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The biggest problem isn't the holes. It's the presence of that Model D in the rack; it needs to be back in its own case, on its own power.

First up, as I've repeatedly noted, it's NOT cost-effective nor space-effective to mount these in Eurorack cabs. Those should be for things that DON'T have housings and power. Plus, you've managed to use 70 hp for a thing that's not even really a module, per se. That's a hellacious chunk of one entire row being taken up by that synth. And while I get the notion that it's supposedly "convenient" to be able to mount these in a Eurorack cab, that convenience is pretty illusory.

I'd suggest...just as an experiment...taking it out and setting it aside. Treat it like it doesn't exist. Then reconsolidate and reorder the actual modules while ignoring an entire row of the cab. I think you'll find that the workflow will make far more sense, plus you'll get a far better idea of the REAL space remaining in the cab that needs filling. And if you absolutely, positively CANNOT live without that Model D being in there (and costing you not only what it did initially, but also for everyone of those 70 hp worth of case space it occupies), put it in the open row (like, the top one).

Remember: just because a manufacturer says that one of their devices can be used in some way does NOT necessarily mean that you should do that. They're in the business of selling things...but not necessarily in the business of doing what WE do as end-users!

Maybe we should look for how many Moog Mother32 have been sold, it would be an indicator, don't you think ?

I made a really nice little patch straight out of the box, pulled all the patch cables.... that ones probably gone ;-)

Or maybe Quadrax instead of Batumi.

I'd say Pam's for sure. Then Batumi?

Alm Pamelas New Workout, XAOC Batumi, Zadar .... appreciate your help.

Well, I don't want to run afoul of forum rules so I can only say that that's a perspective worth considering.

Edited to remove any, however remote, wiff of politics.

There will always be boutique builders, look at any corner of the gear world, they exist, from pedals, to synths, to guitars, drums, recording gear, whatever. So, I hope the costs come down. More people making music is a good thing as far as I'm concerned.
-- baltergeist

Well if you don't mind people working for slave wages in places like China you can buy Behringer, you won't get quality though. I personally don't have empathy for people complaining over prices, Modular is far from expensive compared to other musical instruments.

I don't know if your petition helped, but....

Tony Rolando from Make Noise had an interesting take on the numbers. I can't remember exactly, but Make Noise is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, sellers, so far as I know, and even Maths, rated by many as the THE module, hasn't sold ten thousand units yet, I think? It's in his interview with Tim Held on Podmod, if I remember correctly.

Edited to remove any, however remote, wiff of politics.

There will always be boutique builders, look at any corner of the gear world, they exist, from pedals, to synths, to guitars, drums, recording gear, whatever. So, I hope the costs come down. More people making music is a good thing as far as I'm concerned.

EDITED Jun 5th 2020, 15:20

I hope this market stays small and on a boutique level. Many modules are expensive to build and the only way to bring the costs down is to produce them with slave labor. I don't care who's the largest manufacturer, some of the best ones are handmade and I hope it stays that way, I prefer talking directly to the builder.

No idea overall, but until the price of entry comes down, it's likely to stay on the niche side.

Many years ago I had a room full of synths and recording equipment: Moog, Arp Odyssey and Omni, DX7, Juno 106, Fender Rhodes, Reason, Ableton, Cubase, plug-ins, guitars, pedals, amps, condenser mics... and I made less music of lower quality than I make today with my entire "studio" that fits on a medium-sized desk.
I love creation, even if it's only for me, and I am now able to create every time I turn on my power switch. The sounds I hear in my head are finally within reach (for the most part). I would have never known this if I had second guessed myself and avoided the modular path.

I completely agree with every Farkas advice. But I do think Plaits stays the best choice to begin with, AND will remain in your rack as a swiss knife even if you get an E352, for example (I've got both).
Talking of drones, Telharmonic is a classic sound source too, and Clouds stays one of the best tools for creative ambient patches, bluring an arp for example...

After reading the thread 'Why to NOT get into modular synthesis' https://www.modulargrid.net/e/forum/posts/index/3579 I was first a bit disappointed. Then, in a second phase, I felt angry. 'To get or not to get into...'

Primarily, the main thing first and foremost is 'To love': to love music and/or painting, banjo or hightech electronic gear, my trusty old Arp Axxe and this wonderful new module, semi or not semi-modulars, Glenn Gould and Suzanne Ciani, etc and/or so on!

