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buying modules isn't an issue. i'm just scraping by in one of the country's bottom 10 worst economies and can't even afford a DAW to do everything in freeware for now.
as to modules, if i ever DID get expendable income, i have a very good idea what i want... lots and lots of different sounding VCOs & VCFs mostly under MIDI control with possibly a control forge & several expanders as THAT utility totally makes sense to me and is 80% close to the "dream module" i'd have a genie build for me. the demos for it suck, but i can totally hear it wobbling, boinging, ahhh whooping & scratching in my head drawing segment curves & adjusting their timing. i have less than zero interest in clock dividers, logic & sequencers and all that noodling stuff and would treat "my rack" mostly as a straight forward synthesizer i can swap & stack voices with and resynthesize audio with. i think that both control forge & envelope following human beat boxing would be the core of "my sound" outside of sampling, percussion & extra twangy light string "new wave/surf" telecaster riffs.
if there were any modules that i'd want to get rid of, they'd be filters that don't have as much flavor as expected with juicy, rubbery & vocal" being my 3 favorite sounds ahead of grungy & fat. i'd basically build an ARP 3000 with a lot more oscillators & filters to essentially cram a room full of hardwired monosynths into a rack.
yeah... i'm a total outsider here.
this is MY dream rack. noodlers would DESPISE IT. LOL
OK... i had to copy the edited rack and create a new URL for it to display right. for some reason, this website is psychotically OBSESSED with kicking synthesis technology's E350 morphing terrarium out of the rack for no reason every chance it gets and fights me putting it back in. this time it did it "after the fact" with what i thought was a "settled" layout update. i'd LOVE an excuse to kick the 303 filter out. i DESPISE 303 filter sweeps. from what i can tell, the extra juicy ARP, SEM & diode ladder filters and the fat rubbery jupiter 8 would be my favorites (not counting digital morpheus "radical" modulation effects). i tossed the macromachines omnimod in as an afterthought in case it offers something control forge doesn't, if only faster & simpler editing after juggling some modules and kicking an EMS filter out.
well NOTHING would beat going someplace where you could get hands on with gear and check it out, especially if there's a knowledgable staff.
personally, i'm REALLY into rossum's control forge. it's a rack hog & has a deep interface, but it works a lot like my mind does picturing tones and beats as curves and stretchy rubber bands. THAT utility makes more sense to me than every clock/divider, sequencer and CV modulator put together, but that's me.
i don't have ANYTHING for making music except a binaural dummy head i made with sure PZMs, a sony portable cassette deck & a TC electronics chorus, all in storage. realistically, i'd start out doing EVERYTHING in a DAW with as much freeware as i could cram in it, then add a tube preamp, a sampler (or software), a cheap monophic analogue... probably a mopho, a twangy telecaster and keep building from there, but the job market here SUCKS, and i have other priorities... like getting my stuff out of storage that have to come first.
i'm just studying modular out of boredom & to learn more than the basics of synthesis & music production i'm already familiar with.
i'm just studying modular out of boredom & to learn more than the basics of synthesis & music production i'm already familiar with.
as to DIY stage cases... check parts express out. they have cheap carpet, spray adhesive & all kinds of handles & corners etc. for building road worthy gear along with excellent customer service. i buy most of my DIY audio stuff from them and have never been burned on an order over an issue they didn't resolve.
i'm not an expert either, BUT looking at your system, you have a duophonic with 2 analogue VCOs... if that's all you have, it looks like you have too much mixer for your little system and could get by with a smaller & cheaper one like doepfer's
A-138b https://www.modulargrid.net/e/doepfer-a-138b as you'd only have TWO audio chains. that would free your rack up for other modules. the quad VCA seems like overkill for your system too as you only need 2 VCAs max, and your mother 32 already has its own VCA, so you're wasting 3 channels, money, and rackspace that you don't need to (unless you were mixing & matching different types like tubes & vactrols for different tones). you'd also be better served with getting a single dual channel VCA (optomix, with its 2 vactrol channels is popular & would add to the sound of your moog VCA if you patched into that, intellijel's "regular dual VCA" is popular too) and an envelope generator, particularly an ADSR as you need that to control the envelopes for your second voice.
i have no opinion on the hadron collider VCF, but the minimod ladder filter seems redundant as its another moog filter. why not get something DIFFERENT so you could add to the types of sounds you can make? doepfer's WASP filter is popular, cheap AND is available in black. it would give you some very different distorted tones while saving you money & rackspace to expand your sounds and/or abilities, eg. ring modulation. a good multimode filter like intellijel's polaris will not only take less space up, but also give you all kinds of tones your "2x moogs" won't like JUICY. you could also go with a different synth clone filter eg. SEM, ARP, or korg MS-20 etc. as each of those will give you different tones, or you get get REALLY radical & get a bright yellow rack hogging metasonix tube VCF for radical distortion effects.
personally, i'm biased AGAINST the "moog sound". it reminds me of bad sci-fi movies whereas ARP & SEM filters have a "classier" (to me) sound that's juicier & has more character, but you really have to audition filters in youtube videos to hear which ones YOU like. plenty of people love moog sound. i'm just not one of them. i's take am R2D2 sqeaking ARP 2600 over a moog any day, if nothing else, because tit offers modules that aren't common on moogs.
the tiptop VCO is popular, for sure, and not bad, BUT you already have an anologue moog oscillator. why not expand your tone potential with a wavetable oscillator like erica synth's popular black one? if you wanted another analogue oscillator, intellijel's dixie II+ is very popular & doesn't take a lot of rack space up. there's SUPPOSED to be something "special" about triangle core VCOs, but i don't know what it is. still, a dixie takes up half the space of the tiptop & a wavetable one would give you TONS of different tones you can't get out of an analogue. while it would REALLY reat your rackspace up, intellijel's cylonix shapeshifter is an INSANE oscillator (has its own SEPARATE wave folder BTW) that includes all kinds of vocoder effects and just really deep and crazy stuff that virtually makes it a standalone synthesizer. if you watch this demo, you'll see SOME of the crazy things it can do that were driving the EXPERIENCED reviewer out of his mind
i'd gladly trade "boring" utilities for that kind of tonal mayhem, but that's me. even if you didn't want to go that route, virtually ANY wavetable VCO will give you all kinds of tones that anologue filters with just sine, sawtooth, triangle, square & pulse width can't do.
also, adding a noise generator will add to your tone even if you stay totally analogue. i'm not sure if the mother 32 does noise. it's kind of limited.
the two power adapters seems overkill, especially when you can internally power a rack, probably cheaper, but you have to do the math & choose the right box. according to this site, you only need 968 milliamps positive and 333 negative worth of power. you could probably buy a rack that can handle that easily. i think people only use power modules on big power hungry systems.
i'm not familiar with your sequencer choice, but if it doesn't offer LFO & clock modulation, then pamela's new workout is a pretty powerful 8 channel clocking utility that's also programmable, though the more analogue batumi is probably more popular. one of those might help if you free some rack space up.
another total rack hog i'd replace pretty much ALL of your utilities, INCLUDING your sequencer with is rossum's control forge. it's like a wavetable LFO/sequencer for voltages. you can program 8 step voltage sequences (& link them, apparently) to create really long sequences, but best of all, you can control the CURVES and TIMES between steps to do all kinds of timing changing effects you can't get out of regular (i HATE 'EM!!! LOL) sequencers, not be stuck with "same old same old" linear transitions as you can choose each step's "curve" and then EDIT IT further and do some crazy granular, crossfade & wobble stuff i don't think anything else does. best of all, like with the pamela's new workout, you can SAVE presets!!!
modulars are very personal. MOST modular fans, it seems, like lots of utilities they can noodle with & create automations. not me. i prefer adjustment knobs over patch jacks every time. that's probably another reason i like control forge... you can do everything within the one module and get visual feedback from the display. for ME, it would be the BASE for much of my sound... creating lopsided ahhh-whoops, bass wobbles, scratches & boings & maybe even doing sequences along with an envelope follower module that i could use to human beatbox CVs with, but my approach is almost totally PLAY the rack instead of letting it play itself while you just twist knobs.
the best thing to do is let you take a look at control forge and decide for yourself if it's either interesting or a pointless complicated toy. it totally blew my mind though as it's VERY CLOSE to a module i imagined that i didn't know existed. analogue modules have sooooo many limitations that have been around half a century with no progress, but you can do so many more complicated things with digital. you can HAND DRAW modulations in a DAW sequencer, EDIT sequences with far more resolution, create an unlimited variety of waves (oscillators), create complex modulations, and even create crazy filters that do what analogue can't (rossum's sick morpheus z-plane rack hogging digital filter)
back to control forge... here's food for thought for you...
hopefully SOMETHING i've said helps you find YOUR SOUND
again, your triple wave folder is overkill as you only have 2 oscillators. it's better suited for a big system AND, back to wavetable VCOs, they'll give you way more variety than an analogue/wavefolder combo. if anything, get a small & cheap wavefolder like a doepfer and their small & cheap ring modulator for additional tone mangling potential.
