Hello.

I have been rated negative by a user I have never even conversed with.

Please advise.

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You can now search in your private user messages. This feature will be probably used by myself the most.

I keep coming back to this concept to think on it. What I'm going to do right off is to be more intentional about how I manage and separate sound within my modular. Mixing and levels, but also use of filters to control range and separation more effectively. I feel like I'm a being lazy here, especially allowing bass and mid-range sounds to run over everything else.

When I listen to some of my favorite synth artists on my current monitoring setup, their presentation is cleaner, crisper, and more polished than my own. I don't think I'm making the most of what is it front of me. I'll start there.

-mowse

Happy to share :-)
I also love to read how people are making music, so interesting to discover many little differences and ideas.

Cheers! ETA is mid July.

On ModularGrid we are currently 62.000.

Thanks again for a nice comment!
Symphony: It is maybe enough with about 40 new complete voices and a load of sequencers. So if I could convince my wife to sell our car it’s doable ;-)

Yup, I use Max (in its M4L incarnation) all the time...right alongside the Hewlett-Packard sine generators, the 1960s beatboxes, the wall of processors, the modular sandbox, the cool polysynths, etc etc etc etc...

A lot of the reason for WHY I have all of this stuff in one room is because, when I was still in academic study, I ran across two different professors who insisted that you had to keep all of these different electronic music media separate. And, frankly, I didn't see any rationale for that.

In one case, at the University of Tennessee, I got tasked to do a semester final project purely on the Synclavier. By that point, I knew how...well, ANAL...the prof in question was about the parameters of his assignments. But I also knew he was one of these guys that claimed he knew exactly what you were doing in a piece when, clearly, he didn't. The other thing he insisted on was that I had to use the "snazzy" new Yamaha automated mixer...piece...of...crap in full automation, synced with a set of visuals (slides, synced with a "buzz track").

Yeah, right. OK...first thing was, turn OFF the hideous moving fader nonsense. I'd been mixing without automation for about a decade at that point, and that was on big desks like MTSU's Harrison MR3. Then there was the Synclavier itself. First up, said prof made a BIG point of noting that Synclaviers have no noise generation capabilities...only pure sines and harmonics. Yeah, right. So, if I set the fundamentals for a patch at 1, 2, and 3 Hz, then start combining partials above the 16th harmonic at 100% level...oh, LOOK! NOISE! Sorta...but it needed a "touch", so I dragged the EML 200 out of the "analog" studio into the "digital" one and used it to nudge the FM pandemonium into the right "feel". I needed some delay as well...supposedly, I was to use resources in the Synclavier patch, but that noise-band thing really ate up the cycles. So...yet another no-no, I pressed the studio's PrimeTime II delay into service and futzed with the EQ to make it a tiny bit more "brittle".

In short, I broke pretty much EVERY parameter in the assignment. And what happened? Well...

I got a huge "A" on this, and the prof was utterly floored at my "command of the Synclavier". And at that point, I changed composition studios and kicked HIS sorry ass to the CURB.

It wouldn't have been possible to get that "A" had I followed his dicta. And I got it by doing these "forbidden" things, most notably dragging bits of one studio into another, where they presumably weren't supposed to be. Or at least, according to that clown, they weren't. That was Clue #1.

Clue #2 was when, upon arriving at Illinois, I discovered a situation where there were all of these "media separations" like that in the Experimental Music Studios, but to an even more fanatical degree. In fact, one night in the Moog studio I had to deal with some utter batshit insanity that went like this...

ME (talking to prof, who has just interrupted my session work for no good reason): Uh...about that pair of Symetrix gates. Where are the patchpoints for those?

PROF: Oh, you don't know how to use those.

ME: Excuse me? I've used things that're far more complex than them for years...

PROF: No...you DON'T know how to use those.

ME: [blank stare typically seen on my face when dealing with blithering idiots, followed by...] OK, right. Tell ya what...if I figure out where the patchpoints are, I'm going to use them ANYWAY, and I dare you to figure out where I did that.

