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Friend, I appreciate your enthusiasm, but particularly in the last couple years this forum has not been a place of instantaneous reaponse. More of a "post a clear, specific, well-formed question or concept and maybe someone will reply in a couple days" kind of forum. Mod Wiggler might be a bit more active in the way you seem to want.
As a general critique for the racks you posted, I think you're overemphasizing sound sources and missing a lot of what I'd consider necessary components to make them really function. You have end of chain mixing in each of the first three cases, but no sub-mixing along the way, seriously lacking in filters or other timbre shaping, virtually no designated VCAs as far as I can tell. You'll be able to make sounds, but the range would be limited.
The fourth system with the Taiga seems most interesting/playable to me, some definite Music Easel vibes plus Bloom and the joysticks seems great. But I think this is also due to Pittsburgh having already thought through the design of Taiga to make it a full instrument in and of itself.
I don't want to discourage you because we're all on here to design systems and dream of what might work, but if you want feedback, four racks at once is a bit overwhelming. And also practice patience, the folks around here can be very helpful but not necessarily perpetually online.
Just want to chime in with more love for the O&C, I keep two in my rack and they're both running the hemispheres firmware, which is even less menu-ey plus gives you access to a ton of simple utilities. Plus you can run two at a time (or the shift register can utilize all four channels). Super easy to switch from quantizer to logic to S&H to comparitor to envelope to chaotic modulation or whatever you need in the moment. Cheers!
If you're just looking for power, something like the TipTop uZeus or the endorphines 2hp power are great for small cases. for the modules you listed, they draw a little over 500mA on the +12v rail and less than 100mA on the -12v rail. With the right wall wart or power brick, uZeus will pump out 2 amps +12v and 500mA -12v, and the 2hp Power produces 1amp +12v and 700mA -12v. Either would give you headroom to add one or two more modules. Cheers!
ahhh great! Pam's and Steppy work wonderfully. And yeah, at minimum you want one envelope per sound you're making. Another pair of ADSRs and/or Scenes will let you be a lot more flexible. One other fun trick for hats is to set the waveform of one channel on Pam's to be a short decay envelope and have it at x2 or x4 tempo. That frees one of your actual envelopes for other duties. Plus you can do some euclidean things or random skips. Good times!
Howdy! What are you using to trigger sounds? Are you hoping to just record one-shot samples into a DAW or do you want to treat your modular rack like a designated drum machine? The thing you can do with just what you have here is run the clock output from the noise/random module into the trigger in on one of the ADSRs. Run white noise out from the noise/random into one of the VCAs and the ADSR out to control the VCA. Keep the Attack, Decay, and Sustain near zero and play around with the release. Turn the clock speed up to how fast you'd want hi-hats to go and you've got that part of the kit going! For bonus, run the S&H out into the CVT input on the ADSR to get some varying length releases and humanize it a bit.
Without a trigger sequencer or at least a clock divider, there's not a whole lot more you could add to the kit as is. For a kick sound, tune one of the Brooks low and run it into a VCA. Have the ADSR go to both control the VCA and have it hit the pitch of Brooks to taste. Other option would be to put the other Brooks into another VCA and patch that VCA output into the FM in on the first Brooks, and use the ADSR out to control the 2nd VCA (and thus the depth of FM from one Brooks into the other).
Similar idea for a snare sound, except combine one Brooks and maybe the colored noise output in two channels of the Cloaks, controlled by the two ADSRs triggered at the same time, but playing with the release times to see what sounds come out of it.
As for modules I'd add, Pam's is great as a master clock and you can program it like a drum sequencer with a little work. A clone of Mutable Instruments Grids is perfect for a 3 piece drum machine, although no matter what you'll want at least one more envelope. For that, I think a clone of Mutable Instruments Stages is perfect for percussive things. Most percussion you really only need a Decay envelope, and Stages can quickly be 6 of those, but you can also set it up to be a mix of decay envelopes, clocks, clock dividers, S&H, or a bunch of other things (particularly with the Quiemem firmware).
Also highly recommend the Sound on Sound Synth Secrets series of articles for in-depth looks at creating a lot of different sounds from base synth components. Cheers friend!