you chose a harvistam polivoks filter... OK, but, you can get a smaller erica synths one that would match your black row, & back to envelope followers, get their polivoks to match. personally, i like larger roland & intellijel dual ADSRs because they're dual and moreso, use sliders which are more visual than knobs, but you can't go wrong with a cheap doepfer ADSR or two if you're OK with knobs.
i'm not too into the joystick mixer thing, but i wouldn't be using a rack for live noodling. if you kept it in your rack, you really wouldn't need the extra mixer for all the extra audio you don't have. the joystick would cover your entire system well enough as you'd only be mixing 2 voices or maybe 3-4 if you run more than one VCF per voice and want to morph between voices or blend them. the extra mixer is both overkill & redundant in your small system.
as to utilities, i won't comment on those. they're very personal, and necessary for noodling. that, and they generally don't agree with my simpler synthesizer with multiple voice options approach. i prefer to control modulations myself or with a computer sequencer using a midi in module.
using MY BIASES, i would aim for a bit more flexibility in tone &cut back on the redundancy... then, i'd get rid of all the utilities and add MORE VCOs & VCFs, but that's me. i don't do complicated patches. noodling doesn't sound interesting to me at all, but then again, i DESPISE perfect timing quantization.
HA!!!! the forum TRIED to waste my time & delete this reply by logging me out, BUT, now i know to back up & copy long replies BEFORE logging back on when attempting to reply, then paste it after logging back in! i've lost a couple really long replies already which drives me nuts!
well... if you REALLY want to conserve money, then just do EVERYTHING in freeware. i'm pretty sure there used to be a freeware modular synth that was so deep, you could even build your own modules and there's ALL KINDS of freeware synths and all the polyphonics you could ever want, BUT it would sound digital and if you're looking for portability, you'd be limited to how many parameters you can tweak with outboard sliders, but it's sure be a lot cheaper.
i'll probably do EVERYTHING with, likely cubase, and freeware if i ever can afford to do anything.
Can you mute individual channels some how, like the Tempi does?
i honestly don't know, but maybe you can at the preset level. i'm a noob to modular, so my understanding of clocks & dividers sucks, but the impression i got reading pam's description was that it can do everything a batumi AND quad clock can & more with its shuffle feature and presets, though maybe batumi & quad clock work better live where you can tweak their sliders.
i'd actually expect you to understand pamela better than me. i just wanted to give you a heads up on it as a powerful clocking possibility that won't hog rack space. try contacting the manufacturer. they'll have a much better answer to your question.
well... not just that, it'd give you more octaves, and be a heck of a lot easier to play, BUT it's your rack and you know what works for you best. at the very least, i'd think you'd have to lay the rack on its back to handle the keys better, or do a bottom row kick-out. i look at that keyboard, and only one thing comes to mind...
carpo-tunnel syndrome
OK... 2 things...
a lot of missed notes... in part because of carpo-tunnel syndrome. LOL
if you select your handle in the upper right hand corner of the screen & bring your racks list up, you can go back & change the name of the rack to 2.0, or whatever other name you want using edit instead of (copy)(copy)
i'm sure it is, but i'd wonder why you'd want to waste so much of your rack space on a limited keyboard controller instead of using an external. 1/5 of a rack for a 1 octave keyboard doesn't make sense to me, but then again. neither does maths. it's easier for me to wrap my head around control forge (it's complicated, true, but at least you can SEE what it's doing) and smaller single function modules.
well coming from a "tone first" perspective, the three "essential" modules i'd go for would be an intellijel cylonix shapeshifter & rossum's morpheus z-plane filter & control forge "wavetable LFO/sequencer/modulator". you could make a lot of noise with just those, but my play rack is almost the exact opposite of yours... it'd have 19 filters, half a dozen or so oscillators, and very little by way of modulation besides a pamela's new workout, a couple of triatts, a control forge, some expanders & midi with no maths or rampage EVER lol. i'd also throw a metasonix tube VCA in to warm the wavetables up a bit too. your mids sound a little thin & spitty, unless that's the "acid" kind of sound you're after.
it's interesting actually HEARING someone's rack in action.
oh... i thought you were using a metasonix VCF... no idea if it'll emulate the organ, but you'll probably get some funky tones out of your oscillator. you're the first person here i've seen that'd put one of their modules in their rack. i can't abide by the mismatching yellow, so i'd stick to their VCA. i think you'd get more tube sound with a tube filter than oscillator, but then again, you won't get the same "misbehaving sound" as metasonix's S-1000 wretch likes to make some random howls.
it's hard for me to answer. my priority is "as many tones as possible", so i'd be inclined to say wavetable oscillator, which is anti-moog, or maybe an intellijel polaris multimode filter.
as to "radical patching", IF i had a modular, most of my patching would just be swapping oscillators & filters in "standard synths" with "power patches" being based on intellijel's cylonix shapeshifter & rossum's morpheus (the absolute sickest filter IMO) & control forge, so using filters as oscillators wouldn't be an issue for me, and you'd NEVER see a maths or rampage in my rack.
BTW, i forgot the doepfer 106-1. i read about it, but when i looked it up here, a different 106 filter clone, must be their code for filter, showed up, so i didn't include it.
as to punk rock, i think that would be the arp odyssey, but nowadays, NOTHING's as punk as the all tube metasonix S-1000 wretch machine.
the forum's search engine doesn't do the best job of searching for filters by clone type, but using this modular grid & this article about filter clones, i came up with these 5 possible clones, not counting the studio electronics MS-20 boomstar which sounded really interesting and very different from their yamaha CS-80 which got me into it's sort of "nintendo/atari" sound
anyone have any experience with any of these compared to any of the others? considering that at least as far as filter clones go, doepfer isn't the best choice (specifically their SEM clone), i'd expect there to be some sound quality differences between each brand, and something else i read implied that the MS-20 can do some huge bass sounds too which would be nice as i'm just not a fan of moog sound, but if 2 filters more or less sound the same, the one that offers extra tones, like a sweet overdrive, or multi-modes would be preferable. until hearing the MS-20 boomstar, i'd dismissed the synth as irrelevant.
drop #8, pamela's new workout, and put rossum's AWESOME control forge at #3!!! THAT is how you control voltages as far as i'm concerned! it destroys LFOs, ADSRs, & rigid pattern based sequencers and more as far as i'm concerned. WOW! when not keyboard tracking, i would use a control forge AND expanders for sound design or making complex multi-tone dubstep wobbles.
unlike maths & rampage, which i'm simply not able to wrap my head around, short of breaking their functions down into individual modules, many of which i'd never even use, i watch this video, and i can imagine all kinds of tonal mayhem & sloppy timed funk sequences. i don't mind complexity when it's on the surface where you can see it
OMG! i just learned about the SICKEST CV modulator ever, because it works almost exactly the same way it would if i designed it, and i imagined a module very much like it, only it wasn't step based, though, when you can alter the timing of every step, it's the next best thing to hand drawing, my module would be used to modulate notes, so you can play your "boings, wobbles & scratches" and my modulator would add a second layer for amplitude modulation for extra complex sounds, but i guess if you synced a couple expanders, you could modulate a VCA & a VCF, all with entirely different envelopes than pitch, besides patching your CVs to "whatever it is you modular heads do" said he with an accusatory tone. LOL
anyways, check control forge out. it's only 100 times cooler than maths or rampage and at least 10x cooler than pamela's workout (as far as i understand it anyways)
i just learned about control forge and REALLY dig it! it's my kind of "screw the perfect timing LFO & ADSR straightjacket & let me bend tones with CURVES & wobbles" module! it's VERY MUCH like the dream module i talked about in another thread except you can't use it to track a keyboard so you can play your "boings, whoops, & scratches", and it doesn't have a second envelope generating VCA so you can add even more complexity to a sound's amplitude over time, but i'm guessing you could do THAT with an expander module and the VCA of your choice tracking a voltage envelope.
i would trade 100 (too many unmarked functions in one box to be able to understand it) maths or rampages for 1 "let me draw my own modulations & sequence them, thank you" control forge. it's such an OBVIOUS concept! use digital's ability to make complex modulations analogue can't match, the same way wavetables run circles around "boring old sines, sawtooths, & squares"
i'm so impressed with the sound design possibilities of control forge, i yanked rossum's morpheus out of my imaginary "tone bender" rack, replaced it with an intellijel cv/logic/switcher mixer and created an entire "awesome rossum" rack
THAT's how you make analogue do dubstep wobbles! i would take complex pitch bends over "gag me with a spoon i'm soooooo sick of 303 filter sweeps" ANY DAY, but, sigh, i guess you can do those TOO with a control forge, not that i can figure out why anyone would want to. LOL
anyways, here's what it does... YOU decide how cool or not it would be making YOUR kinds of sounds
i can tell you this, if i made a demo for the module, i'd R2D2 the eff out of it, do some bass wobble, scratch over it... and go boing boing boing and figure out how to make it talk. yeah! so far, the ONLY synthesis i've ever done was playing with a softsynth i was able to use without a VST host that i had to manually trigger, one note at a time, making sound design a slow process, but over the course of two grueling days, slowly learning the basics using BASIC ADSRs, i was able to make it say "YO!" & "WOW!" with sawtooths or square waves... control forge can do that soooo much better, i'm sure, especially when you add a vocal sounding filter. granular steps? crossfade steps? WOBBLE steps?! WOW! i never imagined THOSE!
