how to incorporate the XAOC NIN

HI All

These are my racks at the moment but I want to incorporate the nin expander for the extra 4 cv inputs but I'm struggling to find space for it.

I'd be interested to hear thoughts on what you would remove. I guess I could go for the thing I use the least but I've taken a lot of time, money and effort to build these and pretty much everything gets used frequently.

Thanks in advance

EDITED Sep 30th 2021, 03:26

Do you use these 3 racks at the same time (like one big rack) or do you use them (and must they stay) independent?

If it's basically 1 big rack then I suggest you make one big MG rack reflecting all the modules, with like modules fairly nearby.

I see a lot of modules I like, but IMO it is harder to assess completeness/balance with the modules spread out like above.

Also, if you use these modules altogether, a maybe obvious suggestion is you invest in new case(s) which will give you more HP plus more chances to consolidate racks. Over time, I've moved to bigger cases, my small cases still end up getting used for various tasks (e.g. I don't find it a terrible waste to have a small case or two left over).

[Edit]... so I did just go through module by module. Lots of good stuff, seems like a reasonable balance of modules all considered. If it was my rig being used all together, what I'd be thinking about next would be some combination of:
-- a bigger case to put everything in and leave some room for expansion, plus enough blanks to fill voids safely
-- an active switch like Switchblade or BossBow2 so you can sequence your sequencers, switch audio at audio rate, etc.
-- a complex OSC like Cs-L (mainly because I love those types of things)
-- a couple wavefolders, lots of interest to be had on that front
-- Joranalogue Morph 4 for use with CV and or audio. A versitile and powerful unit
-- some NonLinearCircuits chaos and logic circuits (TripleSloths, Hypster, Neuron, etc) to add more unexpected stuff
-- PNW's 24PPQN expander plus extra mults for easy clocking everything else off of PNW (unless this sync issue is already handled)

In other words, if you like and use everything you have, why not keep it, add HP when you can, and cherry pick a couple great adds when possible?

If you have to keep to an HP/budget limit for whatever reason, I'd suggest you drop the biggest item you use the least. Last I should say, it's already a powerful rig, you could skip all the suggestions above and still have lots of great stuff to make sounds with!

EDITED Sep 30th 2021, 06:36

the simplest solution to me is:

take the clep diaz out in the short term & buy another case... and put clep diaz in it...

or better yet... put a decent handful of modules in it and get some blind panels...

similar to @nickgreenbergs solution - but you still get to keep all your cases - so you can have one or 2 that you can pull out

given the number of voices you have it would make sense to rationalize quantization across them - can't recommend the sinfonion enough for this...

I find separate cases easy to deal with - I have 6 and will add 2 more (well 2 * 6u/84 hp in 2 6u desktop racks)

I like this solution as it is easier to deal with individual cases on a power and maintenance level and I can have a couple that I can pull out for whatever reason to use standalone - 1 for audio, 1 for video, in my case!

On first glance, I think I would be tempted to remove the York passive mult and the 4ms buffered mult in the third case (you already have the buffered Links mult in case #1 and you could spend $20 for a few external splitters), move the 4ms Rotating Clock Divider from case #2 to case #3, and insert the Nin in case #2.

+1 on farkas' suggestion. Actually, these days it probably makes more sense to NOT use passive mults unless you're putting something huge together, because we now have inline mults, stackcables, and so on. With smaller cabs and skiffs, though, it's far more important to dedicate the case space to ACTIVE devices and leave passive mults as something better dealt with while patching, along with the cables.

HI All,

Thanks Farkas, Jim, Nick and Lugia :) I will file the suggestions and look into them further. Farkas it was after reading one of your posts that I got the idea for putting the links and kinks down the side of the case so thanks for that. I think that was a good shout in one of your previous posts.

For now, I think I have managed to sort out a compromise as I am not wanting to invest in another case. I think I may next year when the Buchla clones come out (thanks for posting about that Lugia) but for now I feel I have much more than I realistically need.

I normally use the second Intellijel case for melodies and bass and the first one for drums and percussion. That being said, I can normally get a lot of stuff going just playing with the the first Intellijel case. I can use the BIA for bass and percussion and a solid kick if need be, as well as melodies. I love that thing. The plaits for melodic lines or percussion and the squid for drums and rhythm and there is plenty of modulation opportunities in that case now I've reorganised it. I gotta say the 1u format is a stroke of genius by developers and really helps utilising space better. You can also do a lot with the squid on the last 3 triggers as they have 1v per octave for pitch if the samples are tuned right.

I have moved the mx-1 mixer to the weedy whizz cab and will patch into if it needed which means I can move the RCD to the second Intellijel case. I already have a mosaic mixer in the 1U row so will see how I feel using this more than the mx-1 which I found incredibly useful when patching the output into one of the inputs to drive signals into saturation.

I am using the Quantermain in the O&C for quantizing the different voltages but I also have scale effects in the Hermod for this if required. The metropolis can also be used to set scales but I tend to use the O&C if I am mixing sequencer CV's with random voltages or offsets to get everything quantized.

I don't like heavy wavefolding but can recommend the tanh for this if you like the wave folding to be subtle. The rubicon 2 has a the squish circuit built into it which can be light and I use this regularly and if I need it stronger its a case of setting a jumper on the back of the unit or a trim pot if I recall correctly from the manual.

I wanted to keep the Clep Diaz in the first case as I want to try to see how I can utilise the clep with the nin expander to step through lfo's and see what effect this has on the many envelopes in the zadar. I'm using the RCD a lot with the Quadra particularly with the rotate function which gives me the unpredictability that Nick was alluding to I guess. So for now, the two Intellijel cases look like this with 2hp to spare - any ideas what would be useful? :) I think I might get a 2hp cv mixer there I think.

I am yet to buy the matrix mixer in the weedy whizz cab which I think will be used to set up sends to my ACL delay and fx aid for reverb when I'm not using the ES8.

https://imgur.com/a/k15ySBQ

Regards :)

EDITED Oct 1st 2021, 00:08

Here are my thoughts. I didn't read any others so there may be overlap.

Here are the different solutions.
1. Remove one ES Disting Mk4.

2. Remove the precision adder.

3. Buy a cloned version of Plaits that is 4HP smaller.