Triple Sloths is from the Nonlinear Circuits lineup. IMO everything in their Chaos lineup of modules is very interesting and I intend to add more than one of those to my system in the next 6 months.

To my understanding, the Chaos type modules are basically an alternative to random modules. Some would say (and I would agree) that in general random is not very musical; the main use case I have for random is adding a small amount of it to various parameters. Chaos, on the other hand, is loosely patterned -- imagine for example a drunk person riding on a bike going around a figure 8 track; they follow the track, but not exactly. This type of loosely patterned behavior, many people including myself would consider musically useful: it is repetitive enough to indicate some type of cycle, but loose enough to never repeat strictly, and hence keep generating interest. My intended use cases for the Chaos oscillators is to add some "slop" to my other parameters, and combine it with other tighter LFOs to get a looser complex mod signal. Not so different from how one might use random, but IMO a bit more useful due to its semi-patterned behavior. There are surely many other uses for these types of chaos modules. To my knowledge, Triple Sloths gives 3 "chaos" signals ranging from slow, slower, to very slow.

BTW many other modules from that manufacturer look interesting (if somewhat baffling) to me.

Good luck, enjoy!

-- last, I recommend you lookup user Lugia on this website, and examine a lot of his different draft racks. They tend to be very thoughtful and give excellent ideas of what different well-designed modular systems can look like. There are some good designs by other folks too, but I know for a fact there are a ton of interesting draft Lugia racks available to view.

HI, yes I would second that. Lugia is ace because he really goes into depth explaining his choice of modules. Helped me immensely.

A beautiful reply. Thank you so much, Nicholas.

Hi @ninetoincline, welcome to modular and Modular Grid!

A few comments:

-- your initial draft rig above isn't bad. Do consider if you need a dedicated audio out like 4ms listen, or if you don't need something like that given your intended use case(s).

-- DEFINITELY suggest you consider a larger case. Whatever your initial design is, it's best if you can have an additional 25-50% (or more) space left in your case so you can comfortably add some modules as you learn more

-- Pressure Points may or may not make sense in this build. Depends how you want to control things. It takes up relatively a lot of HP in this small draft case, so do consider if you really want / need it here.

-- of the modules you have above, I would consider Maths, PWN, Plaits, Quad VCA and Wasp very good (almost "no regrets") modules, so you definitely have some very useful picks already included.

-- IMO part of the joy of modular is complex oscillators (like Make Noise DPO or Instruo Cs-l) and wavefolders (like Intellijel Bifold); those do things that aren't easily done in VSTs or normal monosynths. Also part of the joy of modular is lots of modulation, and modulating modulators: to do that, you need enough modulation sources plus some control/mixing. Hence you might consider more modulation sources, things like Mutable Stages, Xaoc Batumi, Instruo Och-D, etc., plus a way to control and mix them like 4MS SISM, Tiptop MISO, and/or VCAs dedicated to your CV control.

-- almost everybody starting out underestimates the need and value of "utilities" in a modular system. In software and hardware synths, the utilities are generally in the "background" (e.g. not in the marketing material used to sell the synth) but are absolutely necessary to make everything else work. IMO a good way to learn modular utilities is to browse all the modules on Doepfer, Ladik, Joranalogue, Intellijel and Mutable Instruments catalogues, and to study anything that isn't obviously a sound source or filter. Mutable's Links and Kinks (or something like them) deserve to be in most modular systems. Keep in mind you need enough utilities in your rig to make the "fun" modules really shine.

-- last, I recommend you lookup user Lugia on this website, and examine a lot of his different draft racks. They tend to be very thoughtful and give excellent ideas of what different well-designed modular systems can look like. There are some good designs by other folks too, but I know for a fact there are a ton of interesting draft Lugia racks available to view.

Hopefully other folks on the forum can add some comments / further help for you.

Good luck, enjoy!

Nicholas

I find good idea to build a rack for my synth korg m1. This synth have 4 individual outputs and i think is interesting that synth M1 with this classic sounds can have more parameters. I read many times how to build a rack but for me it’s difficult as I had every synth and drum machine separate on my studio. So anyone can help me to build a idea for a rack have “ tools” like filters , parameters, effects for the 4 outputs of this synth.
Thanks Andreas

Hi All,

Today I got carried away during an attempt of recording something, I ended up in actually only recording two sequencer patterns, got pretty much carried away with it and wanted to join this with you, so the actual recording I wanted to do... em... I didn't got to it at all :-)

Two voices only:
Voice 1, main voice by Mutable Instruments - Plaits
Voice 2, kind of back leading strings by Make Noise - Telharmonic

Sequencer is the fantastic Five12 - Vectron with the Jack Expander, using two channels for the above mentioned two voices and using another 2 channels for the percussions (1 channel percussion at the Jack Expander means 4 different percussions, thus 8 in total, here only used 4, I think).

