User Posts

Great question!

For me it depends on what I'm doing in the studio in general. I have a lot of equipment and I write with modular gear based on if it fits with the composition or not. That said, I have a fairly good sized set of racks (check my racks, they're all public) and I find that sometimes I'll leave a patch I really like wired up for a long time (never for months). If I need to move on, I snap photos of the patch, and make a video recording so I know what it was about the sound that I liked. It's also a good way to see the patch wiring, the knob positions and so on. That way if I want to attempt to recreate it alter, it's way easier.

I'm actually trying to get to a position where I can have the minimal number of modules that have the greatest versatility. I have somewhere around 100+ modules so it gets a bit frustrating knowing that I have any handful of modules that will accomplish the same things. I like making music way more than I like fiddling around with my rack setups and wiring!

Hey,

I recently bought a Verbos Complex Oscillator and it is absolutely the most amazing module. It's got incredibly huge warm sound that can go full brashy to soft and warm balloons. And yes, it can go way dark and big (play those minor triads!). I'm loving the Trident also but at nearly $900 right now, that's a huge bite, when I can create similar tone from other modules in my racks.

Others have already said it here and it bears repeating: you can create a complex oscillator out of your existing modules if you use another VCO as a modulation source. Pick something large and warm as your "base" VCO and modulate with just about any other module. Experiment and see what you come up with. I often pair a Castor & Pollux with either Plaits or one of my warm Doepfer VCOs.

Before I bought the Verbos, I used four Electrosmith 3340s detuned slightly to create monstrously huge dark drones. Controlled with a Befaco Muxlicer and a clock set to way way slow. Dark times, my friend. Dark times.

Have fun!

Hey,

Here are some basic things to try:

1. Use two VCOs, or a module with two or more voices (Castor & Pollux or Doepfer's Quad VCO have this ability), and detune them from each other slightly to create a larger chorus sound. Patch each one to one separate side of a stereo output. Pan one just 3/4 left and the other 3/4 right. You really don't want to go hard left and right...you still need a little of each channel's audio to fill in the center. That makes for a much larger sound. Next, try the same thing with a single VCO, splitting the VCO output with a stacker cable or a mult and run the outputs to left and right that way. You may get some unexpected phasing results. Try it and listen!

2. Use one VCO to modulate another. Choose one VCO as your "primary" and a second as your modulator. Patch the output of any wave shape of the modulator VCO into any CV input on your primary (try V/Oct first, and then experiment with other inputs like FM, PWM or Sync, etc.). Now, adjust the frequency control of your modulator VCO to get some good FM sounds. This is pretty much the same as using an LFO, except that your modulation source is in the audio range. If you use a square wave or pulse wave, you'll get some interesting pinging effects. Route the pings through a bucket brigade or tape delay and adjust the timing and feedback levels to achieve some fun polyrhythms!

3. Using an LFO is a very basic function. Just like in #2 above, patch the output of an LFO into your VCO. Another cool trick is splitting the signal of an LFO and running half into your VCO and other other half into an inverter or attenuverter like Maths or Mutable Instruments Blinds. Then patch the attenuverter output back into the VCO and play with the modulation rate on Maths to see if you can get the VCO's output to "chase" itself. If you find the sweet spot, the VCO can almost ring itself at the crossover point (depends on the VCO's Q values, usually set by the electronic components). You need Math's movement for this to really work well.

If you want less drone and to control it with a keyboard, then patch in an envelope so you can use your keyboard (or beat pads or a sequencer or whatever) to control pitch and gating. If you do it this way, be sure to also run a cable from your gate control to the reset input on your LFO so that each gate opening starts the LFO cycle from the beginning (better control of the output sound).

Those things should get you off and experimenting with other ways to use oscillators as modulators! Try this with filters, too. Anything that outputs a voltage can be used as a modulator. The limits are up to your imagination! I always find that just plugging something into something else is a great way to learn more about modular.

I don't think one needs to dive deep into a single module to be able to understand modular. One does, however, need to understand the important parts of a "voice" (VCO --> VCF --> (EG) --> VCA --> OUTPUT) so that you can then know where to adjust and insert and modulate. I recommend working on building a voice first, using whatever modules you have, and then start adjusting and plying just by inserting movement CV (Maths, any clocks, LFOs, other VCOs) into your patch to see what changes are made.

Have fun! Keep asking questions!