Then I wondered: 'What do I love above all about modular?' (and thank you sincerely Lugia for that). In a few words my own answer would be today: the quality of the sound, to experiment the generative music potential, and all those mesmerizing tiny colorful lights blinking in front of me :)) Beautiful instrument...

So I would be very pleased to know what do YOU LOVE (or prefer) about modular?
Thanks in advance for your words an confidences.

Hi Peeps

Would it be possible to be able to have different width cases for a rack?

Up until now I have lumped my two cases, a Doepfer 9U x 84HP and a Doepfer 6U x 84HP base case, into one rack on Modular Grid.

I have always thought it would be nice to be able to see both of those cases separate but in one "rack" instead of seeing them as one big system. I know we can have many racks but I like to be able to swap stuff between cases without having to flip backwards and forwards between Modular Grid racks.

Now, though, I have a Arturia 6U Rackbrute which is 89HP wide and I therefore either have make my rack all 89HP wide and add blanking plates or ignore the extra 5HP per row I have in the Rackbrute.

Perhaps I'm being a bit OCD here haha!

cheers

andy

https://learningmodular.com/

Pretty new to all this, but I'm curious what street your stuck on and might help others.

Mine is shipping out today. If I find a way to put it to good use I will share.

@farkas : hehe, I see you have a furthrrrr in your rack too ;-).

@jtdaugherty : In the west-coast complex oscillators, there's also Instruo's Cs-L. As I said, there are many, but this one deserves a mention too.

If I were to describe the respective sonic character of all I mentioned, I would say: The Furthrrrr sounds fat, the Verbos sounds electrical and the Cs-L sounds clean. Oh, MakeNoise makes one too I suppose, and I would generally describe their sound as "bouncy" ;-).

I also mentioned Future Sound System's Recombination thingy, but it's a completely different design so it doesn't compete in the exact same category. Anyway, from the demos I heard, I'd say the principle is great, but I find the resulting sound a tad dull for the price. (though I have a distortion from them, and that one is not dull at all)

EDITED Jun 4th 2020, 20:48

That's an interesting observation thanks epsteinframe!

I intuitively knew, or lets say I had a gut feeling, that this is exactly what it would be like and have always resisted, good to know I was on the right lines.

I use Per|former - and I am very happy!!

Bought and sold ER-101/2 again very powerful, but shockingly awful to actually use in any meaningful way, unless you happen to like never being able to see your entire sequence and can hold everything in your memory, if you were good at playing Simon as a kid and can remember multiple instances of very long strings of numbers then it may suit you.

Bought ad sold Eloquencer, it's fine but I just didn't get on with it, especially the song mode, I believe it has had firmware updates since I used it so it may be different now.

Hope this helps :)

EDITED Jun 4th 2020, 20:27

Congratulations!!!

Maybe you would show us what you do with them please?

EDITED Jun 4th 2020, 20:15

Yeah, the Furthrrr Generator is amazing too. I don't enjoy making music on the computer so I have a fair mix of analog and digital stuff. Different strokes for different folks is the beauty of modular. Whatever you want to accomplish, there is something out there to help. Which again brings us back to the point of thinking in terms of what you, personally, want to accomplish overall, how you like to work, taking an educated guess, and diving in with the first piece(s) of your new system.
Let us know how it goes!

You might all know those moments, when you find aksking yourself: "Dose all this stuff make Sense just 2 me, or maybe to other People as well? What do you think? And how would YOU fill up the empty spaces and WHY!?
Maybe your fresh Ideas lead me out of that musical one-way street Iam temporarily in :D ;)

EDITED Jun 4th 2020, 18:57

Thanks, @fredeke - that gives me more to think about!

I would say, if you want to drone you would need at least one sound source and one modulation. If you want to buy only one module, then I'd look for one that can do both simultaneously so as to modulate itself. You could get a complex oscillator: that's a single module made of at least two oscillators - and one of them would need to be able to get as slow as an LFO. For example, the Endorphin.es Furthrrr would be that. One of its oscillators goes into a wavefolder (which is a kind of waveshaper that makes mignificent purring drones) and the other can act as an LFO or a modulating VCO. That's the standard west-coast design and many other brands offer the equivalent: Verbos' Complex Oscillator, to name just one... Unfortunately, those modules are expensive (usually around $500) - they cost as much as two or three basic modules, which is essentially what they are, just bundled together and internally pre-patched.
Now you have other types of complex (read: multiple) oscillators than the west coast. More modern designs include Future Sound System's Recombination Engine, to name just one more - but they all have that high price tag in comon :-/

Just so you know my bias: I almost exclusively consider analog modules. My thinking is that for digital sound, I already have a computer. Not everybody agrees with me and that's fine. I've seen people do amazing things with all-digital racks. But now you see why my recommendation is different from @farkas 's one, which I respect nevertheless.