it would be about the ONLY sequencer i'd ever put in a rack too because you can REALLY slop up the timing with it instead of having to fit everything in those perfectly timed, soulless, perfectly quantized steps that make me despise most techno. when you can slide timing around, you can make beats that have some hop & skip to them. that's another reason i really relate to this module. it lets ME take control of timing and lag to a high hat or rush a kick riff 'till the cows come home. i couldn't do that, even with 256ppqn on my alesis HR16 because of that EVIL click track that made everything i played sound like kraftwerk. i hated being confined to patterns so much, i eventually wanted to smash my drum machine with a sledge hammer, and only got funky with it 4 tracking on a cassette... try editing that!
golly i wish i had a modular now! they're STARTING to get more interesting than sampling to me between this, wavetable & FM oscillators, & z-plane filters that go where analogue can't
I wonder why so many people have been putting their SMRF (ahahah) on the market :S
I don't own one but it seems lots of fun!
-- Tazio
i originally put one in my imaginary system. it's an interesting effect, but really one dimensional. it really only makes one kind of "ringing tone" compared to the SICK cylonix shapeshifter wavetable voice by intellijel or rossum's equally sick morpheus z-plane filter which can do a lot more, tonally, than SMR as far as filters go.
sure... "toy xylophone" is an interesting sound, but would you want to use it on EVERY SONG? LOL
rossum just blew my mind again, inventing ALMOST the same exact module i would, then adding a bunch of stuff i would have never thought of. the biggest differences are that i'd add pitch tracking to it so you could play notes with "tone envelopes" and that it's have a second layer where you could draw amplitude envelopes, which, maybe you can, as i understand it, with an expander module and modulating a VCA to act as an envelope generator.
i yanked morpheus out of my tone bender 4x104 play rack, replaced it with an intellijel mixer, and created an entire "awesome rossum" 1x104 rack out of control forge, 4 expanders, morpheus and their evolution filter because the kind of modulations you can do with control forge are SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much better than lame LFOs & ADSRs! you can even sequence & trigger with it. there might be a learning curve with it, but i think i'd use it a lot creating bass wobbles,
scratches" & boings etc. i honestly don't know what took someone so long to let digital do what it does best... "complex modulations" like wavetables & apply it do control voltages.
your mileage may vary, but i'd trade 100 maths & rampages for one control forge.. i mean, it even lets you draw CURVES... how cool is that?! but "granular, crossfade & wobble" steps? WOW!!! seriously cool sound design potential there. THAT's how you make sounds skip & bounce, even if you can only do it one sound at a time, BUT i bet using the quantize feature, you can transpose a "sequence" (note, for me) up or down and trigger it from an expander. i'm seriously jazzed about control forge
i could see how control to readout lag could be annoying. yeah... it drives me crazy when a browser lags and you can't frame text that's always jumping up or hiding under the table when think you got it. this is handy stuff to learn for sure.
along similar lines though, it drove me crazy having to wait for either the "strings to settle" or the tuner to lock on tuning a guitar and if memory serves me right, it took 2-3 seconds for the (cheap) analogue metered tuner to settle on each note, but i got used to the play... wait for it... then adjust game. external tuners can be very cheap.
i just made a REALLY LONG reply and got logged out before i was done and it got eaten when i logged back in! i hate that!!!
i guess it's lucky for you as you won't have to read me rambling on and taking 100 tangents, so i'll just summarize...
maths & similar rampage are VERY popular, powerful & handy. they're just too complicated for ME to be able to understand as they "HIDE" their features below the surface and expect you to be able to remember the 1,001 things a single jack can do. it gave me a headache watching a rampage demo where the OP just kept plugging & unplugging stuff constantly, naming the "new functions" and for all practical purposes might as well have been speaking chinese. i'm a "one thing at a time" thinker & have to understand each thing before going to the next one. i get lost trying to understand maths. besides, i have NO INTEREST in making big complicated patches. i see a MY imaginary modular as one big synthesizer that i can swap & stack oscillators & filters with, hence the name "tone bender" while sticking to the basic MIDI/control > clock > LFO > voltage control > VCO > VCF > ADSR > effects > mixer > VCA signal chain.
in this summary, i'll use that to jump to the topic of planning and start at what was the end... don't forget the site's rack planner. i use it to TRY and organize rack rows by that basic concept from top to bottom & left to right until aesthetics get in the way and i group modules by maker or just HAVE TO put the Z3000 smart filter in the center because all of that black trim bothers me when it's asymmetrical. DON'T get me started on mismatching all black modules... i need a row dedicated to just them to be happy. besides, the rack is imaginary, so looking at it is all i can do with it.
before that, i was talking about writing things down, agreeing with you. it really helps keep track of things. i keep TWO lists, one is a module by module list of each row in the rack including basic functions with a second list that breaks everything down by FUNCTION: control, CV, MIDI, clock, osc, filter, envelope, LFO, VCA, mixer, effect etc. so i can keep track that all bases are covered as well as where functions overlap when so many modules do so many things. i tend to overlook utilities as they aren't as fun as oscillators, filters & effects, and in the case of maths, in particular, as easy to understand.
if you have a rack, you can "cheat polyphony" by just multitracking your chords. you can't do it live, but you can do it with a DAW. let's ay all you're doing is an A/C/E chord. just record one pass of all you As, another for your Cs and another for your Es. now your mono is poly and it only cost you TIME, and all of your voices are perfectly synced. me? i'd take that one step further and record each note in stereo (binaurally) playing through a speaker, then move the speaker for each new pass so when you listen on headphones, the chords get spread out like a chorus. it'd also require 3x the channels... 3 channels for the direct sounds, plus another 2 each for stereo, but hey, that's what DAWs are for, right? they ALSO make life simple letting you sequence and fine tune modulations while ALSO making them complicated making you learn how to use them... again, with HIDDEN features, like maths & rampage... ARRRRGH! they CAN be learned though.
finally, back to your sequencer & drums, don't forget that you can use your modular to process audio in so many filtered & distorted ways! i think i'd use envelope following A LOT, human beatboxing triggers & envelopes instead of letting some heartless perfect timing (analogue) sequencer do it for me. you can fit an entire warehouse full of FREEWATRE synthesizers along with an entire recording studio in your DAW sequencer as VSTs, but digital will never sound as good as analogue, especially with synths & compressors. you could do all of your polyphonic stuff with VSTs (and even some freeware ones sound pretty good!) and then fatten them up externally with filters and TUBES. that's why my "tone bender" play rack has a metsonix tube VCA... for thickening samples, digital VCOs & the morpheus digital VCF (sick filter BTW!!!) and VSTs. tubes are great for warming digital up.
well... this reply is kind of long too, but i think i did MORE babbling last time. this time though, i'm copying & saving the text because i do not want to do this a third time, like turning your rack into a chord monster.
OK... this reply is a lot shorter and one more point... just because i hate maths & rampage doesn't mean you have to. there's a reason they're both so popular, but TYPICAL modular peeps LIVE to plug shee into other shee. not me. i just want a synthesizer that can make as many different sounds as possible along with mangle audio in as many ways as possible without sounding digital. otherwise, i'd do EVERYTHING in VSTs and save $9,000+ in imaginary money. LOL
huh... it must have been a different oscillator that i'm thinking of then as i read something about an oscillator latching onto simple waves in just 1 cycle. if you're just tuning, i wouldn't consider speed as critical as accuracy.
there's nothing wrong at all with the system as the mother 32 is pretty much a complete voice, clouds is probably "the most ambient" sounding module and you don't have much rack space to work with. if you had a larger rack, i'd say you might like rings too for "new age" pad textures but there's no room for it. huh... bummer, taking a closer look at the 32, it looks like it wasn't built for hosting outside modules as i didn't see a mixer.
now, you have a more flexible moog. besides, it's noth the tools you hav, but what you do with them. tracks have been made with less.
to me, intellijel's cylonix shapeshifter wavetable oscillator & rossum's z-plane morpheus filter are two of the most awesome modules for sound design and mangling audio. to me, those two modules alone with a metasonix (etc.) tube VCA to grunge the digital tones up would be sicker than a full moog 55 system, but check the demos out for yourself and see if YOU like what they do.
