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So, after getting my First Eurorack Rack Build in late 2019 and buying a lot of stuff (GAS hit me hard) I came to a Point
where I have to rethink. No I'm not quitting Eurorack :-)
I bought a lot of Stuff for traditional Synthesis. But over Time I realized that I am
constantly moving away from "Traditional" Synthesis to the World of Sound Manipulation, Granular Sampling and
Looping.
I already sold some Modules and some others will follow (looking at you Maths) So my Goal is to have a Rack to create my Samples to mangle with my Granular and Effects Stuff like Panharmonium and Data Bender. I love Reverbs, Delays, Distortion, Slowing things down and wash them out...
What I really was (I know it's dumb) obsessed with is to do everything in the Rack. I still don't want
use a DAW ever in my Music. So I broke with this an ordered the MN Strega. Hope it will arrive soon. It will be fun
to run Stuff into it. Why limit myself to this stupid Idea of everything having to be in the Rack? ;-)
About Granular Synthesis (my big Love). I have Morphagene, NebulaeV2, Arbhar, Clouds and Beads. TBH if I had to let go one today them it would be Beads. I still prefer Clouds.
But I always wanted a Display when working with Granular Synthesis and something more controllable and flexible.
And so I ordered my second out of the Rack Instrument. The Tasty Chips GR-1 ;-) I think the GR-1 has the Potential of becoming one of the Centerpoints of my Music. We will see.
In the meantime I can't wait to run this through my Rack.
can you make your actual rack public so we can see it
why would you not want maths? - a wonderful modulation source, in a rack of mainly granular and effects - I'd still want modulation sources and utilities no matter what I was doing with my rack
"some of the best base-level info to remember can be found in Jim's sigfile" @Lugia
Utility modules are the dull polish that makes the shiny modules actually shine!!!
why would you not want maths? - a wonderful modulation source, in a rack of mainly granular and effects - I'd still want modulation sources and utilities no matter what I was doing with my rack
-- JimHowell1970
Agreed. There seems to be little point in tossing out one of the most versatile modulation sources ever made. It's sort of like saying you want a Moog Model 15...but NOT that Moog LPF (despite it being one of the main points of ANY Moog modular). I also don't see the point of the hate-on toward DAWs here. Yes, yes, I KNOW there's been a bunch of "the usual suspects" on YouTube yowling about "DAWless rigs" as of late, but as someone who started in this before anything vaguely resembling a DAW ever existed and who has gone through DAWless use both in the studio AND live and who went through several DAWs over a couple of decades-ish, lemme tell you...this trend is a load of #2s. Comparing my output done WITH Ableton against the work from before I settled on that...well, Ableton lets me work FAST, work EASILY, do things that a DAWless rig would find IMPOSSIBLE, and so on.
It's not the gear. Those who pin their musical failings on their gear are lying to themselves, as are those who think that having some "magic device" will be the express lane to SYNTHGODHOOD. All of that is 100% utter bunk. The fact is, if you're blaming some hardware issue for holding your work back, you only need to go and look in the mirror to see the REAL source of the problem!
One other point, also...people who try and sell you a concept like DAWless on YouTube are...well, the word "sell" is a key. YT is about clicks, about hardscrabble survival, and about self-marketing. I see nothing in that list there about concepts such as "art" or "self-expression". They'll toss out the latest trendy whateverthehell, then a few months later they'll shift their entire working paradigm in order to sell the latest concept that all of their competition is jumping on, because that's how you survive YouTube. But it's not how you do art. Just ask Chris Gaines...or rather, Garth Brooks, when he tried to pull something similar at the end of the 1990s by altering his modus operandi, believing that being "edgy" like Trent Reznor would rake in even MORE lovely ca$h. The result, however, was a CATASTROPHIC miscue that imploded and almost took his "regular" career down with it! DAWless is only the current "flavor of the month" on YT right now, and by summer, it'll be something else, with little to no consequences to the YouTubers pushing it (although there should be, just like Garth). Don't be fooled.
why would you not want maths? - a wonderful modulation source, in a rack of mainly granular and effects - I'd still want modulation sources and utilities no matter what I was doing with my rack
-- JimHowell1970
Agreed. There seems to be little point in tossing out one of the most versatile modulation sources ever made.
It's not the gear. Those who pin their musical failings on their gear are lying to themselves, as are those who think that having some "magic device" will be the express lane to SYNTHGODHOOD. All of that is 100% utter bunk. The fact is, if you're blaming some hardware issue for holding your work back, you only need to go and look in the mirror to see the REAL source of the problem!
-- Lugia
Made my Rack Public. It's bit of a mess right now. I already took out the Modules I want to sell.
About the Gear and the Magical Device. I am definitely not looking for that. Why chasing some Unicorn that doesn't exist? :-)
Or maybe I didn't unterstand your point. My English isn't that good ;-)
About Dawless. I just don't want to work with my Laptop when i make Music. I have an Office Job. And the whole Day i'm sitting in Front of a PC.
1) A DAW-less usage has one big advantage, as Quantum_Eraser already mentioned: You don't require the computer. I have an office job too, taking that one far too serious, hence I am in front of my computer between 12 till 16 hours a day then there comes a point that you really had enough of that thing since I am doing that already for decades (working almost day and night with a computer). So, I do understand "that need" to try to work without a DAW completely and that's for the moment my approach as well.
That, however, doesn't mean that I hate the DAW, no not at all. I am even afraid of the DAW, because I am afraid that I am going to love it, meaning, I am going to spend even more hours in front of the computer, yet another reason not to touch DAW ;-)
Also, I am not saying I am never going to use a DAW, I can foresee in the future a need for using a DAW and might be even willing to consider that, however as long as I can live kind of comfortably without a DAW and not missing it yet, I will try to stay away from it (because I am afraid of it, that I would love it and that I would use the computer even more...)
2) The Maths Myth (apologises for calling it like that) is something I also can't follow for the full 100%. Yes, Maths is a good module, and yes you can do a lot with the Maths and yes it's a very handy utility module at the same time, yes, yes, yes! I totally agree with it ;-)
It however doesn't explain why almost the entire world has to worship this module like it is done currently. It might be a good module (and by the way, I have the Maths myself) for beginners who have a "nice small" rack of less than (just an example) 200 HP buying the Maths to fill up the rack quickly and yes in certain cases it will be really useful, I do think so indeed. If you have limited rack space you indeed might need a Maths because you have so less space and you need to fully utilise that space by modules that can do tons of things.
However, for myself, I realised that I rather like the approach of having most of the functionalities separated in a per module basis. So EGs in EG modules, attenuators in attenuator modules, logic in logic modules, etcetera (naturally there will be always exceptions to this, this is just generaly speaking). I can then use at any time those EGs or attenuators and/or logic modules in any which way I want without being concerned if that functionality I want to use can be matched somehow in my Maths or if I use too many things parallel it's not going to work out with Maths. I even don't bother to check this with Maths, I straight away start to use a pure EG if I need one or an attenuator if I need one, etcetera.
Having said that last part... I actually do love the both attenuators of the Maths, the main reason I still haven't sold the module and I am using it mainly for that purpose.
Again, I am not saying Maths it bad, it's a good module, especially for users with limited HP space, but if your racks are getting larger, having many functionality in separate modules available... for me... Maths isn't that great, it's good yes, but it isn't great either.
Well that's just my humble opinion, that's all folks ;-) Kind regards, Garfield.
Edit: Rephrased one sentence in a more accurate way.
For review reports of Eurorack modules, please refer to https://garfieldmodular.net/ for PDF formatted downloads