[EDIT: I now realize @farkas' recommendation is not that different: It is a complex oscillator after all. I had it mistaken for the same brand's quad wavetable)

EDITED Jun 4th 2020, 20:37

@farkas Thank you!

I've done a boatload of research for my personal preferences, and DivKid's and Mylar Melodies' videos on YouTube have been invaluable for helping me decide what would work best for my rack. The beauty of this whole thing becomes apparent when interactions happen. You might make a few mistakes on your way there, and your path might change. I've mentioned before that I only bought a few modules from my original plan due to my ongoing research. It's part of the fun, but can be very expensive for sure.
Check out this video for a module demo from DivKid that is incredible for droning ambient stuff:

The more videos you watch, the more you will be able to envision how different modules will interact to achieve the results you want.

Right on thank you!

That makes sense; what I'm trying to say here is that as a newcomer to modular -- that is, not knowing the specific modules' functions beyond what I have learned from other synthesizers -- it is just not possible for me to think about the whole system beyond the level of VCO/VCF/VCA/modulation sources if I'm trying to pick from a large collection of multi-function modules. If I were building a system out of just plain VCO/VCF/VCA components, then I absolutely could think about the whole system! But I'm not at all interested in building a system out of just those simple components because there are clearly much more interesting modules that can play multiple roles. Incidentally I had already been eyeing Plaits as my first module; I like the sounds it produces but the missing piece for me was that the LPG could be opened fully.

Try to think in terms of a complete system. If Plaits isn’t the right answer for your highly personalized complete system, then it’s also wrong as a first module.

@farkas Thanks! That all makes sense to me. My ask here about a first module is not about learning synthesis, but about cost and just not knowing the specific modules. I have been putting together rack builds on this site but it was becoming too difficult to tell whether an overall build was going to work for my purposes. Instead I wanted help getting off on the right foot by choosing a first module so I can learn how others think about this. I definitely get it, multiple modules are going to be important, and longer term I hope to get more. But given that so many modules seem to be capable of so much that isn't obvious at first glance, I thought I'd ask for recommendations!

That was my hope for it @farkas, but so far I don't find myself ever wanting to use it. Could just be me missing that quantizer though

Ah okay this looks a lot different, guess that's why I didn't see... cheers

I like Pressure Points as an interactive way to add some humanity into my rack. Often, sequences sound a bit too rigid or robotic, so I like to do chord changes on the fly or trigger percussive sounds or add some modulation to something with my imperfect timing. It's not a substitute for a keyboard by any means, but I'm not much of a keyboard player anyway so PP is just a fun way to switch up a static patch. I've been patching two pitch sequences to an Acid Rain Technology Switchblade (switch) and using the gate outs of PP to switch between sequences while taking the CV outs to other modules.

There is a mini Shimmery mk2 on Juno, and a mk1 on reverb
https://reverb.com/item/32380425-blue-lantern-mini-shimmery-generator-2019-black

A low pass gate is from the "West Coast" synthesis style, and serves as sort of a combination filter and VCA. You can open the LPG in Plaits all the way, so drones are possible, or you can set the LPG to a short response (like a simple Decay envelope) for more percussive sounds if you want to send a gate/trigger to the Trig input. When you do this, both the amplitude and tone are affected with brighter frequencies more apparent at higher amplitudes, sort of like a filter opening in tandem with a VCA opening.
Plaits is cool because it combines this pseudo-filter/VCA behavior within the voice module itself so you aren't strictly limited to drones. It's fairly versatile with many different synthesis types and sounds, though with this being modular, nothing is all that fun without other modules. You will need something external to manipulate pitch: Keystep/Beatstep/SQ1/etc., so ultimately a single module in isolation still requires something else to operate.
A better solution to learn synthesis would be one of the more versatile semi-modular offerings like the Moog Mother 32 or Behringer Crave. They offer a single oscillator, filter, VCA, LFO, and sequencer in one patchable package that can be integrated later with a modular setup. To get much out of modular, one single module alone in a rack defeats the whole purpose of specialized modules, and is not really going to help you learn (or be very fun).
Have fun and good luck!

yes thanks, their mini shimmery is not there tho :(

guess I have to order from USA-seller.