&
ring modulation is an "essential" form of distortion if you want to mangle audio every way possible. according to a review i read that praised the AJH synth ring SM ring modulator, they're not all created equal and that one, along with another name he dropped, were among the warmest sounding. it eats up a lot of space, but i'd say it's worth it if it's the highest quality, or at least in the "top 2" if the other one is even better.
bitcrushing is a unique effect. i'd toss a malgorithm in MY "tone bender" rig
if you're not planning on collection a bunch of specialty filters, intellijel's multi-mode polaris has a lot of analogue tone bending potential from juicy, to fat, to grungy.
to me... some tube grunge is essential. nothing sounds like a whizzed off all tube metasonix S-1000 wretch machine, but their tube VCA can really help thicken digital tones to add nice grunge. their slightly more expensive tube VCF variants might be even better, but i can't abide by an out of place retina burning yellow module mismatching my rack. LOL tube grunge seems underrated amongst modular fans, but as i've always been more of a sampler fan, tubes are essential for taming digititus and give synths the same kind of rocking tones they give guitars. there's a reason why tube preamps, compressors & EQs etc. are the darlings of recording studios.
i'm not sure i fully understand what it does, but from the description i read, pamela's new workout sounds like the mother of all LFO/clock modulators with its LFO "wavetables" (though as you've already seen... shapeshifter has gnarly LFO features too) and best of all programmability & memory. i dropped batumi & quad clock distributor from my play rack because it sounds like pamela covers everything they do & more, except maybe live knob & slider twiddling, but that's not my thing at all. i'd rather modulate in a DAW.
finally. i agree about rings. it adds a really distinctive sound to inputs.
as to effects, as i've always been more studiocentric in my research over the years maybe, other than maybe spring reverbs & distortion, i'd go with outboard effects as you can get A LOT of effects crammed in little multieffects boxes if you're not worried about tempo syncing (still possible with some units i think) and modulation, and there's a lot of really good VSTs too, though i wouldn't use them for analogue emulation, but convolution reverb & pitch shifting? why not?
if nothing else, i hope maybe shapeshifter & morpheus impress you as much as they did me.
at a bare minimum, you'd need expert sleepers if you want to use it for midi, and as far as i know, use that to modulate the rest of your system. so you have your trigger & oscillator (a second would be a good upgrade for thicker tones). then, for a bare bones synthesizer voice, you should have a VCF to shape your tone. if you'd like really flexible one, look for a multi-mode one like intellijel's popular polaris which would add thick, juicy, rubbery, some vocal & even grungy tones to your system. filters are almost more important than oscillators for shaping your voices, so a flexible multimode one is a good choice. if you just want to get started right away and don't care if your tone palette is limited, you might get a combination VCA/VCF like ryo's flexible apature which isn't as flexible as the polaris for filtering, but does offer some VCA distortion potential to your rack along with coveted vactrols which are good for making percussive sounds. finally you need an envelope generator. you could use maths for that and a bunch of other utilities, but a 4 stage ADSR will give you more control over your envelopes and they come in packages as small as 2hp, but a cheap doepfer 8hp would be more comfortable to use. for a small system, a polaris, aparture ADSR combo would be pretty powerful. i'd say that's a bare useable minimum mono synth setup.
it would help a lot though if you had an LFO (some would call an LFO essential), a clock modulator, a noise source, some kind of sequencer, depending on what you're doing, a buffered mult for splitting your patches to different modules, and CV modulation. an intellijel triatt would be good for that as it can double as a mixer which is handy. also, you can get modules, like maths, that do a bunch of different things, but to me, they make things more complicated and it's easier to lose functions because you can't use EVERY function a module does at the same time.
a bare bones system though is control/modulation (midi/sequencer/keyboard), an oscillator, a filter, an envelope generator & and a VCA, but you're limited to what you can do. that's a basic monophonic synthesizer aka "voice".
i did a search for favorites, and only got 4 results for that, and no results for top 5 or top 10, so i figured i'd start a topic to see what everyones favorites are, and maybe gain more insight on the differences between modules of the same type, and maybe just how people are using their favorite "utilities & modulators" if those make lists. everyone is going to have different styles & priorities. my top priority is TONE so probably more than half of my list will be oscillators & filters.
my favorite modules as a rack system
my top 10 favorites list:
cyclonix shapeshifter - intellijel - it's a SICK wavetable synth with tons of deep options i can't even fully understand in demo videos, but it makes all kinds of crazy tones and so many things that it's funny watching it blow an expert's mind as he giggles like a little kid on christmas playing with it. it can morph between ANY wavetables (and save a "mixed tone" as a new preset) smootly creating some wild effects including sounding like scratching in one case, it has dedicated wavetables that can be used as "hi-fi LFOs", but also as wavetables and all of its wavetables can serve as LFOs too, it can do FM, it has a SEPARATE wave folder that can be used with other modules, it has a crazy vocoder that goes way beyond the tradition robot voice, has two voices and just does stuff i've never seen or heard ANY synth do
morpheus - rossum electro-music - is to filters what shapeshifter is to wavetables. it can do all kinds of crazy effects you just can't do with regular filters, and unlike the 1st versions of the filter in emu synths, this one has enough processing power to modulate ALL vectors within a "tone cube". technical mumbo jumbo aside, it sounds amazing and totally unique
rings - mutable instruments - bridges both oscillator & filter territory by adding "modeled resonance" (eg. materials) as i understand it for a filter that makes resonances that are actually quite pleasing & unique vs. analogue squeal
ES3 mKIII - expert sleepers - must be the #4 rated module out of EVERYTHING for a reason. to me, just using it in combination with a DAW/sequencer where i have full control over both sloppy (read funky) timing of every note as well as the ability to capture mod wheel expressions or even hand draw complicated modulations that go way beyond what can be done with analogue sequencers, LFOs & clocks etc.
RK2 XS-VCA - metasonix - (tube VCA/distortion) as fat tube warmth to distorted growl to sounds that solid state and especially can't. it turns any rack into a poor man's snarling (unobtanium now?) S-1000 wretch machine to tame those digital oscillators & filters or grunge whatever up. their various bright yellow tube VCFs might do the job even better, but i have issues with mismatched modules. LOL
polaris - intellijel (multimode VCF) can do most of what a bunch of other filters can though maybe not as well as specialist filters eg. it might not get as juicy as an ARP or SEM, but it gets juicy enough and can also do chunky, grungy, rubbery, & vocal too. not bad from ONE filter!
dual ADSR - intellijel - the CORRECT way to do an envelope generator is with sliders as far as i'm concerned (unless you're doing envelope following)
pamela's NEW workout - i admit that i don't fully understant this module, but it sounds like it can do the work of both a batumi quad LFO & a quad clock distributor COMBINED with its 8 outputs & advanced digital modulation INCLUDING being programmable & storing presets! there's some things digital does better. if i'm wrong, i'd love it if someone who understands clock modulators better to explain what a different module like batumi does better, besides live knob & slider twisting maybe
Z 3000 smart VCO Mk II - tiptop audio - is an analogue VCO that includes a handy frequency counter that could be used for tuning as well as duophonic sync, plus it includes a waveshaper making it pretty flexible for a VCO
SEM - studio electronics - is an oberheim SEM filter clone and does some extra juicy "classy tones" without annoying resonance howling. i like that sound better than overrated moog any day. i like both the "1950s futuristic" look and smaller profile of the studio electronics SEM more, than the SEM 20 V/S/F by bubblesound instruments which is more popular, i'm guessing because people have figured out it sounds better, though i'd like to hear the 2 and other SEM clones duke it out side by side. from what i've read about the doepfer SEM, it isn't the greatest on some settings.
ugh! the graphics ar sooooo busy it makes it hard yo even see the knobs, like camouflage, but i guess if you like a colorful rack, that's your biz. even the STANDARD grey version would drive me nuts for neither matching silver or black, but that's me. otherwise, i like juicy ARPs way more than bad 70s sci-fi moogs
WOW! i actually helped someone, and i'm NOOB! i just know about it because it's in one or both top 100 lists and is in my fantasy rack. the measure & sync features are pretty handy, but you have to know your frequency to notes conversions, or at least 440Hz = A4
i dropped some of the mults, the dual ring mod, the doepfer moog filter, the black VCO expander and swapped the big erica filter to make room for the smaller polivoks, move the wasp filter & mixer down to the black row, add a stero panner and swap in the AJH synth diode filter and mixer with ring mod as it's supposed to be one of "the best" sounding ring mods even if it's a space hog, but it adds mixing flexibility.
i try to use the best sounding modules. i know the bubblesound SEM 20 is more popular than the studio electronics SEM, but i didn't hear it make any better tone than the SE which takes less space up. i might drop the sample & hold to make room for the bubblesound after hearing a demo that turned me off to S&H. i THOUGHT it's how joe walsh got that twangy juice harp sound in the bridge of life's been good, but the online demo made S&H sound like an annoying variation of annoying random voltage. metallic twang? cool! non-melodic tonal babbling? not!