This is a pretty open ended request, so we might need a bit more detail to be able to give you adequate advice. I know it's not specifically Eurorack, but I would really recommend the Behringer 2500 clone as a very reasonably priced all-in-one extremely versatile option. You can also mount that in a standard rack and add a row or two of 84hp rails to expand with things you think you're missing. For drone/ambient I'd recommend some more sources of modulation and maybe some interesting delays/reverbs (if you're not already running it through pedals). Maths is a great addition to the 2600 for envelopes and more complex modulation (also highly recommend the illustrated supplement for Maths, you'll learn A TON about voltage and how to push it around). Updated clones of Clouds (like the Monsoon) are pretty "classic" eurorack nowadays too. Sort of an instant ambient playhouse.
This might just be my personal opinion, but I don't think synthwave type sounds are really where modular shines. When I think of synthwave I think of more typical polysynth options, but the beauty of modular is you can always run a keyboard synth alongside it! (or even INTO it!)
Any more detail on things that are drawing you into modular or sounds that have been inspiring you would be greatly helpful to give you more specific direction.
Howdy! I don't actually have a Victor so I'm not 100% sure, but in the manual it says this about the gate input:
"GATE IN – use this 3.5 mm TS jack socket to activate
the onboard mix envelope from an external
source. The GATE input expects a v-trig rising from
0 V to +5 V."
Whereas the Plaits has an actual built in LPG/envelope for amplitude, it looks like the purpose of the gate on Victor is to trigger an envelope that sweeps the onboard oscilator mix. Does that sound right? I also noticed the USB/Midi jack says specifically it does not respond to note on/off which makes me think it doesn't have internal VCA capabilities. I think you'll want to run it into an external VCA and use gate from the GM to trigger an envelope to control it. Cheers!
The 2 clouds threw me off at first too, but reading the original description closer, the 1st row is what they have already and the 2nd row is proposed next steps. I also agree a smaller/more flexible clouds clone is a good step though
That's very fair! I think I'm used to just running stack cables and hex/outboard passive mults that I often don't think of them as necessary, but that's my own workflow. What you're doing sounds super cool! My vote would probably be to drop Minimix, Xaoc DSP, and maybe one veils, and add the Bartender/Barback combo to mix. Whatever configuration you end up with, would love to hear what you make! Cheers friend
I've personally had really good luck with the modules I've gotten from After Later, both new and used. I haven't used the Bartender/Barback mixers, but they do seem to fill the functions you'd want! Boy I'd miss having the Veils though, they're really great VCAs. I'd sooner drop both of the buffered mults and probably Jungle Henge as well. That would get you most of way to the 34 hp required, but would have some trickier decisions for the last few hp. How much are you using the that Xaoc DSP? The combo of Beads and the Versio modules as well as Prism feels like it could be enough effects. I'd maybe be inclined to pull that out if mixing is the priority at the moment. I don't envy those hard choices!! The good news is you can always buy another rack to house the stuff you're not ising here haha
SSF Vortices has 3 stereo and 4 mono channels in 16 hp, or with Tesseract Tex Mix you can get 4 stereo channels and some sends/returns in 20hp. Otherwise Doepfer has the 8hp VC Stereo mixer, a couple of those with the Jumble Henge could yield interesting results!
The first and likely most important advice I can give is to expand to a bigger rack. I started the same way with the Tiptop Happy Endings kit, one row of 84hp with the uZeus, and I think I ended up getting a second row of 84hp rails within about 3 months. It sounds like you have a lot of things you want to try, and if you feel like your first explorations with your current setup has got you hooked, I'd recommend going straight for something like the Tiptop Mantis (absolutely best bang for buck in a ready made rack) or the Arturia Rackbrute.
Once you do that you have more room to explore different combinations of modules and see what piques your interest and helps you make the music you want to make.
Maths and the Doepfer VC mixer are great additions. Look up the Maths Illustrated Supplement. That will teach you A LOT about modular synthesis and voltage principles. I don't think you need the Behringer VCA as a final output, but VCAs are helpful for other things, like modulating modulation (maybe not as important yet since Maths is really your only modulation source, but likely worth holding onto). I've plugged my modular straight into a little Mackie mixer for years, and turning the gain down on the channel gives plenty of headroom so it doesn't distort. Not sure if your interface will do the same, but keeping the levels lower on the Doepfer mixer should be enough.