Then some other modular stuff like LFOs and the usual suspects. Effects externally by Grand Canyon from Electro-Harmonix and Ventris from Source Audio. Two more effects (Chorus & Flanger) used with the external StudioLive mixer from PreSonus. External percussion by Vermona - DRM1 Mk3, controlled by Five12 - Vectron and Jack Expander.

This is in a way a teaser of my possible far away future album called "Germany - B" and the track is most likely going to be called "Berlin" only not as rough and wild as this demo track. Here just some sounds that I most likely going to use for the mentioned album and track.

That's about it, thank you very much for listening and have a good start of the week, kind regards, Garfield.

P.S.: Oh yes, you might want to turn up the volume quite a bit, I haven't used any form of compression.

EDITED May 24th 2021, 22:49

Hi TumeniKnobs,

Interesting track with some real "deep sounds" :-) I like that! Too much modulation? Can there be really a point reached where there is too much modulation? Not for me :-) It didn't give me the impression there was too much modulation.

As always, thanks a lot for the patch details, love to read it and understand how you got to your sounds, very interesting. Thank you very much for sharing this and kind regards, Garfield.

P.S.: Nice complicated patch! :-D

Hey gang.

My interest in synths has now passed beyond a Korg or Moog synth. It is now time for the Eurorack instrument. After following several guides on the webs from several sites, the linked synth is what I have come up with. I am expecting this to be able to cover a ton of ground, from techno to ambient soundscapes, to simple bloops and rhythms. But will this do? Will it fill the void my monophonic synths can't fill? Can I get a simple midi controller and get amazing results? I don't know, for this is my first venture into this wonderful world of custom synths.

Tear it apart if you must.

looking for the right cable patch for the next release at field effekt records.

You could do what Surgeon does which is minimal percussion like a good kick, snare, and clap modules. Or go for 2hp and smaller modules like Erica pico drums or 2hp modules.

Wow. I appreciate that. I agree and prefer individual modules when I have the HP free. But sometimes I'm tight and need the Queen. I'm checking out the Hexinverter.

Good to know. Personally, I dislike all in one modules. More control with individual percussion modules is what I prefer.
That said, I really like the WMD and Hexinverter Mutant drum modules quite a bit. Unique sounds and that is what made me interested in modular drums. Otherwise, I'd just use an Elektron or Roland drum machine and be done with it.

I was watching Mylar's Suggested Systems 4 (link below) and he mentioned that Emilie has accused folks of being lazy with Rings and not "exciting" it, so I sat down to mess around with that (since Rings is relatively new in my rack). This patch developed over about 10 days and I just kept adding more modulation all over everything. Probably way too much, but it was a good learning experience and a lot of fun. I thought it was a good dark ambient follow-up to How Do You Make It Let Go.

Here's the live performance recording (take 11?) with a little EQ and compression added:

Here's the patch:
https://www.modulargrid.net/e/patches/view/78672

And here are some notes:

Master Clock from Pamela’s New Workout

A slow sequence from Rene’s X channel is driving OSC A on the Piston Honda
The sequence is in C Dorian
Piston Honda’s Y and Z wavetable banks are being slowly modulated by Ochd
That’s going into Bionic Lester’s Filter A.
BL’s Filter A Freq is being modulated by Ochd
That’s going to the In of Rings
Rene’s X channel gate is feeding Rings’ Strum input
Rings’ Brightness and Damping are being modulated by Ochd
Rings’ Position is being modulated by RND Step
Rings is going into Mimeophon and out

That same sequence is linked on the Piston Honda to OSC B
Those wavetables are also modulated by Ochd
That’s going into Bionic Lester Filter B, who’s Freq is modulated by a Quadrax LFO
BL is going to a delay

Rene Y channel is sending a slow sequence to Plaits
The clock for that sequence is set to 75% random skip chance on PNW
Plaits’ Timbre and morph are modulated by Ochd
Plaits is going into Ripples
Ripples Freq is modulated by RND Step
Ripples is going to Quad VCA with Quadrax for envelope and then to a delay

Disting EX providing kick and hit hat
PNW driving the triggers for Disting
Hi hat is a Euclidean pattern
Hi hat is going through Polaris
Polaris freq is modulated by a Quadrax LFO
Polaris Q is modulated by RND Step being triggered by a S&H LFO from PNW
Bass and hi hat are going to X-Pan
Hi Hat pan is modulated by a Quadrax LFO

Everything is going through a Big Sky and recorded in Studio One 5

Mylar's awesome tutorial on Generative Systems:

Thanks for the advice!
Never heard about the Triple Sloths and I do not understand how to use it. But I will check it out and try to understand how it works :-)