there's a module specific case for it that you can mount it in as an external stand alone voice i believe. it would have openings that don't block the midi. otherwise, you'll have to top mount it and hack your case.
yeah... there's the case in that video. you should be able to order it separate though you'll probably have to pay more than its worth.
i'm just learning the deeper nuts & bolts of modular synthesis to supplement my decades old understanding of normalled synths. i was always more into the sound mangling potential of sampling, being an early art of noise fan, but have since come to the conclusion that a lot of the re-synthesis they did was likely samples of analogue effects. not only that, sampling just doesn't sound as thick & juicy as analogue unless you maybe run your sounds through magical VCFs & tubes.
i'm having real trouble though with the artificial limitations of analogue modules that mostly still only do the same things they've done since the 50s with the possible exceptions of clock syncing & digital wavetables (not counting MIDI as a modular thing) no matter how many patch cords you use, to me, modular analogue still sounds like modular analogue, just being driven by slightly different sequencers (which totally lack loose & sloppy FUNK BTW [and COWBELL!] as far as i'm concerned)
what seems like OBVIOUS features that at least ONE designer should put in their modules just never happen, so i'm going to share my idea of a "much needed modulator"
OK... start with the beginning of a sound... analogue SUCKS at attacks which are a major part of a sound's quality. all analogue can do, really, is change the attack rate. as far back as at least the early 90s, i remember reading an EXCELLENT idea about sample editing, in keyboard mag i think, that would have been great for synthesis... using sampled attacks... plucked, strummed, blown, bowed, iron, steel, rubber, wood, balloon, plosives etc. to add complexity to sounds. it's a great idea... why didn't anyone take it up? a great module would have a massive "wavetable" of attacks and materials eg. a woodblock being hit by metal, plastic, wood, rubber & urethane sticks & mallets. personally, i LOVE the fat thump sound of finger snapping a balloon or a basketball hitting a wood floor. besides onboard attacks, have sample memory where a user can create his own attacks, or download more.
this is a TRIGGER based module BTW
besides using SPECIFIC attacks, ADSR SUCKS!!! what if you want a downward dropping then upwards CURVED envelope for whoops & scratches or wobbles etc.? ADSR is so last century! the only way to PROPERLY animate envelopes is to be a modwheel slinging robot, or to draw them in a sequencer. why not make a module where you can use preset "wavetables" of various effects or even draw your own & i'm not talking about erica's "hey... let's draw sawtooths & other geometrics" module that's a very limited step in the right direction.
use the same idea to modulate pitch too for boings (on top of a "twang attack" would be sick), scratches & bass wobbles etc. you can do this sort of stuff hard syncing to an advanced LFO & gate combo, i guess, but then you're artificially confined to having your notes fit perfect timing (i DESPISE quantization soooooooooooooo much!!!!!!!) when you should be able to trigger your modulations per note creating new SOUNDS. i'm all about sounds. that's why i was drawn to sampling & not synthesis. the only limits you have with sampling are the sounds available and your imagination at creating new ones. on top of that, you should be able to modulate your modulations eg. do dubstep bass wobbles ON THE FLY, morph between envelope effects, eg, animate your scratches by modulating "envelope" speed, including dub style echo effects and so on. i'm surprised for that matter, no one's invented a dubstep synthesizer VST for doing a variety of pitch & wobble effects live and that the stanndard is still hand drawing with "ancient" ableton "live" (ironic name) you should be able to do the same kinds of modulations you can do on a computer with a rack module. it's OK to put digital modules in your racks now!
basically, the simplest way to describe the module i'm talking about is one that ANIMATES sounds by offering sampled attacks, COMPLEX amplitude AND (separate) pitch envelopes with the ability to add and edit sounds & curves... heck... why not let your module IMPORT curves etc. you draw in your DAW & ableton?! MIDI protocol was designed for that kind of thing. it would be a note/pitch modulator for whatever VCO you're using, then process the sound's envelope as a VCA (envelope generator)/ mixer. you could even break it up into TWO modules i guess... attack/pitch mod & amplitude mod.. even... cough cough cough*, integrate VCF modulation. i DESPISE filter sweeps personally, but you could add a 3rd dimension of "complex envelope generation" for that too... along with modulate by velocity & do the crossfade thing samplers do. LFOs would be a natural extension of the concept in "loop mode", and even there, again, you could add modulation where you LFO speeds up & slows down to the beat, but without having to be locked into it in "trigger mode"
someone could even take these ideas even further and create an entire synth voice with wavetables & samples, but really, it's just be nice to be able to modulate "boring old ADSR/LFO/portamento modular" with a little more precision and variety.
analogue needs the kind of modulation that gives sounds attacks with teeth (or wet noodles) and sounds that BOUNCE without having to patch a dozen modules that break the concept down into "micro-functions" that are hobbled to a robotic kraftwerk/techno beat.
what do you think? it's something worth creating a buzz about until someone does it? have any dream features you'd like to add like "complex switching" (whatever that would be... i'm really weak at understanding complex utilities & patches)
if anyone builds one of these... you owe me a module!
i'd be interested to hear if anyone's made a "wavetable" like CV modulator you could use to TRIGGER pitch & envelopes with & break out of "hard syncing your advanced LFO to tempo & ADSR" straightjackes and create sounds that boing, ahhhh-whoop, scratch & wobble. i'm not really into anything i hear coming out of the most complex this modulates that patches i've heard as they only operate at the bar level and not the note level.
along similar lines, i still haven't heard of anyone, even digitally as a VST, make a module for dubstep style bass wobbles. it'd be nice to be able to modulate wobbles LIVE and have them be fat analogue tones at that instead of those bright digital ones that DON'T sound like bass at all unless you have a real subwoofer that moves air like headphones don't.
as to what DOES exist, i originally had a batumi + expander & quad clock distributor in my play rack, but from what i was able to glean from the description for pamela's NEW workout, it sounds like it does everything they can and so much more with PRESET MEMORIES, but, maybe someone might prefer knobs & sliders for live performance.
while it's a wavetable oscillator/effects unit, and a pretty sick one at that too, i know you can at least generate complex wavetable LFOs out of intellijel's cylonix shapeshifter and use the LFOs as oscillators as well as use the oscillators for LFOs too.
i hope to learn some interesting stuff out of this thread and as the CV:OCD is new to me, i'm going to check it out and see if it does any kinds of modulation that sound interesting to me.
OH! OK... it's midi to CV, like the #4 rated of ALL eurorack modules expert sleepers ES3 MkII & its associated expanders. yeah... it seems like the BEST way to modulate a rack is through MIDI where you aren't squeezed to death by perfect timing straightjackets and can record, edit & save modulations at whatever the ppqn limits of your sequencer are. i'm just learning about the nuts & bolts of modular and as far as i know, hand drawing or capturing mod wheel performances are the best way to take control of a rack's modulation & break out of its LFO/ADSR/portamento box.
really, someone should make a digital module that lets you draw your CVs that you can TRIGGER along with non ADSR curves for its onboard VCA(s) along with sync to midi/clock or tap tempo (LFO mode?) and maybe have a "morph mode" where you could do dubstep wobbles or even modulate cough cough cough filters and do sweeps. why would anyone want to do THAT?!
well i don't know about FM, but as far as i know, intellijel's $500 cylonix shapeshifter is the SICKEST wavetable oscillator in the world as it goes beyond simple crosstable morphing into stuff i can't understand, but that sounds insane.
i was wowed by the variety of vocoder sounds it can do and the funky scratching effect it did morphing between two presets. i would build an entire system around JUST that rack.
mutable instruments has a lot of wavetable type modules. braids is popular and the one i liked best, not so much clouds, but only because i'm not into ambience & pads, but they have a pretty wide variety of interesting non-analogue modules you should check out for yourself. i also like rings which is kind of a "resonance modelling" VCF, but is also considered a modulator.
finally, the other wavetable oscillator i liked the sound of was synthesis technology's E340 cloud generator for its percussive type sounds & atariesque "kuzo" sounds
while NOT a wavetable synth, but ACTUAL 4 operator FM, you should check rack hogging akamie's castle out too. my eyes glazed over at the complexity of the concept, though i liked the tones, and was put at ease by another demo that essentially said "i don't know what it's doing... no-one does, just twist knobs & see what happens" LOL i can wrap my head around that.
intellijel's cylonix CYCLEBOX is also interesting, but nowhere near as much as the cylonix shapeshifter i was confusing it with. one other bonus of the shapeshifter is that it comes with an INDEPENDENT wave folder you can process other VCOs with and it has some wavetable LFOs that can also serve as oscillators and vice versus.
in trying to learn more about the nuts & bolts of modular synthesis, i've seen triangle core VCOs being a hot topic keyword and haven't been able to keyword search anything that explains WHY. i've checked youtube demos for intellijel's super popular dixie II+ out and didn't hear anything different than a standard VCO, or even digital ones doing standard sawtooth, sine or square waves so there must be something i'm missing as it seems more like marketing hype than some revolutionary way to get new & exciting tones like you can with a wavetable VCO.