PROF: [shocked look due to being unable to process dealing with person with real-world audio engineering experience]

Did I ever use them? Heh...but anyway, this nonsense was typical. It was SO typical, in fact, that Sal Martirano (who I was studying composition with while there, then later privately after I'd given up on academic composition) had found it necessary to set up a totally separate studio in the Comm West building about 1/4 mile away, and this was largely due to the fact that HIS explorations involved mixing the must-never-touch-each-other media to explore how primitive AI-type structures could be used for "directed improvisation". This was in early 1992, mind you; the only things like that were stuff like M, Max which was still really only on the NeXT as part of the ISPW rig, and things cobbled up by intrepid souls like...well, Sal. And it was Sal that encouraged me to combine as many working paradigms in one studio as possible. Even HE wondered what the results would be, and I'm glad I got to play him some of my very early efforts in that direction before he died in 1995.

So, for 25+ years now, my reasoning behind all of this gear is that there ARE things to be gained from combining all of these sonic vectors at will. OK, fine...this mid-60s Bruel & Kjaer filter isn't supposed to have a Roland TR-606 fed thru it...but what if you DO that? And of course, the results are very, very cool. Then whip that into Ableton, slap some Max-driven processing using a Lorenz attractor on it...yeah, baybee....filter it all through these Krohn-hite scientific-grade tube bandpass mo'fos and pump it into that cool new Neve-equipped Steinberg A-D to the 2-track (which isn't a 2-track because it's not even an effin' tape machine!).

THAT is how to do this. Careful combinations, like knowing when, how, and how much of a certain spice to use if you were a chef. But like I noted before, it really takes a lot of restraint to avoid wanting to slab every sonic generator and processor onto things. Some of that comes from knowing, simply, that doing so would be a hellacious amount of WORK. Yeah...uh, no. But also, from knowing that that's not a possible choice, and doing so more rapidly exhausts the possibilities inherent in tracking a few, specific, and well-crafted sounds because you're (futilely) trying to bring in ALL the possibilities AT ONCE. Not a good idea. But just like you don't play every string on a violin at the same time whenever the instrument makes a sound, you come to understand that there ARE limits inherent in a huge rig like this. It doesn't really want you to connect everything to everything else to generate...well, something dense and impenetrable that would probably suck on epic terms. Instead, you learn...or infer...what combinations TO use for just the right touch. And that's what makes this a lot like using a large-scale modular.

In fact, it sort of resembles that, when you take into account all of the routing patchbays in use in here. That's something from a different academic studio, though...specifically, the original one at Syracuse that was designed by some guy who knew that this was the way to make that open architecture work, the way to allow that interesting interconnectivity,...

...Bob Moog. I ain't gonna argue with that.

First live stream with Eurorack:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CBJ5L64gFj4/

Bought an ES-9 from @Drazen
Smooth sailing, and extremely helpful.

Thanks @Drazen!

@Sweelinck

Yeah I too remember the Atari days fondly :-)

Too many.

bought from @hadj
perfect seller, thanks!

Looking forward for this one!

Hi Sweelinck,

Sorry that I don't understand French. So it was very nice of you to make a summarise of the video in English, thank you very much for sharing this interesting material :-)

Kind regards, Garfield.

Thank you everyone, very much, for your input. I will certainly look into all these options.

I've been having super fun fiddling around with putting modules in and out on the modular grid app. So far I have come up with the following, including Plaits (which I have already bought).

Plaits
Maths (Make Noise) - seems to be able to do so much and I like the fact that I don't understand it!
Telharmonic (Make Noise) - another funky looking oscillator
Stages (Mutable Instruments) - I think I could use it for envelopes, triggers and LFOs
Ripples (Mutable Instruments) - seems like a safe bet for a filter and can also be an oscillator and LFO
Doepfer A132-3 Dual Linear/Exponential VCA - figuring I'll need at least two VCAs
Narrow Mini Mixer (Doepfer) - guess I'll need one.
Disting Mk4 (Expert Sleepers) - maybe use an effect but also be good in case there is anything else I need as it appears to be able to do almost anything! I like the fact I could use it as a sampler or another oscillator.

What do people think?

EDITED Jun 7th 2020, 14:50

Hey Friends,
thanks for your replys. Honestly said, I dont have issues with this Model D living in my Rack. Iam using it very often and since I have my Rack made of two Mantis Cases with that Dual Mantis Bracket, I dont have any space around my Modular on my Desk anymore :D It´s more or less a Spaceholder. A Blind what I use and if I need the Space, it´ll be removed.