I appreciate that you're staying clear of smaller modules (way better for ergonomics), but I agree the 14hp Behringer VCO is pretty large even in a bigger rack. The Pony VCOs are pretty teeny and can be difficult to adjust manually, so things like the MCO, Make Noise STO, 8hp and up copies of Mutable Plaits and so forth would be great. Having two of a particular VCO is nice for detuned sounds or harmonizing in similar timbre spaces, so I'd recommend picking a VCO you like and getting two of them.
How are you using Clouds? If you haven't looked up the Parasites firmware, that makes the built in reverb way more useful as well as adding some additional delay and resonator modes. Highly recommended.
Other things I'd recommend: based on what you mentioned about melody/harmony/rhythm/randomness, a copy of Mutable Instruments Marbles is an amazing all-in-one sequencer/random source/trigger generator. Something like the Disting or the Ornament and Crime can also be super useful multi-function modules that can help you explore a lot of different types of modules and determine if you want a dedicated module to do the things you reach for the most in those resources. Once you incorporate more modulation sources, I'd also recommend something to mix them. I'm partial to the Tiptop MISO and the Doepfer Matrix Mixer. They let you turn a few simple modulation sources into a ton of different combinations and variations of more complex modulation. (EDIT Ornament and Crime with Hemispheres firmware is best for function exploration)
All in all, what you have is great for learning the initial signal flow of a mono synth, but the real fun of modular comes when you start to explore modulation. If you don't want to expand the rack, I think the Disting would be the thing I'd add. If you want to expand to a Mantis case, maybe swap out the Behringer VCO for a pair of other VCOs that you like, but definitely add a clone of Marbles, a Disting or an Ornament and Crime, a Tiptop MISO, and maybe a dedicated LFO or Sample and Hold from Doepfer or something.
Just tried it out with the Benjolin. It seemed like the pulse happened at the peak of the triangle, so I just inverted the pulse to make it happen at the start of the triangle and got some pretty satisfying results!
So here's what I'd do with your system specifically: Run whichever VCO/VCF combo you'd like into a VCA. Run the triangle A out of the benjolin to the CV in on the vca. Run the Pulse A out of the benjolin to the A * B + C to invert it, and use that out to clock the turing machine as well as the sample and hold. Run one of those into the quantizer and out to the 1v/o of the VCO, and the other to the CV in on benjolin osc A. Use any other modulation sources you'd like on the filter for a fun time : )
I don't remember how the pulse and triangle waves line up on either the Benjolin or the NLC Dual LFOs, but if the pulse is at the very start of the triangle cycle, you might be able to use the pulse to trigger the random voltage and use the triangle to control the VCA. Even better, trigger two random voltages and use one for pitch and the other to modulate the rate of the LFO. For me the real fun of Krell patches is modulating the rise and fall of a looping envelope, so I'd recommend getting any kind of envelope that has cv control over rise and fall, and the end of cycle trigger makes everything easier too. Cheers and happy patching!
Forgive me if this is too obvious or you're already doing this, but with the ES9 you can do a ton with VCV rack. There are many copies of existing hardware modules available in VCV rack for free, which can help you get to know the workflow and determine what types of things you gravitate toward to decide what you want to invest in on the hardware side. Cheers!
Ever since this migration, my password only works on one device at a time. So if I logged in on my phone and then attempt to log in on my pc, it tells me my username/password is invalid and makes me reset the password. If I then try to log back in on my phone, I get the same error and have to reset the password again. Is anybody else running into this?
I've lusted after the DFAM and Subharmonicon for a long time, but figured I'd try to defer my desire by approximating the functionality with equipment I already have. I patched this up last week, did a little live stream jam this past Wednesday, but figured I'd share it with y'all! Patch notes are in the video description, but largely features Pamela's New Workout, Ornament and Crime, and the Korg SQ-1 controlling a BARP 2600 with some extra LFOs/envelopes/VCAs and a filter, and then I decided to add some rhythmic stuff and a Telharmonic drone. Let me know what you think!
Thanks! I know Make Noise did some videos a few years back on some of the example patches, and with the new release JDanielCramer of Poly Krell fame started a new series as well. Good stuff!