what's the big deal about triangle core VCOs? i can hear a lot more variation between VCFs
well, if you want to work entirely "analogue", then you REALLY need to look into sequencers and probably clocks too to give your modules automation that you could do filter sweeps over etc. or backing while you play.
i would think it'd be A LOT better to buy a separate synth if you want to do polyphonic as it would get expensive building a system with multiple VCOs and VCFs that you can't fully match. you could get a 4 voice dave smiths instruments Mopho x4 for just $1,000 and i think with modules being even cheaper, a $500 korg polyphonic, or work your way up to more expensive prophets including the "ultimate" OB6 as from what i've read, oberheims have a much fatter sound than prophets.
not only would a separate polyphonic be cheaper, but you could get PROGRAMMABILITY you can't get from modular and potentially a sequencer and midi-CV so you can communicate directly with your modular rack. it'd take a lot of research to pick a poly that suits your tastes, needs & budget, or a separate thread asking about the pros & cons.
it wouldn't hurt for you to have an external drum machine from a cheaper one using sampled sounds up to an all analogue "808" type kit. personally, i'd be inclined to go the sampled route there as you're more likely to be straightjacketed by a step sequencer where you can play beats with looser timing on a sequencer you can record live on and turn the quantization up for looser beats where you can, for example, lag a high-hat. as with a separate polyphonic, which might have its own "high res" sequencer, you can save patterns and songs and probably tempos too on your drum machine and then sync your modular's clock to your MIDI gear.
while your pre-programmed beats and melodies are playing on your beatbox & poly, then you could do all of your modular type stuff over that with your rack, or even process audio from your other gear. i've heard some interesting effects running drum loops through a synth and distorting them in various ways.
as to headphone amps, there are modules for that you could put in your rack. you could TRY jacking into your VCA or mixer, but i think you'd need more juice to drive headphones. i'm not sure. then, there'd be the "left channel only" issue as your jacks are going to put mono out. you'd probably need some kind of stereo to mono adapter jack for that. if you were using external polys & drum machines etc., you'd likely run everything through an external mixer which would have both line outs and a headphone jack. little mixers are cheap, and some even come with effects.
as to maths... i'll leave THAT to you. it's a very powerful & popular module, but i personally hate it because it's so complicated. i'd rather break all of its functions, at least the ones i'd actually use, down into easier to understand individual modules that maybe do their specific tasks even better with additional control eg. an ADSR envelope generator offers more control than a maths could for that function. it's a more expensive rack hogging way to do things, but the route i'd prefer.
anyways, i hope MAYBE this helps you plan YOUR system and/or gives you ideas more than it takes you away from your goals 7 style.
as to interfacing with ableton, expert sleepers' ES3-Mk III MIDI to CV converter is the #4 rated of ALL eurorack modules, so i'm guessing it's not shabby, plus ES offers a bunch of different expanders as well as dedicated VST software for controlling the modules, both in a slimmed down freeware version, and a more powerful one you have to buy.
and for doing clock modulation & LFOs in your rack, little "pamela's NEW workout" looks like a really powerful PROGRAMMABLE clocking module to modulate your rack with and sync your hardware sequencer with. i had originally put a batumi 4x LFO & quad clock distributor in my play rack, but it sounds like pamela can do what both of those can with her 8 outputs and MORE with her swing tempo, advanced LFO shapes & memory, but then again, MAYBE batumi & quad clock are better for live synthesis because of their knobs & sliders. i'm actually new to all this and trying to learn what i can. i understand midi, DAW sequencers & studio gear better having read keyboard & mixmag since the 80s and am only now digging into modular, so don't take my opinions on modular as expert advice by any stretch.
well, as you're looking to get MULTIPLE filters, i'm going to IGNORE your $250 limit, insist you buy one less filter, and get the CRAZIEST filter of them all x10 at $500, the z-plane digital morpheus!
do you know of ANY filter that sounds even SLIGHTLY like that? some of those tones are bite your head off and blow your speakers "digital sharp", but it can do some thicker stuff too. the point is it won't be competing with any other filter(s) you own covering the same territory.
it is a virtual synthesizer within itself. how could you exclude it over arbitrary budget restraints getting two cheaper filters that merely distort sound in slightly different flavors when the morpheus does CRAZY things, the very thing you're seeking, like EVERY analogue filter COMBINED can't do. morpheus is batshee hearing LITERAL (as in vocal resonant) voices where other filters might just get a little whizzed off.
if you just got a morpheus and the VERY VERY flexible intellijel polaris, you could cover MOST of the meat & potatoes sounds of other analogue filters including juicy, crunchy, rubbery, chunky, & fuzzy, if not as extreme as SPECIFIC filters that only excel at one or two of those things like juicy ARP & SEMs, chunky moogs or whizzed off wasps & polivoks AND the polaris is $230... well within your budget.
stretching your budget AGAIN... NOTHING sounds as whizzed off as an all tube metasonix rack. i would imagine that their tube $350-$400 VCFs are a big part of their truly unique sound. i INSIST on a metasonix tube VCA in my imaginary rack for grunging things up and fattening up digital VCOs and the digital morpheus filter. it's a slightly different take than yours, but based on flexibility in tone. i'd be inclined to get a metasonix VCF myself if only they came in silver and not that mismatching yellow.
seriously though... the morpheus filter is crazier than a bunch of other filters, metasonix vomits lava and another really out there filter YOU might like, but that isn't my particular cup of tea is the 4ms spectral multiband resonant filter at another "get IT instead of 2 x $250 filters price of $475" 4ms spectral resonant filter https://www.modulargrid.net/e/4ms-company-spectral-multiband-resonant-filter
especially if you want to do harmonic, polyphonic type things or get weird sounds modulating audio. it's kind of "1 trick pony" for my tastes, but it really does its own thing too. if you TRULY want unique, that's #2 on my "weird filters" list.
an all tube Metasonix Wretch S-1000 though is CRAZY... it's like a drunk polivoks figting an angry swarm of wasps underwater. it just OOZES the kind of attitude i think you're looking for and that impresses me too, true... it's expensive at around $2600 & kind of unpredictable, but yeah... it's a polivoks/wasp on acid and i bet you could capture A LOT of that tone with just an eye offending yellow VCF, which i think is their most popular module. nothing ever sounds as analogue as tubes. i'd call a tube distortion pre-amp/VCA the bare minimum for ANY rack, especially with digital oscillators and/or filters.
hey... happy to complicate the heck out of your mission! LOL
and try to watch youtube demos for both the top 100 rated modules as well as the top 100 used ones. even if you don't watch the videos, the lists can help you create shortlists of "best" (subjective!) VCAs & VCFs etc. as much as i personally can't stand maths... there's a reason it's in both top 100 lists, but you should also go beyond and explore other options.
i was reading a "best filters" thread somewhere, and someone was gaga over the bubblesound SEM filter and there was some talk about oberheim filters. it might be on one of the top 100 lists, or towards the top of the filters list here when you sort by popularity (ANOTHER handy learning tool!) and then when i branched out, i learned about the studio electronics SEM, and liked the way it sounded even juicier than the bubblesound in a demo.
youtube is kind of a hit or miss thing as far as demos go as many of them suck, and you have different people doing different things in them. it's hard to compare the sound of square wave filter sweeps against a filter being used in a "complete mix", but you'll EVENTUALLY learn stuff by accident. there's also a really good modular basics series there by what sounds to be a german guy who explains what modules are and what they do. if nothing else, i learned that function generator really just means envelope generator & LFO, and is NOT some WTF is that category unto itself.
hope eventually you figure out the system that's exactly right for you. there's plenty of variety of modules to choose from for sure, and it is daunting when you're new to it. there's a lot of cross patching this into that and sequencing the other stuff people do i'd NEVER want to be bothered with. i'm coming at more from the perspective of wanting to cram a room full of basic synthesizers in a little box... a few VCOs and a few VCFs, and you have 100+ possible synth combinations. i'll let everyone else do the funky patching thing.
well... if you already have the 1M, is it capable of producing thick analogue tones out of curiosity? it sounded really digital in the demos i watched. it would at least be a great module to learn on as i forgot just how many features it has. if you already have it... then keep it. it has stuff you can use, like effects, slider envelope generators are the best as far as i'm concerned, and there might be times when you want brighter tones too. besides, it also gives you MIDI too. as toy as it was, i wish i still had my casio SK-1 "sampler". it just had a funky bitcrush tone you can't get out out of 16bit+ pro gear. i lost it after all of the keys started falling out.
one benefit of having a normaled synth voice is that you can work a lot faster on it. one big rack owner was loving his atlantis because he could get stuff done on it faster. there's nothing worse than regretting getting rid of something because what you replaced it with can't do what it could. bright digital tones abound in techno and dubstep.
