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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

Color is at least a part of the modular landscape, though...that dates back to Don Buchla, and really takes off when Serge Tcherepnin comes up with his system at CalArts a few years later. You also see color-coded connections in devices such as analog computers to denote the various functions of patchpoints.

The elusive Ochd just became available at Control for anyone in the US who has been waiting. Not sure how fast they will sell out.

ES-9:
Output 1: gate (kick)
Output 2: fast envelope (for kick FM) - synced to gate
Output 3: slower envelope (for kick AM) - synced to gate

Note:
The gate/pulse on Godeater's input (in addition to the normal kick sound), pushes it to some weird state in which it picks up really low noise from I don't know where, probably everywhere, and amplifies it for a short time not unlike a noisy "swoosh" effect. The length of the gate will alter the length of this swoosh. For 133bpm, 11.9ms sounded nice for a techno feel. Now the (more) interesting part: due to some leakage either from ES-9 or an unavoidable electromagnetic one (leakage from ES-9 is worrying but it might just be that Godeater really amplifies every little thing it can around it - anyway, I don't notice any leaks if I unplug the gate), inputs on the ES-9 will leak to the noisy "swoooshing" giving it some harmonics, if these exist on that said input!

You're appreciation makes me even happier :)))

We are all one!!!

Wish I could be in Korea right now!!

UK is a disaster zone :(

Your voice sounds fine to me and I understand every word, yes, you have an accent, but everyone does - so what?

The truth:

Some people will love your voice, some people won't care and just be interested in what you have to say, some people won't like your voice.

I doubt it will happen, but if anyone gives you a hard time about it, the problem is theirs and you should just ignore them - simple!

Be free - spread your wings and fly :)

Thank for making the video, it's something I have done a long time ago, but nice to see this idea again!
-- Kel_

I really appreciate what you say on your comment:)

I don't know how to say my heart in English haha, because I am really good at Korean and I have thousands of thanks in my mind in Korean.
I really appreciate your comment, you make me I can believe the world is still warm and full of love.
Thanks

https://www.juno.co.uk/search/?facet%5Bbrand_facet%5D%5B%5D=blue+lantern+modules&hide_forthcoming=0

https://modemmodular.pl/category/blue-lantern/page/1

I think you can find what you want here.

EDITED Jun 3rd 2020, 11:25

Does anyone have experience with them?

I'm looking at that Mini Shimmery for a long time. But it seems no European store can offer them.

Why are they so underrated? They seem really affordable as well...

Why does none of the major EU-stores sell em??

https://www.bluelanternstore.com/

Oh hey, the lead voice with that sliding tone is from a Pittsburgh Modular Oscillator where I manually change the pitch with the fine adjustment knob, slowly turning up and down for that glissando effect. It's one of my most beloved modules... but they stopped to build them that way. I think it was the first module I bought after getting the Doepfer A100-standart setup in 2015...

And Plaits yes, very very versatile...

Have a good time :)

EDITED Jun 3rd 2020, 07:28

Gotta say: I'm with farkas.
The design of some MN modules confuses the crap out of me. Also, somehow I find Eurorack is 'serious business' (don't know how to put it) and some Mutable Instruments and TipTop modules are just too colorful.
:)

Hi there wigglers and gridders,

if you've had any experience with this module please let me know what you think! pros and cons!

I've been looking for a sequencer with plenty of cv and gates and this seems like its capable of lot more in a small HP too, not to mention all the expandable options. There are great videos like cuckoo's, look mum no computer, and the extensive tutorials series from SonicVoltage but i would love to know your opinions or if there's anything else to recommend.

The thought of a tracker sequencer intrigues me but also intimidates me a little since I compose mainly on a keyboard but from what I've watched and read it seems like you can get the hang of it in about 20 minutes or so. what was your learning curve like? with the midi expander could i still compose on the keyboard or DAW either mono or ploy and have it on the nerdseq?

I've been going back and forth from the Nerdseq to the Hermod and even the Eloquencer and i know they're all very different workflows but are able to sequence up to 8 sources (even though 2 tracks of the Nerdseq are for samples). The Eloquencer seems to be very fast and intuitive to use but takes up too much HP and i may get stuck and tired of the XoX style. Hermod is great with its I/O, no need for midi expander, small HP, and all those videos of people playing classical pieces via DAW is priceless but the screen size and no cv/tigger expansion is a bummer.

All that being said i always end up back at the Nerdseq, It has almost all the bells and whistles you'd want, and i could probably sequence an entire album but with all this depth and option, would i be too overwhelmed?

Sorry for the long post, and thank you for reading!

Ciao Mebitek,

He, he, the good old 70's :-) Nice video demo with your music. Didn't know that people where doing modular synths on a boat and that under quite stormy weather ;-) (Just teasing you)

Thanks a lot for the sound details how you build your voices, interesting to read!

Thank you very much for sharing and kind regards, Garfield.

Hi Sunchylde,

Ha, ha, yes, another nice demo from you, thank you! I love that sound trick you do a bit before 4:00 and then a bit after 4:00 as well with that large knob and module in the middle of the lower row, what module is that? That was a fantastic sound you got there! Further down in your track again, lovely sound, please tell me what module that is? :-D

By the way, do I see there two Plaits next to each other? I just got one and that's already lovely. Having two, that must be heaven :-)

I look forward in hearing your JM Jarre influenced upcoming new album! Kind regards, Garfield.

Definitely. And naturally, there's no reason to not try it. You might also try feeding an audio-frequency signal to the expression input and see what that does. You might find some twisted new AM method!

I'd like to pick up a Fourses one of these days.

https://www.modulargrid.net/e/modules/browser?SearchName=&SearchVendor=292&SearchFunction=&SearchSecondaryfunction=&SearchHeight=&SearchTe=&SearchTemethod=max&SearchBuildtype=&SearchLifecycle=&SearchSet=all&SearchMarketplace=&SearchIsmodeled=0&SearchShowothers=0&order=newest&direction=asc

Just a thought I had. Even if it didn't work in a synth voice, it could make for an interesting tremolo I guess.