(To put it another way: I don't understand what role the LPG plays in Plaits.)

@farkas Thanks! I'm also learning about LPGs and I'm confused about how those would help with drones/ambient; based on my reading about what LPGs do, wouldn't they be useful for shorter sounds like plucks or percussion?

Absolutely @kel_ !

Hmmm... Plaits, maybe? Has a wide variety of sounds suitable for drones and ambient with a built in LPG.

Hi all,

As a newcomer to modular, I've seen many folks offer the same advice: start small, build up slowly as you discover what you need.

So I ask: if I have an empty case and can buy only one module to start with, and if my goal is (ultimately) to be able to have lots of modulation and play around with making ambient/drone/evolving sounds with lots of texture, what do you recommend as a starting sound source module? (Assume I have audio I/O for the case as well as a MIDI/CV interface.)

Ideally it'd be something I could start playing with by itself to start learning it and get some fun out of it before having to build up the rest of the signal path.

EDITED Jun 4th 2020, 02:14

Taken a pretty good beating (virtual) today for taking the knee!

... people don't understand!! They think it is weak!!

But it's about showing respect and accepting others as equal human beings - simple!

... in return you get millions of people showing you respect in return - it is not weak - it is powerful!

Take the knee!!

Thought I'd update everyone with the current state of things:

Some early thoughts/questions:

Overall I have to say I'm thrilled and this is a pretty incredible format, so thanks to to you @farkas for your help. It's fascinating making sound in such a different way (which is its own question I guess: how the heck do you actually get a working process with these?!! => instead of just noodling, but I'll save that for another day) and this site and all the great content here made the leap a lot easier.
Challenge-wise, I'm not sure the Pressure Points is working out as I'd hoped, though that's probably partially because I'm missing a quantizer. That said, I'm thinking I'd rather have an Arturia KeyStep. I'm curious how other people use the PP and if it's a lasting feature of a lot of people's racks as I could definitely be missing something?
What's next? I definitely want another oscillator and I'm thinking about getting a Serge NTO. Do these live up to the hype? They're expensive and use up a lot of HP, but a lot of artists I respect seem to be Serge fanatics (not necessarily because of the NTO, but still), so I'm thinking it'd be fun to try. Would love to hear anyone's thoughts on this one.

Thanks as always for any help, and hope folks are staying safe (and protesting too!).

NerdSeq is likely the deepest and most versatile sequencer available for the money and HP (excluding using a DAW with stuff like the FH-2). You have a highly manipulable sequencing environment, a very capable little sampler, and (especially with the LaunchPad integration) an extremely powerful performance tool with its Ableton-style pattern launching. The UI is extremely well thought out, and even though you can go extremely deep with it, I never feel like I'm diving deep into menus or forced to remember too many esoteric input combinations. Just about anything I can think of, I can find a way to accomplish with the NerdSeq, often without involving any other modules.

That said: I occasionally find myself considering selling it. It's not due to any fault of the sequencer itself, but rather that because it's so deep, concessions have to be made in regards to workflow. I'm an avid tracker user, with Renoise as my DAW of choice, but it can be extremely frustrating having to set up menu options and perform a bunch of inputs to accomplish something I could have done in a couple button presses or knob turns on another sequencer. The LaunchPad integration does help immensely with this, but it is still a persistent source of frustration.

My issues with the NerdSeq largely stem from my philosophy around modular. I prefer to treat my patches less as realization of a cohesive musical idea, but rather a meditative exploration that may or may not grow into something more. I hold on to the NerdSeq in hopes firmware updates, expanders, and creative patching solutions will offer new promise, but I do seriously wonder if I'd be happier with a Metron and a couple Volteras. If you're the kind of person with a really thoughtful and prescriptive approach to composition, I think you'd be hard pressed to find a better tool than the NerdSeq.

If you like "tracker style sequencing" then go for it. Thing has nearly endless options, midi capabilities if needed, low price for fully fledged small footprint with man cv outputs by default. You can read the manual in advance to see what you get.

Got my UK one yesterday, tis very good :)

Color is at least a part of the modular landscape, though
-- Lugia

My visual æsthetics are monochromatic; my musical æsthetics polychromatic
But very interesting to hear that those designs are neither random nor the work of a young Design Intern.

EDITED Jun 3rd 2020, 17:40