@fredeke
'...an Appolo cockpit...'
Same feeling. The first time I had this sensation was in the late 80's, in my little studio built around an Atari 1024 (with C-Lab Notator... forebear of Logic pro) and all those lights of Midi devices around. Feeling as an astronaut, alone in his capsule, living a sort of sonic space oddity :))

Many years ago I had a room full of synths and recording equipment...
-- farkas

sounds very familiar to me ;) cheers!

EDITED Jun 7th 2020, 10:20

Hi,
You can have a look to Ornament and crime or Malekko voltage block too.

Thank you all for participating.

A couple of quotes drawing me back again:
'...the key to Can BEING Can was in how they restricted what they did...' (Lugia)
'...self enforced limitations...' (Farkas)
'...that forest of trillions of possibilities...' (GarfieldModular)

These comments remind me a Matthias Puech interview in a video you can watch on YouTube (the following are accessible at https://www.sawup.fr).

It's in French (I am french too), but I'll try to translate and summarize below some of the main ideas in relation with our thread. (Sorry Matthias if I forgot something important, and sorry ModularGrid buddies for my poor english ;(

Matthias is a musician, teacher, researcher in mathematics, and well known designer of 4ms Tapographic Delay, Ensemble Oscillator, and Mutable Parasites for Clouds, Frames, Tides, etc.

Younger, Matthias had a study at IRCAM and learned about Max/MSP "which is modular synthesis".
According to him: "Modular synthesizer is obviously specific compared with Max through his physical dimension (real knobs, true voltage, etc.)". But, and that's a point for which he LOVES IT: "Especially in the Eurorack world, everyone may opt for let say 'semi-finished' products. Because modules are pre-thought, pre-engineered by their designer, the goal is to turn them afterwards into something relevant for oneself, diverting (hijacking) the codes, and using them differently than why they were intended for".

In this video, you can see his relatively small setup ('...limitations...').
Mathias Puech explains in another video, that he prefers "complex and deep modules, bearing their fruits after a while; this is especially the case for digital, but also analog modules (he mentions Synchrodyne, Swoop, etc.)".

One major bias: "No sequencer! But random modules delivering suggestions to be reworked".

More about Matthias Puech:
https://mqtthiqs.github.io
http://cedric.cnam.fr/~puechm/
https://mqtthiqs.github.io/parasites/

I wanted to share and relate this expert point of view in order to highlight the importance of 'limitations' and the determination of our own goals.

Modular is, by nature, a wonderful instrument which reminds us this universal rule of wisdom.

That's a great analogy, Sweelinck. My music is more hippie than scientist, so Ochd should fit right in.

Things to modulate your module ,that are not si common : euclidean sequencers, varigate4 + ,Zadar with tons of shapes ,Logic modules and switches but that's gonna be hard with only 84hp, as you still need the basic filter mixer vca combo and enveloppe

In my case since january.
Participates in 90 percent of my patches...
Ideal complement to Batumi.
I often say OCHD is a hippie, Batumi a scientist :))

Hi Rookie,

Great! :-) Now I got the same question for you as I had for Dongh Yuk too: "When will you convert a symphony into your modular system?" ;-)

I still love to look at your modular case setup, it's a nice little set that's lovely to look at!

I look forward to hearing more from you and kind regards, Garfield.

Hi Thingue,

You are welcome and thank you very much for sharing how you create your sounds. That's quite interesting way of doing it, gives me some ideas too :-)

Thank you and kind regards, Garfield.

Ordered one from Control back in March. Fingers crossed that one will make it to my mailbox soon!

Telharmonic immediately comes to mind, or maybe a complex oscillator through a nice low pass gate. You get a taste of Rings within Plaits, so while Rings is sort of known for beautiful plinks and plonks, I don't think I would have both in an 84hp case.
I'm interested to hear what others have to say.
Have fun and good luck!

I have just purchased Plaits from Mutable Instruments as my first module.

My plan is to create a small modular rack 84HP, to go with my other hardware synths and use it to create sounds I cannot get from more traditional analog synths. I already have a Prophet 6, Boomstar 5089 and a Roland SH-09, so I feel I am covered for pads, bass and leads. I have also purchased the Nifty Case, so this gives me Midi in, two channels of CV gate and a basic audio out.