ditch the toy system 1m. it looks purdy, but it doesn't fare well in youtube reviews. the knobs are loose, if i remember right, it sounds digital. if you want to get a nice starter, moog mother 32 is in the same price range and is way more popular here, but i'd get an intellijel atlantis instead myself. it has some nice "hidden features" according to the sonic state, i believe, youtube review. and sounds really nice. try checking for demo videos for ANYTHING you put in your rack. if you REALLY want roland tone, get the more expensive 500 series.
while both are space hogs, i just love the tonal insanity of intellijel's shapeshifter wavetable (and so much more!) VCO and rossum's z-plane filter. i'd drop clouds to make room for shapeshifter myself, but from what i recall, clouds tones weren't my cup of tea so it's possible shapeshifter's aren't yours, BUT there's so much variety in what it can do. there's a funny youtube demo for it where the reviewer is freaked out and can't stop laughing & at one point, has a brief conversation with it as it self modulates "meows". it does nice vocoding too.
intellijel polaris filter? CHECK! great little filter that does more variety of tones than almost anything else. a moog filter MIGHT sound chunkier, a SEM, jucier, or a WASP, grungier, but the polaris does all those kinds of tones PLUS even "rare" vocal sounding tones. it's THE filter for a small system. i agree with that.
dixie II+? i know it's popular and there's supposed to be some kind of magic with triangle core VCOs, but i just didn't hear anything special about it in demos. if you didn't want to put a big old shapeshifter in your rack as you #2 VCO, there are smaller wavetable VCOs like erica's black that can do a lot more than dixie and both the mother 32 & atlantis have nice analogue VCOs. it comes down to personal choice, but i just don't get dixie II+ and am looking for an excuse to kick it out of my 4x104 tone bender (arp 2600 with an attitude) play rack.
as to MIDI, expert sleepers' ES3 Mk3 seems to be the most popular MIDI interface, but if you already have clack sources and don't plan on playing your rack via MIDI, then you might want to think about "pamela's new workout". i just learned about it tonight, and it sounds like a programmable, 8 out, clock/LFO monster. i dropped batumi & quad clock from my play rack because new workout sounds like it does more than both units combined including adding swing to your clocks with 256, i think, memory points! that should offer your little rack plenty of "pseudo sequencing"
you MIGHT want to consider makenoise's popular 2 channel optomix VCA whose vactrols are supposed to be good for making percussive noises, but from what i've seen, RYO's aparture VCA is even better as it adds VCF & distortion giving you more tone, especially warming clouds and any other digital oscillators you might use. me? i'd even add a metasonix tube VCA for even chunkier grunge. tonal variety is my priority. noodling? never! LOL
back to analogue filters, i'd get a tiptop Z3000 smart VCO MkII before the dixie because it adds sync for other filers and a waveshaper for more tone, though it eats more space up.
seriously though... if you want to really noodle... here's a steaming bowl of pastabilities for ya...
a lot of that system is over my head. i'm just learning modular, and would never build a stand alone system without at least a keyboard & i don't get into analogue sequencing or complicated patches, i HATE maths! LOL
the one thing i can say about this rack though is shapeshifter rocks! even if i had one, i doubt i'd ever fully understand it, but the things it can do... WOW!
well, either module would eat up a lot of your rack, but my two favorite modules are intellijel's insane shapeshifter wavetable modulator. i'd kick maths out for that, but i just don't like maths to begin with. it's too complex (i like 1 function modules better eg. intellijel triatts for CV control and a dedicated ADSR, but that's me) and i just don't like the looks of it, but it's your rack and it's one of the highest rated modules so who am i to argue?
there are other smaller wavetable VCOs to add some tonal variety to your STO like erica's black wavetable or various mutable instruments modules like braids.
i just learned about pamela's new workout tonight and am really impressed by how it seems to replace both a 4xLFO batumi AND a quad clock modulator. that would add a lot of PROGRAMMABLE clock modulation to your system. in a small system, intellijel's polaris filter offers a huge variety of analogue VCF tone to a system. other modules might do specific tones better, but i haven't heard any analogue filter that can do chunky, juicy, rubbery, creamy AND attitude. maybe a SEM might be a little juicier or a crazy WASP might grunge harder, but they can't do everything else. it's a reasonable 10hp too.
as to envelope generators, i couldn't imagine using anything but intellijel's dual ADSR because sliders just make more sense in an EG to me.
i wish i better understood modulars, especially utilities, so i could help more, but even there like everywhere else, it all boils down to preferences in sound, function & layout.
regardless, i'll argue with ANY expert that shapeshifter & morpheus kick tons of analogue butt in the tone department except maybe they need some grunging up to sound less digital... a good filter and a metasonix tube VCA would help there i'd think. check the demos out for yourself and decide for yourself if anything i've suggested works for you.
total noob, but to me... the two "best" modules are intellijel's shapeshifter & rossum electro-music's morpheus because you can get so many crazy tones out of them and because of digital modules like those, i like the fat & nasty sound of metasonix's tube VCA.
i wonder if maybe batumi is redundant with pamela's workout. i originally had one in my play rack based on its popularity, but replaced both it AND the quad clock with it because it SEEMS like it does everything both of them can and so much more. it's programmable even, but i could see someone preferring a batumi for live use because of the sliders, but i think you can modulate pamela too, you just need an external controller. try and get an expert ruling on that.
as to the optomix, i'd mount it on the far right as i try to plan each row following the "standard signal chain"
MIDI/controller > LFO & utilities > VCO > VCF > envelop generator > mixer > VCA > effects or something similar to make it easier to visualize patches, but tend to break the sequence to group modules by brand too.
in a small rack, i'd get intellijel's polaris multi-filter. it covers a LOT of territory juicy, rubbery, vocal, chunky, & attitude. other filters might sound even juicier etc., but in all the demos i've watched, it's the analogue that covers the most tonal bases.
speaking of intellijel, their dual ADSR is my favorite envelope generator... very simple & sliders just make more sense to me.
DO NOT take anything i say as "educated". i'm just trying to teach myself this stuff, but definitely check shapeshifter & morpheus demos out to see if they sound good to you ears. they are in the "top row" of my play rack
this is likely to be a controversial rack as i have a VERY different perspective on synthesis than MOST modular people, maybe because i come at this from a percussionist perspective.
this thought experiment, as i've been trying to learn more about modular synths to improve on my decades old basic understanding of hardwired synth modules & signal chains and have been planning what for me is the "ultimate synth" which would be about tonal variety, textures, controlling both notes AND modulation myself as much as possible with a DAW sequencer, and mangling audio or doing sound design from scratch. it's also, wherever possible, simplified to "1 module, 1 function" which makes things easier to understand than ugly ugly god is it ever ugly maths everyone demands be in everyone else's rack.
i KNOW that perspective is controversial as i just hate both the looks and the multifunctional complexity of that module and in reading the plight of an actual rack owner who's kind of on the same page as me, i got really angry that everyone refused to help him until he caved in and bought a maths he didn't want to appease everyone. if you're "that type", STOP reading right here because i won't argue about it or EVER budge from my contempt for that FUGLY complicated abomination. it IS possible to build a synth without maths... this is a FACT. there... THAT argument should be nipped in the bud, except for hard headed trolls who are incapable of listening.
to get the rest of "my issues" out of the way,
i DESPISE sequencers and especially self modulating patches. they're annoying, non-musical, and you can't dance to them. i'd rather sequence my own 2,000ppqn sloppy loosely timed (read funky) beats than ever sound like kraftewerk or techno. i'd rather perform or draw my own modulations too. for me, a modular isn't something to experiment with and make complicated patches just because one can, but is a flexible synthesizer where you can swap VCOs & VCAs for more tonal variety and in particular, choose crazy sounding modules like shapeshifter (oh... it's SOOO complicated! LOL) and morpheus. that, and duophinic style, you can stack sounds on top of each other and get a lot of complexity out of fairly simple signal chains.
i DESPISE filter sweeps & resonance. i'm soooo sick of 303 filter sweeping techno i could puke! LOL i like filters for the awesome (mostly static) textures they can add to a tone... chunky, juicy, rubbery, vocal, & maybe a little bit of grunge. but sequenced 130bpm "melodies" & knob twisting? MAKE IT STOP! MAKE IT STOP!!!
not a big fan of LFO effects (except maybe at near audio rates where they add texture) or pads & drones either. i would lean towards percussive sounds, even in melodies, and again, prefer to do my own modulation wherever possible
random CV effects get on my nerves... even WORSE than sequencers
i DO like dubstep bass wobble, when it's the bouncy variety anyways, if not the bright digital sound of supposed bass notes. i prefer modulation at the note level where sounds boing, whoop, "scratch" & wobble etc. and would rather modulate pitch than a filter. i'd love to learn about modules that are handy for non ADSR/LFO/random modulation, especially if you can trigger it
as a beatboxer/percussionist, i imagine i'd REALLY use envelope following a lot. it's a really underrated effect R2D2 notwithstanding
when it comes to effects, i'd rather use outboard for more flexibility
with that out of the way, this is my "best guess" as to what to fill a rack with. at least as far as VCAs & VCFs go, all of those modules (except the doepfer moog i was tired of trying to find a "better" 8hp module for) were very carefully chosen for the different sounds each make eg. i love the classy juicy sound of the SEM filter and how it DOESN'T resonate like crazy if i ever did want to do some filter sweeping (most likely on single notes than bars). i tried avoiding complicated modules that do too many things, like maths, hence all of the doepfer utilities, or redundancy where modules do the same things in different combinations.