EDITED Nov 18th 2022, 02:27

I avoided Behringer products until recently I bought—and subsequently returned—two Neutrons that I'd hoped would fit in with my other Eurorack equipment. It's not that they were a bad concept, just that the execution was flawed. The first had too much crosstalk between the overdrive and VCA circuits, and the second was built so badly that it wobbled every time we pressed a button or tweaked a knob.

Behringer has always been the Walmart of music equipment. Their business model is selling cheap gear to consumers who can't afford, or won't pay, the higher prices that name brand manufacturers charge for their equipment. I don't buy Behringer gear for myself or for my studio not because they aren't "good enough" sounding, but because I don't have time to waste on all the extra cost and work one has to do with inferior equipment. I'd rather pay the higher front-end price for name brand gear because after the mix is printed, the cost will actually be lower.

It's not news that Behringer clones other designers' gear—they do it with all their products, not just synths—and I don't have a problem with that. It's just business and competition. I don't like how they go about doing it though, and that's about behavior rather than actual methodology. Many of their products are designed to look so close to the original that it's not even a joke anymore (review the Swing, for example, which is a nearly exact copy of Arturia's KeyStep 37, or the Pro-1 modeled after Moog's Pro One).

The thing is, Behringer is capable of designing and producing good equipment without having to resort to ripping off other designs. The DeepMind 12 is a major accomplishment. The Neutron, despite it's manufacturing flaws, is a cool piece of gear for the price, as can be said of the Crave. Why not focus on creating unique gear, or if you're going to clone, then make something that looks different enough to be unique, but make it better? Hard to say, but it doesn't matter now, because Behringer have a reputation for building inferior gear and stealing other designs. I feel they harm the industry and we musicians and engineers rather than they do for themselves sitting in the group as an equal.

The other reason is about ethics and personal responsibility. It's not always productive to discuss, but it cannot be overlooked:

I think what Uli did to Dave Smith and Peter Kirn, and tried to do to Tom Oberheim, were not just churlish and petty behaviors but an example of a fundamentally flawed human being. If someone is willing to beat up a total stranger—AND FOR NO ACTUAL PURPOSE OTHER THAN EGO—in the full view of the public, customers, vendors and professionals alike, then that person/company will not get my business. End of story, full stop. As of today, I own only one piece of Behringer gear: a rack EQ that was left in the studio by an engineer I hired. It stays where it is simply because I didn't pay for it and I don't even want to devote the energy to remove it from the gear rack. I can't actually recall when we used it on a track because even my dbx 231 is better, and that's not saying much.

Every industry needs a bratty nephew that is just a pest to everyone, and that's the role that Behringer has decided to play in our music equipment family.

EDITED Nov 17th 2022, 22:39

Hey,

Nice rack! There's a lot going on there. As you already thought about, you're probably going to want some VCOs as sources. You've got plenty of modulation in there. You can patch everything all over the place in circular routes, but at the end of the chain, you're only really changing whatever initial wave you start with, but you have to have it to start! The Piston Honda is a wavetable, which sounds great, but really isn't the same as an analog, or even a digital, VCO. With VCOs, you can patch back practically any single output into another VCO and FM the bajeezus out of it, run it through a filter or two and get the same result as a wall of filters, or even a wavetable module (almost). The point is that one doesn't need to have loads of modules to make good tracks. You just need the right modules for your music.

I use mostly analog VCOs, such as the Castor & Pollux, four Electrosmith 3340s, and a few of Doepfer's VCOs I've bought for my racks and tracks. Pick any of those and patch them back into themselves for some great sounding FM. If I need it to be more harsh, the Doepfer Wasp is an excellent filtering tool. I have two of them and they make it into a track whenever I need to brighten the sound up. Intellijel's Polaris is another excellent and versatile filter.

Envelopes and amps are your friends. The Zadar is great. I use the MI Blinds which I really like b/c its also a polarizer. I've never worked with the Quadigy so I can't comment. I will say that no two EGs are quite the same and you definitely want range and sensitivity when it comes to an EG. Doepfer's EGs aren't sensitive enough for me. Having good EGs is critically important.

You can never have too many VCAs. The MI Veils are fine, but I think there are better ones available. The Xaoc Tallin is one of my favs. Lots of gain that can be pushed to clip in a nice toasty and pleasing way. I have two and they get used a lot. I wish they were less wide. VCAs can be used everywhere for many different applications. I always find I'm short a VCA when things start getting super involved!

Lastly, I will say that simper is better, especially when (if) you're performing. You're probably never going to use every module every patch and after buying tens of thousands of dollars worth of modules, I find that I use only a handful on any track. There are some that are always used and some that I really should sell because they rarely if ever get used. Anyway, nice work. Get some VCOs is my only advice.