I got my copy of Allen Strange's book a few weeks ago from the Kickstarter and felt inspired. I put this patch together based on the Dream Machine patch on p85 and was pretty happy with the results, so I figured I'd share it here : )
Main voice is After Later Beehive (micro Plaits) 2op FM going through one of the low pass filters in QuBit Tone. I have it enveloped by Maths ch1, whose "Both" input gets the random CV from Wogglebug that determines the tempo, so slower tempos get longer notes and faster tempos get snappier notes. I'm sending a slower/subdivided selection of notes to Paradox, which is then mixed with some noise and fed into nRings to create the underlying pad. An even more sparse trigger gets sent to self-oscillating Ripples for some bass-y punches every once in a while.
The main sequence was created by mapping the positions of the letters of the alphabet to approximate positions on the sequencer's knobs (eg A = 0/26, B = 1/26, etc) and I used the letters A S T R A N G E as the shape of the sequence. It's then mixed with random voltage and quantized, but I still felt pretty clever haha
It's extremely common for newcomers (myself a year ago) to want to start small and think it'll hold you off before you expand, but cases are a real expense. If you know you're going to expand, you might as well start with a case that will allow you to grow into it. I started with a Tip Top Happy Ending kit (3u, 84hp), got a second set of rails and mounted them in a box (6u, 84hp), but by month 4 or so I had already filled that and knew there was more functionality I needed. I recently got a 9u 104hp case from Case From Lake that closes patched and would recommend them in a heartbeat. It's just one guy out of Italy so took a little while for it to get finished, but well worth the wait. Otherwise, the Tip Top Mantis is the best bang for buck case, has a great power supply, and really is quite portable. Those Palette cases look cool, but are substantially more $/hp for what they are.
Looking at your assortment of modules, I think you will run into some additional needs quite quickly in terms of utilities, which in the Palette case you won't have room for. EG Monsoon reeeaaaalllly needs attenuation on modulation, and right now you only have the 2 vcas in the 1u row that can scale back in that way. Sloths is going to swing those parameters pretty wildly, particularly if you use those bottom +/- outputs which can go outside the +/-10v range. Sloths is also chaotic by nature, and I think you'll find that having something that can do "normal" LFOs is extremely useful.
Those are the things I've noticed for now. The modular journey is incredibly satisfying, but once it gets its claws in you you're going to move up in hp quite quickly : )
I agree with what others are saying; I'd shy away from more sound sources and focus more on mixing your modulation sources to make it more complex. I use the Doepfer Matrix Mixer with other offset/attenuation to vary the mix and degree of my modulation sources, and something like the TipTop Miso or the 4MS SISM fills a similar function in a smaller footprint. I would also say injecting a little bit of randomness really keeps things interesting. I know Pams has random waveforms, or I'm sure you can use one of the Distings for the purpose as well, but a little bit of slewed sample and hold or a designated random module like the Wogglebug (or Sloths if you dig the smoother chaos) goes a long way. Mix your modulation sources, run your modulation sources into a VCA and control it with another modulation source, mix and mingle with some feedback maybe (!?), send it to your cutoff or timbre controls and see which motions jive with your sounds. Apart from that, all great stuff in your rack! Have fun!
I have a Model D, Poly D, and a couple other small pieces of commodity/utility gear from Behringer, and agree that the accessibility of their reissue work has really opened the world of synths to a lot of people that otherwise wouldn't get into it. However, in addition to the examples of Dave Smith and Oberheim noted above, the latest scenario with Mutable Instruments last year is why I've decided to avoid their modular gear going forward. I know Emilie made the designs open source and that has been a big boon for smaller companies making clones or variations on the designs (After Later, Cal Synth, etc), but it's an entirely different scenario when a large corporation lifts the design without giving credit (Mutable Plaits -> Behringer Brains). If they end up producing their clones of the Synthi or the Music Easel, I might consider it, but I'll be thinking about it way longer and harder than I did when I bought my Boog clones.
So yes, buy the modules that interest you, but I think there's a place for personal responsibility in whom we support with our dollars.
Thanks for looking and for the feedback! Obviously I have a lot to learn, and appreciate the places to look into more. I had heard the terms exponential and linear used with VCAs but couldn't really conceptualize the difference. I had thought of stages primarily as an envelope generator, and it has a variable response that I thought I could get exponential, but was I mistaken? Does it do envelopes differently than something like Maths?
I had not heard about the issues with placing audio modules next to power supplies. Oops! More research and placement experimentation to come. As for other placement issues, my mental map was to have the Pam's and the VCAs near the center with my sequencing and sound sources on the left and sound shaping/modulation on the right, but still playing around with what feels comfortable to tweak in more of a performance setting.