i like knobs better than jacks.
some of the doubts i have about the rack include:
too many buffered mults or utility mixers? my research seems to indicate "you can never have too many"
is an extra triatt (attenuator, attenuverter, mixer, CV mod) overkill in a system based on simpler patches?
is the dixie II+ really necessary? i know it's very popular and that there's SUPPOSED to be something special about triangle core oscillators, but i didn't hear anything inspiring in the demo(s) i watched.
are dual ring mods & sample & holds overkill when doepfer makes a 1 each module?
would a smaller & simpler "2hp gap filler" random noise generator be adequate instead of the 8hp doepfer space hog?
is the A-120 (moog ladder filter) "one trick pony?" really necessary with so many other great filters?
would it be better to have two doepfer mixers, or maybe a larger stereo one?
is the intellijel VCA really needed with the 3 others? (for "clean sounds"?)
does the MIDI expander help?
does the erica synths black VCO expander really offer enough flexibility to justify using it, or would something else fill a need better?
is there something that could add more synth tone or fill a hole in the system better than the spring reverb, like maybe a dedicated pre-amp for processing audio? as streams is supposed to be a stereo processor & envelope follower, i was considering that as my audio in
it took a lot of learning to sort through issues like learning function generator is just another way to say LFO/ADSR and not some unique module you "absolutely gotta have". as i'm not really into LFO effects, i eventually ditched batumi & its expander as well as the quad clock distributor & before that, erica's wogglebug, & ultra-random analogue for redundancies and really like the sound of pamela's workout for clock & LFO modulation as it's compact, seems more flexible than batumi/QCD and best of all, is programmable, though i still expect i'd do most of my clocking through MIDI.
OK if anyone has any opinions on modules that are redundant, can be replaced by something better sounding or performing (without adding hard to understand complexity), or some essential function i'm overlooking (i'm pretty sure i at least have EVERY ARP 2600 module covered and then some) i'd appreciate the input, but can't guarantee not to argue with you about it.
maths? DON'T START! i just really have it in for that module (& its graphics) and having seen it FORCED on someone else only makes me hate it more
in general conversation about modules, someone mentioned how important logic is, but i really can't see any need for it, like quantizers, as that seems more like a complicated patch/sequencer thing where i should be able to get most of my pitch & modulation from a DAW sequencer and never be bothered with a pointless random voltage generator which does nothing for tone or melody for that matter as far as i'm concerned.
try to think of this more as a "flexible 1980s punk/funk synthesizer" or an ARP with attitude as i call it than the "techno modulars" everyone else has.
thank you for your time & patience if you've done nothing more than read this far dealing with some uppity noob who doesn't respect "your modular culture" more often than not. HOPEFULLY people here have enough LOGIC (pun intended) not to take insults against their favorite modules and techniques PERSONALLY. you are not your rack or the style of music you love! i know i sometimes come off as gruff & offensive because i have an ACTUAL logic based personality where insulting anything other than a person, directly, is both fair game & nothing to get worked up about, but people... irrational, emotional, impossible to understand because they're "so random" (pun intended) people still do.
here... i LOVE early art of noise... say ANYTHING you want about them, or sampling... it's FINE. i have a life, and AON is just a subset of that so PLEASE stop steaming over how much i hate filter sweeps! LOL they aren't your RELIGION or your momma. they are things that people can talk about that have NOTHING to do with you... unless you're easily ruffled which isn't my fault, or as i like to say... they make prozac for that.
i had to learn humor as a social skill in dealing with irrationals. hopefully more people laughed than screamed at their monitor here.
from my totally amateur noob perspective... intellijel's shapeshifter is the craziest, most unique, overflowing with tonal possibilities (even including multiple forms of vocoding!) if REALLY hard to understand, and not analogue, module. that & as mentioned, the equally crazy as far as filters go, morpheus can do tons of stuff traditional analogue can't.
for me... TONE is the absolute highest priority & you couldn't pay to corrupt my rack with too hard to wrap my head around maths (i'd rather break all of its functions down to individual modules myself) or a sequencer & make self modulating patches.
shapeshifter is virtually a synthesizer unto itself it's soooo deep. that... and it would eat up so much rack space you wouldn't be able to fit ugly ugly ugly maths in it. HAHAHAHA!
i don't have a synth, but lately, i've been trying to deepen my understanding beyond the basic modules in a hard wired analogue synths and am building an imaginary "tone bender" system designed for sound design & "live performance" (DAW sequenced & modulated). i'm not at all a fan of quantization (read analogue sequencers, which IRONICALLY sound more rigid & digital whereas you can get looser analogue sounding timing out of digital sequencers at high quantize rates), self modulating patches, pretty much despise filter sweeps and resonance, and don't have a lot of love for LFO effects or slow evolving pads & drones, BUT i love "bouncy" ahhh-whooop, boing boing, back & forth "scratching" & echo etc. type sounds along with dubstep bass wobble but not so much the gritty HF digital fizz though. wobble would sound better with pulse width modulation, a thick filter and maybe even some tubes to my ears.
i can't seem to find modules that'd do the kind of modulations i'm looking for, namely triggered non ADSR envelopes and more important, pitch modulation. i'm THINKING, that it would be easy to do that kind of modulation in a DAW sequencer by capturing mod wheel (or better yet... faster ribbon controller) performances and copying and pasting them to notes & patterns along with hand drawing modulations and in the case of amplitude, modulate a VCA to go beyond boring attack sustain release modulation & do down & up whoops, volume & tone dropping repeats & "dub echoes" or "LFO speed up & slow down" wobble type effects.
the other ways i've imagined trying to break out of the ADSR straight jacket and create pitch envelopes were using an advanced digital LFO like erica's workout and sync it to the beat and figure out how to patch the modulation, probably using an on/off gate, right? but that would create an even more annoying quantized straightjacket forcing kraftwerk/techno beats where i'm looking for sloppy funk syncopation, and the other possibility was using an envelope follower, maybe tracking samples with the envelopes i'd want to use, but in the one demo i saw on youtube, they don't track very well at all.
if i had my way, there'd be a digital hybrid envelope generator/trigger where you could hand draw per-note pitch modulations as well as chose from a selection of "wavetables" for effects like scratching, trigger short sequences for dubstep wobbles and match or contrast amplitudes the same way digitally modulating a VCA so you're creating both trigger and envelope modulations from the same source. oh... and when i say "hand drawing"... i don't mean "connect the dots" sawtooth junk, but smooth linear & exponential curves & sines, though if someone wanted to pitch bend a sawtooth or squarewave, they could do that too.
MAYBE one could could do SOME of this stuff (triggered LFO) with crazy cool intellijel shapeshifter, but other than the cool sounds it's capable of in demos, a lot of its technical description is like the wah wah wah wuh wah wah muted trumpet sound of adults talking in peanuts cartoons... but kind of the sound i'm looking for.
BTW... it really annoyed me when i learned envelope generators are at the END of the signal chain and i DESPISED the impossible to get funky to click track on what became my useless alesis HR16 drum machine. i could not ever do a funky beat with it even with 256ppq because that ANNOYING click track made everything i played (a challenge in itself when you can't just freestyle or at least follow a funky beat) sounded like kraftwerk, even WITH claps & cowbells! LOL (quantizing MIDI after the fact tape recorder style is another issue)
so... am i right? is the best way to modulate pitch & amplitude "mod wheel" style with a DAW & drawing the fast stuff by hand using a MIDI to CV converter at the sequencer level and substituting a VCA for an envelope generator?
it'd be handy if someone thought to AUTOMATE that kind of modulation in a module... throw in sampled transients of everything from plucked and bowed strings to bashed woodblocks, pieces of metal, drums & even balloons etc. etc. etc. to give sounds specific percussive textures... and then you'd REALLY have something. that's my "non-modular" percussionist leaning perspective.
take the soft attack of a balloon, modulate it with a "boo-ah boo-ah" pitch & amplitude envelope and run it through a "rubbery filter" and you have something 100x cooler than more 303 filter sweeps. god do i ever hate those! LOL
for what it's worth... this is my idea of "the perfect synth"... lots of VCOs & VCFs and audio mangling, simple modules that do only 1 thing and that are easier to understand than that dreaded maths everyone considers "essential", absolutely NO complicated patching or self modulating rhythms or tones, and at least one tube to tame those digital oscillators.
