I am new and my first rack, please help!

Hello Everyone,

I am so happy with this forum, so useful, everybody is so nice. I am new into synthesizers and modular synthesizers I only have heard about two weeks ago when a friend of mine showed me his Eurorack. That looks so cool, all these modules, those flashing lights, I straight away thought I must have one as well. Way cool to do some electronic music, right?! :-)

Below you will find my first rack design:

I would appreciate your help and advice so I can have a good start into modular, you know, it's so cool, all these flashing lights, I just love it.

By the way, what does LFO, VCO, VCF, ADSR, EG and VCA stands for? You know I just start looking around and have difficulties understanding all these abbreviations.

Anyway, I look forward for your kind help and thank you so much, this is such a cool forum you know!

P.S.: Oh yes, if you wonder how I came up to this rack, please take of every module the first letter of the manufacturer name, that provides the first sentence. You could take of every module the first letter of the module name as well and that will be the second sentence, defining the rack and me as being such an enthusiastic beginner, again, thank you so much! :-)

P.S.2: No manufacturers with nice flashing light modules starting with the letter U, so I took V instead, so if you see a V make that a U in the sentences.

Hi Garfield,

Nice! I thought that you already had a setup? Anyways, I am new and well and learning with my new setups. Ok let me take a stab at it!

To help:

"By the way, what does LFO, VCO, VCF, ADSR, EG and VCA stands for?"

LFO= Low Frequency Oscillator
the slow moving oscillator that modulates other things like VCOs and can have different rates of control.

VCO= Voltage Controlled Oscillator
The main sound sources of a modular system. They oscillate as sound waves back and forth nonstop. I use a scope to view them for example there are various wave types of VCOs- square, triangle, sine and so forth.

ADSR= Attack, Decay, Sustain, Release
Often part of an envelope generator. Helps manage how long a note lasts and things like that.

EG= Envelope Generator

VCA= Voltage controlled Amplifier
Lets you do all kinds of useful things for managing volume and voltage stuff with sound and modulation sources. More is better :-)
My two setups have 12 VCA total and I only have 2 VCOs and 2 drum type modules so have it ok for now.

I highly recommend the book Patch & Tweak and the Youtube channel and website by Chris Meyer he is a master teacher of modular synthesis.

https://learningmodular.com/

If I am wrong here feel free to correct my oversight as I am just a humble beginner to modular as well.

hahaha - a modular acrostic!!!

edited to remove the solution

this should be stickied

EDITED Sep 27th 2020, 10:31

To many UCA!

Cool a Puzzle lol

Hi JimHowell1970,

Ha, ha, I am glad you recognised it as a modular acrostic :-)

Yes, for the moment it's good that you have removed the solution, let members give it a try first themselves ;-)

Kind regards, Garfield.

Hi Defragmenteur and Kalu_Bandali,

Yeah nice puzzle right ;-) ?

Oh no Defragmenteur, more abbreviations, UCA? I am so new within modular, all these abbreviations, how am I ever able to produce sounds from my Eurorack? ;-) I just wanted to have a Eurorack for all those nice flashing lights

Kind regards, Garfield.

Hi Sacguy71,

Ha, ha, sorry, I have to apologise to you and thank you at the same time for your kind help (thanks a lot for hinting Chris Meyer, I didn't know him yet, will check out his stuff). However please do notice this was not real seriously meant by me. By writing that I like all those flashing lights and that after seeing one Eurorack two weeks ago from a friend of mine and that I directly want one because it's just cool...

Should have perhaps been an indication to you and other regular readers that this wouldn't be me because I am member for more than a year and after that one should have more experience than just looking for "nice flashing lights modules" (aka sexy modules syndrome). My above rack and the "hidden" message behind it was meant as a kind of parody ;-)

Check out JimHowel1970's above message, he hits the nail on its head, this "designed" rack is a modular acrostic. Hence, read my P.S. and P.S.2 and then you should be able to solve the "puzzle".

Kind regards and I hope you are not angry at me? Garfield.

You DID get the special expander for the ORBIT, right? The one with the half-kilogram of plutonium that sits behind the panel...the tone quality definitely makes up for the impending death from cancer!

@GarfieldModular TBH I thought you'd been hacked at first 🤣🤣🤣

Hi Troux,

No, it was just me going wild ;-)

Kind regards, Garfield.