Again, thanks for responding. I so appreciate seeing yours and others' feedback on racks. I know it must get tiring seeing all of us noobs coming in with so little understanding, but I'm grateful for your willingness to share your wisdom!
Heads up: this is mostly me just wanting to share my creation with humans who care, with a few questions at the end. I've only had my wife to share my excitement with and I don't want to exhaust her anymore : )
I've been lurking for the last few months, pulled the trigger in March and started building my dream synth. I've been doing droning/ambient things with electric bass and an old Moog Taurus v2 for a long while, and previously played with some other friends, but COVID and life changes meant I was making a lot more music on my own. I did some research and thought that the modular route would open a lot of sonic capabilities to let me make more complete audio experiments by myself.
I've spent more money than I thought I would give myself permission to (oops!) but my oh my this is one of the best decisions I've made in quite a while : )
I mostly like to have slow moving drones, introducing some generative melodies here and there with some rhythmic pulses ebbing and flowing. I love harnessed randomness, and adapting to how things are moving on their own. I plan on eventually playing other instruments alongside evolving patches from the rack, mostly in droning/ambient/generative territories.
Inspired by Mylarmelodies' videos on small systems and generative strategies, I wanted the Turing machine as my main melody generator, running that through the uO_c for mainly quantizing duties. I have it running hemispheres so I can use half for quant and half for AD/burst/Bernoulli/extra sequencer/whatever else I'm in need of. I recently got the ALM O/A/x2 that I put before the quantizer to play around with scaling and transposing the Turing cv before the quantizer, makes for some fun sweeps and recontextualizing. I'm also using the Morcom (aka Pulses) to trigger the note holds in uO_c to make for a sort of sample and hold, making less parallel but still related note information to pass to the sound sources. My other main CV source for pitch is pressure points. Sometimes I'll run direct from the outs to muiltiple sound sources, sometimes I'll run the 3 outs to a the Pico SEQS to make a longer sequence. I just got Beast's Chalkboard to do octave switching out of the uO_c before sound sources, which has been a nice addition. My main voice usually comes out of Beehive, bass and some counterpoint out of the halves of Paradox (sometimes running them off the same CV), and nRings sometimes is a voice of its own but I've been exploring using the IN for the exciter a little more recently, avoiding the Insta-ambient tones when I can haha
Hexamix for some VCA/mixing duties, Doepfer Octal VCA for the rest. Ochd is my main modulation source, I love using the slowest LFOs and inverted copies of them to control the faster LFOs to make the timing a little less regular. Pam's is main clock as well as some extra modulation. Stages is my main envelope source, if I have extra channels there I'll use them for S&H or LFOs. 4tten and Shades for some hands-on fine tuning as well as offset/static CV generation, uBurst and Pico DSP for effects. I've mostly used the Clouds clone as reverb with a little of the Clouds flourish, and DSP for delay.
I have an outboard Mackie mixer that I send everything into that has Aux sends/returns for the effect modules.
So now for my questions:
1) Everything in the pic I have and have been using except for the Brains. I've mostly just been using Pico SEQS with some offset voltage to limit it to the first 3 channels to run through the Pressure Points channels, and then I manually pick which pad's CV is being sent, so I have 4 3-step sequences. I don't plan on expanding PP to have 8 steps, and I'm wondering if it's still worth it to add brains?
2) The other thing I feel like I'd like is something like the Malekko Invert Mix. I use shades to invert Ochd LFOs, and it seems like kind of a waste of a shades channel if I could invert it separately someplace else. Is that a good plan? I have a sneaking suspicion that between 4tten, Shades, and O/A/x2 I'm using more Attenuators/verters than I should, maybe a little high on VCA count too, but honestly I use them. Maybe that means I'm over-patching, I don't know
3) I had initially gotten the ADDAC T-Noiseworks, I like the rhythms you can get out of Pulses and Pam's with random skip, and I sort of miss it. Should I go down in VCAs/Attenuators to get that back in? or just get a small kick drum module and gate some noise in the VCAs?
Thanks for letting me rant, I've so appreciated the insights many of you have had on other racks, I really feel like it's helped me start off on the right foot and not make regrettable purchases. Good stuff : )