What I am after is stranger sounds, more esoteric wobbles and weirdness, beautiful plinks and plonks. I really liked the sound of Plaits and like the fact that it is digital. I have plenty of guitar effects and also an El Capistan Strymon pedal, so I don't necessarily need any reverb or delay.

My question is: what modules do you think would go well in a small set up to complement Plaits? I don't want my modular system to grow and grow beyond the 84HP (famous last words!). I'd like to keep it small and only buy a few modules, each of which can do a lot and each of which fits in beautifully with the others.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks.

putting $300 across 70hp is very cost-effective for eurorack ;-) when i need that last nudge to buy a harmonic oscillator or bark filter, i think of how expensive it would be to fill that gap with a lot of small modules.
2hp gaps are a no-go. you end up with a gap, blind plate or a small module you didn't really want, just to fill it. so first, i would rearrange things to get all the open space left in one place. it gives you more options in filling it.
personally, i try to keep the number of different brands limited, i don't like small modules either, and i like to have the colour-scheme a bit balanced (scattered that is, because it won't work to get one row black, the other aluminum, another grey) - then i try to get as much vertical lines between modules too. it makes it look neat. ofcourse i realise these are trivial matters, first and foremost it's about sound and not vision. but i can't help myself. as to how to fill the gaps, with what modules, that's up to you. like the previous poster, i would take certain one's out. but hey: it's not my case! you decide what goes in or out. have fun.

I was so inspired by DonghyukHeo’s fantastic interpretations of classical music so I had to try for myself.
The piece is ”Invention 15” by J.S. Bach that I programmed from sheet music into the two track sequencer of a Minibrute 2S.
The sound sources are just two Plaits in chord modes and osc 1 in MB. (One original module and one clone).
Sorry for the bad sound quality but I only have a GoPro for capturing video and audio.

Moderators: can we please delete the previous post, and suspend the account, please ? It's obviously a spambot.
[EDIT: I mean the one before the previous one ;-)]

What I love about modular:

• The gritty analog sound. I may be in the minority here, but I'm sensitive to, and interested in, sound texture down to its finest grain. I'm not disparaging digital sound - it can be beautiful too in its own right, but in emulating analog, it's always a bland imitation, to my ears. Now I love digital sound design as well, because there are many things only digital synthesis can do, but I have the computer for that - a much cheaper solution, even though I'll admit it's less fun to use (It's also more efficient). Anyhow, when I want to feel my hair stand at the literal sound of electricity, only analog synths, and more than anything else, my Eurorack, give me that.

• The geekiness of handling signals, coming up with new interesting ways of signal processing, and that a modular synth is half way between an electronics lab and a musical instrument. As I often say: just making music instead of noise is already a feat. Making good music, in those conditions, is a miracle and I have utter admiration for those who manage that (me, I make a few tracks with the modular and integrate them into more conventional instrument tracks to make a song - and I edit a lot afterwards). Getting elaborate music (or just pleasing sound) out of basic electronics with just the use of my brain and hands, is a joy and a marvel.

• Sound design !!! (This is the logical conclusion of the previous two points)

• The physicality of it. (VCV is great, but it doesn't thrill me as hardware does. It's a tad cheaper though, so it has that going for it ;-))

• The fact that my studio looks like an Appolo cockpit. I am a technological peacock.

• The creativity of module creators. (I wish I was better at electronics myself. I know I should make the time to learn that but I don't.)

• The discussions: I love discussing many things, from art to philosophy to psychology to sciences to engineering, and here I find enough geeks to indulge my passion for splitting hair and talking endlessly about a subject; discussing our tastes, reviewing gear, sharing tips and tricks...

• The vibrant community (this is the summary of the last two points ;-))

I'll let you know if I think of anything else.

EDITED Jun 7th 2020, 21:03

I was really enjoying this thread till the business401k bot decided to ruin it.

Thanks for your feedback :-), and thank you for taking the time to listen...!
It's not all modular, but my starting point is often Mutable Instruments Marble + Make Noise STO + Make Noise Wooglebug, and Make Noise Mimeophon which i try to use not really as an effect but more like a voice.
I record in Live, then i take a break (as you may know it's a very important part in the process haha, for real), then in all this mess, with my fresh ears, i spot the "good" parts (and i always need to insert some little silences, because modular production can be such a non-stop torrent of sound, imo).