PS: Here's one example that's quite excellent:

I'm seeing at least three Mutable Instruments modules (Beads, Plaits and possibly Clouds), a Pam's Workout, a Make Noise STO VCO, a 4MS SWN wavetable generator, a Qu-Bit Nebulae granular synthesizer, a Strymon Magneto Tape Looper handling the echo, a Qu-Bit Bloom sequencer, an Instruo I can't make out and the rest is all too blurry. Really nice output here, and great inspiration, Qwertz!

EDITED Nov 1st 2022, 06:33

Great idea about the AvonSynth. I wish I had known about that before I bought the 1983. I do like the tuning feature in the 1983, though. I use that regularly. Yes, aftertouch in the 1983 is an afterthought, not really useful for polyphony.

EDITED Nov 4th 2022, 07:36

Hey there,

The single most important thing to do before you build a modular synth system is to understand what it is that you're wanting to create. Sure, you've identified that you want to go ambient, but that's a very wide field ranging from Eno and Harold Budd all the way over to Nine Inch Nails, with stops at the houses of Philip Glass, Deep Forest and even Scraping Foetus along the way. With modular, you can spend a ton of money on equipment and not get what you're after. Do you want sweeping and moody pads? Are you after environmental sounds? Are drums needed? Plonky tubular skindrum sounds of the rainforest? Do you just want to write the next "Music To Get Stoned To" album, or is your writing melodic, formative, free-form or accidental? There are no wrong answers, but those answers will help guide you to deciding which modules and/or equipment makes the most sense to accomplish your goals. Remember that music is made from instruments and you just need to choose which instruments, modular synths or otherwise, will best speak your language.

Let's talk about your rack. In general, I think you're in the right direction. Maths is excellent, and it will help you manage some interesting drones, but I strongly encourage you to learn about what Maths is and isn't. Think of it as a superutility. Its strengths are in mathematically dividing, flipping and tweaking existing signals. Here's a great overview of Maths and what it can do: https://alijamieson.co.uk/2016/11/02/make-noise-maths-beginners/.

I'm a fan of Mutable Instruments, so much so that I own nearly all of them (except, actually, Marbles...I did for a while but ended up selling it as I have other modules that do a similar thing. Also, Marbles is a CV utility, really. It's similar to Maths in the sense that it manipulates control signal, and has some clock abilities, but it's not a voice, per se. Rings is quite good and its strength is as a ring modulator, so I wouldn't call it a "warm and fuzzy" filter. Beads and Tides are excellent—truly two of my fav modules from MI. Beads can be pushed into delay and S&H territory very easily, freezing an input signal for use as a repeating grain. Behringer has made an attempt to copy (as they do) these modules and I can't say how well they've done it as I've not used them. If cost is a concern, then Behringer certainly is one way to go, but I encourage you to do your research first, comparing the actual modules that they've copied. Nearly everyone has copied MI's modules. How well they've done the work is the real test. I can't say that Behringer has always done a great job, and there's something separate to be said about a company that just steals other engineer's ideas and copies them, but they are definitely the least expensive.

You're absolutely going to want good filters and a way to shape them across the time vector. Envelopes and LFOs are your tools of choice here. Be sure you have at least one LFO, preferably two or more, that you can patch into the envelopes and VCOs. Take a look at NANO's Quart (a quad LFO/EG) and the Xaoc Zadar, an EG/Function Generator.

Keep in mind also that, as a basic start, you're going to want several VCOs. Not just one or two but maybe three or more. This will give you the opportunity to set a few offset from each other to create droning or playable chords. You'll need VCAs to work in conjunction with your EGs. You'll also need a decent effects stage, whether that's modular or using good outboard gear or pedals. Finally, you'll need a good way to get audio out of your rack. You may also want to consider panning your signals to the stereo field, which is essential for really good ambient richness.

Just be sure that you understand what the modules are capable of before you buy them. There's nothing worse than spending a lot of money and realizing that the modules aren't doing what you expect them to. Be sure that you visit the manufacturer's websites for every module you are interested in, or go to youtube and see if there are any example videos that you can listen to. Make sure you listen to as many as possible so that you get a clear picture of the sonic capabilities of each module.

All this can cost a bundle, so it's important to ask yourself whether you can find a synth that can achieve the same result for the same price or (more likely) much less. For example, if you're going for ambient pure and simple, maybe consider an Oberheim OB-6 and a Strymon Blue Sky delay pedal and you're off to the races in style!

I encourage you to explore VCV, the software module building tool. It's a wonderful way to explore modular synthesis and experiment and learn without spending the thousands of dollars that you easily can do with this stuff.

Hope the info helps.

Finally, as I mentioned, I have a separate rack dedicated to MI modules and I find that I use it almost entirely for ambient, percussive and environmental sounds. It wasn't cheap to build this one (remember that you'll need cases and power supplies), but I'm glad I have it in my studio for when I'm feeling the need for such soundscapes. Check it out here:

EDITED Nov 1st 2022, 06:34

I agree with Manbearpignick and Adam. I think educating oneself is critical, especially when one can drop thousands on modules and then discover they're not the right ones. Know the sound you're trying to get, then learn how to get that sound, rather than just buying whatever modules you see someone else is using (not that you're doing that ) and then hoping it'll all come together (which it very well might).

+1 on the ES-9 and using VCV. I think VCV is probably the single most valuable educational tool there is right now.

To answer your VCA question in a word: yes. "You can never have enough VCAs" is a modular synth catch-phrase for a reason. You will use VCAs for literally controlling everything. You will also need a good way to get audio out, and a VCA can certainly be used for that. The Tallin is one example of a good multi-purpose VCA/mixer. And, as Adam pointed out, I'd recommend limiting your output to mono and save the capital spent on stereo circuitry for other bits.

I always go back to the basics whenever I find myself asking a lot of questions about something, no matter what it is. With modular, that means going back to the tried-and-true building blocks of all (subtractive) synthesis: at least one VCO, then a VCF, EG and VCA(s), more or less in that order. Repeat that group again. To get the techno you're after, I'd recommend at least two VCOs (I only see one, the Mantis). I suppose you could use the Disting as a VCO, but then you'd be sacrificing all the effects that critter has under the hood (watch out for running too hot a signal into the Disting...it clips a bit too easily for my tastes and can sound a bit crunchy).

Look at Erica Synths Pico modules for drums. Good stuff there.

The techo tweak happens from time to time by running your signals fat and then sweeping them into a tight little spiral using a good filter. By "good" I mean that you don't want to lose fidelity just to sweep something into a high-pass shape. I have found that the Xaoc Belgrad is a great filter with a huge number of shaping possibilities that also has excellent signal integrity. The Polaris, which you have, is an excellent filter also. Patch any of that that back into your VCOs to get some really interesting FM possibilities.

Maybe the overarching point here is that the sound you're probably after could be created using a far simpler set of modules than what I see in this rack. You def need to start with a sequencer of some kind and/or a beat machine. The rest is just riffing monophonic notes from several VCOs and tweaking the juice out of them with some wide ranging filters. Keep in mind that the Polaris also has some cool phasing ability, so if you used an envelope follower to bring that back into a (aforementioned missing) second VCO, you could get so sick you'd end up in the hospital with a gaggle of goth babes losing their minds in the waiting room.

EDITED Oct 31st 2022, 23:36

Polyphony is the big one, right? Perhaps one isn't (shouldn't be?) trying to recreate a Jupiter 8, but having polyphony opens up some interesting sonic possibilities, especially if you're not just trying to map chords.

I've been working to create the simplest polyphonic modular group and I think I've done it with this example rack. I chose four VCOs over the usual three so to have the opportunity to play a triad chord and then have a remaining voice for lead lines, wherever they may fit in. The Bastl 1983, while functional, isn't perfect. It doesn't seem to track consistently and that may be the result of the Arturia Keystep 37 I'm using as a controller, but it works well enough. I'm still experimenting.

I've set this up to use it in two ways. First, as a four voice system using the VCOs patched directly through each input on the Doepfer modules and then the sum out from the A-132-8 goes off to the mixing desk. The second iteration takes two of the four voices into each of the two inputs on the 860s, which I then take the summed outputs on each to the Tallin VCA and then tracked to stereo using the Strymon line amp. It works really well, except that the 860s, while incredibly warm and well matched to the 3340s, don't really range far and wide in terms of waveshaping. They're straight up analog filters based on the Roland circuits used in the 80's-era Juno and Jupiter synths. The sound is really warm and juicy. I can get super F-A-T bassy notes out of it patched like that.

What do you think? Have you tried to create polyphony? Any other ideas for a MIDI or CV processor that will create and track notes across 7 octaves? I'd love to hear your thoughts and ideas on this interesting channel of modular synth building.