Sorry for the digression :-), the main voice in this third track is a mix between STO, and two "external" gears : Roland Boutique JU-O6a, and Korg Monologue. They play almost the same notes at almost the same times, and "almost" + a lot of handmade volume and fx automations to make them blend subtly together, is how i get this sound.

I also have to add that i discovered a technique between Live and my modular system : when i record a jam, it's audio, and it's a lot of informations/sounds at the same time. When i find a bit i like, i sometimes use the "convert melody to midi" function, which gives me some new surprises i can use to play again thru my modular (with CV Tools)... endless fun haha

Hi Thingue,

Ha, ha, that's indeed quite some dance and rhythm stuff you made there, amazing! I like track Outte the most, some beautiful sounds you managed to capture there. Is that all modular and if yes, how did you made those main voices?

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

Hi Sweelinck, All,

What I love about modular is the enormous flexibility for starters, then knowing this, at least theoretically, you can build any kind of (modular) synthesizer (system) you want. That kind of freedom, again the flexibility that it provides, is beyond believe and borders. The more modules you have, the more complex synthesizer-system you can build, the less good overview you will have of what is all possible because it's just too much ;-)

In that forest of trillions of possibilities, starting your day with a clean system (no patch cables plugged in yet), you start to switch on the system. "The blinking" of the system, as a kind of invitation for you, saying: "Come and try me". Once you switched on the system, stand or like I prefer, sit in front of your modular synth, one hand full with patch cables, the other hand scratching your head, that very moment of starting a new patch, a new design of your upcoming synthesizer, that's what I love so much.

Then the next moments, start to patch, trying out a sound or module, adjusting knobs, trying another patch cable with another module, till you get that sound you were looking for (or not really were looking for but just lucky to find it) and then the next patch parallel to what you got already, making it more complicated, more complete, more your own synthesizer. You build that synthesizer!

That's what I love about modular synthesizers ;-)

Kind regards and have an enjoyable modular weekend,

Garfield Modular.

Those self enforced limitations have been a revelation for me in recent times. Leaving space and knowing what to remove is so important.
Also, I’m pretty sure I saw Damo Suzuki at an art opening in Leipzig, Germany a few years ago. I didn’t ask, but I could swear it was him.

I still have that sort of a room. In fact, I've spent the past year updating and upgrading it.

The biggest problem with having a well-equipped studio doesn't come from the volume of equipment. After all, it just sits there until it gets used. Instead, it comes from indiscipline...the idea that because these things are there, then they MUST be used. This is the wrong approach, and fits into the category of "blaming the gear for the musician's failings". Just as having some certain device (back in the ACIEEED days, it was the TB-303) is NOT a key to stardom, it's not possible to assign musical capability to the devices at hand. That's 100% on the user.

I recall having some wonderful conversations many years ago with Holger Czukay (RIP) in which this came up. And he pointed out that while Can had many different disciplines in it, ample equipment for the day, and so on...the key to Can BEING Can was in how they restricted what they did. Sure, those restrictions would shift from track to track...but there were always some agreed-to limitations that kept everything working smoothly. Otherwise, the results would've been sheer chaos...which, in fact, they ALSO knew when to employ, such as on "Soup" (on "Ege Bamyasi"). And this is what allows one to have LOADS of gear...but just like how you wouldn't use several dozen colors in one painting just because you happen to have tubes of those colors on hand, you don't want to muddy up your sonic palette by making the same mistake with all of your synths, processors, etc.

Petitions do help...some. But to really get things done, you need to show companies that there's a potential PROFIT in making these things. My suggestion is that if you have a good working relationship with a music retailer that's sizable in its field (like Perfect Circuit or Schneider's for modular, or Thomann or Sweetwater in general), get THEM to bug the manufacturers. Signatures are signatures, and work if a company pays grassroots attention. But RETAILERS making noise = $$$$ in their mindset.

Frankly, I'd like to see Moog get the Spectravox flying in a retail version. It make sense; Moog was a pioneer here as well, with the assistance of Harald Bode, and having one of their vocoders in an AFFORDABLE (ie: not $5,000) version would be very cool.

I love to try to transform all that squeaky "noise" into almost dancing pieces of music.
The process Sound > Music is what is most fun for me.
https://roti.bandcamp.com/

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.