I'm planning on buiding a eurorack to connect to a keyboard for dugeon synth and dark ambient style music. Capable of soft, vintage and retro sound scapes. I'd like to keep everything minimal. Not too many modules with a small case build (65hp). Modules im looking for would be an fm oscillator, a filter, envelope controls (adsr), some vintage or lofi effects. And some delay reverb modules at the end.
I found the outs by intellijel which will connect my module to the inteface. I would want to look inot a mixer to blend the synth with a recent module I found:
I found the evaton rf nomad shortwave reciever. Its a reciver that produces noisy/ominous sounds. A perfect fit for my dark ambient/noise eurorack build!
How would I go about connecting both the nomad + minibrute 2s/modules into my audio inferface?
I want to thank you all again for helping me with my dark ambient/noise minibrute 2s eurorack build.
I will buy a few modules at a time. Next month I'm purchasing the rack brute 6U with the fold 6, pico dsp and the twin waves. Maths, and the calsynth clones will be a seperate near future purchase.
I got a few more questions:
I was also wondering about output and recording. I plan to record my minibrute 2s+eurorack build into my interface or my h6 recorder. Are there additional modules/cables for this?
I also thought about hooking my guitar into the modular as well. How would I go about doing that?
Thanks for the recommendations. Unforunatley, I can't find most of these modules on perfect circuit. However, I found erb verb by make noise to replace the pico dsp (gonna grab the Doepfer A-199 Spring Reverb to cut costs) and the 4ms Ensemble Oscillator or Odessa Additive Synthesis (digital?) Oscillator for the manis iteris; I'll hold off on this for now. Fortunatly, PC has plaits, but I can also grab the cal synth clone. And the 4ms resonator will have to do for now compared to the teleharmonic; Maybe I'll wait on this one too. Will those substitues work?
ps. Can the calsynth modules be good substitues from mutable instruments? I found a few of MI's modules on PC but I can cut costs with the clones which are carbon copies.
I gefinitely agree with @Sweelinck, get a bigger case... and as you have the minibrute, I'd definitely recommend the rackbrute 6u... so they can be joined together as a single unit...
The problems with a smaller case like this are mostly that you will almost definitely want more modules very quickly... that's not to say that you'll want to fill the case in a week (you might), but you almost definitely will in the future...
I also somewhat agree with him on the modules are tailored towards particular genres, but I'm more of the thought that any module can be used for any genre... it's not the module that makes the music, it's the artist... but it is a good idea to indicate the sort of music you want to make...
now onto your choices of modules...
1 psychosis... why a stereo mixer? neither the minibrute or the hysteria & vcf combo are stereo... I guess (manual) panning and effects... but there's not a lot of control over either... better to split these 2 out and get something with cv-able panning... these are modules... better to have 1 module do 1 thing, why? so if you get bored or outgrow that 1 thing you can swap it... so better a mixer and an effects unit... for an effects module - the fx aid pro, is as good as anything for, price, size, sound quality and versatility... the smaller ones are ok.. but their interface is severely compromised by not having a display...
2 a doepfer dual adsr... why? what are you going to use the adsr for? using the filter as a pseudo vca? that takes 1 channel... so the other will be used for what?
3 hysteria... ok it's a vco... your only source of pitch information is the minibrute, which will already be quantized, so the quantize function is pointless, taking into account the rest of the modules present...
4 a filter ok
BUT what's missing... the important bits... particularly vcas and modulation at this stage...
for vcas: a quad cascading vca is a worthwhile investment (a veils clone for example) - it can also double up as a mono mixer... vcas are one of the fundamental building blocks of synthesis... they are massively important for note shaping and gain control within synthesizers and can also be used for modulation sources, to control the amount of modulation being sent to a module, with another modulation source (modulating modulation - a very powerful technique)
modulation: I'd rather have a decent quad lfo (batumi perhaps) or a good function generator (maths, perhaps) - or even better both - than an adsr in a limited set of modules to combine with a minibrute (the minibrute already has an adsr & no real way of creating a second gate to drive a second envelope generator)
maths - download the 'maths illustrated supplement' this is imo by far the most useful piece of documentation for eurorack modules... buy a maths and work your way through it... concentrating on what, why and how the patches work... this will not only introduce you to patch programming maths, but will also serve as a primer for patching modular synthesizers in general
if you only have the money for this case and this set f modules... I'd buy the rackbrute and a maths... you'll learn more and be able to do more... and then add a second voice in the future when you can afford one...
also take a look at my signature - read it, think about it, think some more, ask questions, think some more and then redesign your rack taking into account advice (not just mine), etc, or don't...
-- JimHowell1970
So for the build I have the rackbrute 6u, maths, viggen (veils clone), batumi quad lfo, and rez (rings clone). That should be everything for now.
I gefinitely agree with @Sweelinck, get a bigger case... and as you have the minibrute, I'd definitely recommend the rackbrute 6u... so they can be joined together as a single unit...
The problems with a smaller case like this are mostly that you will almost definitely want more modules very quickly... that's not to say that you'll want to fill the case in a week (you might), but you almost definitely will in the future...
I also somewhat agree with him on the modules are tailored towards particular genres, but I'm more of the thought that any module can be used for any genre... it's not the module that makes the music, it's the artist... but it is a good idea to indicate the sort of music you want to make...
now onto your choices of modules...
1 psychosis... why a stereo mixer? neither the minibrute or the hysteria & vcf combo are stereo... I guess (manual) panning and effects... but there's not a lot of control over either... better to split these 2 out and get something with cv-able panning... these are modules... better to have 1 module do 1 thing, why? so if you get bored or outgrow that 1 thing you can swap it... so better a mixer and an effects unit... for an effects module - the fx aid pro, is as good as anything for, price, size, sound quality and versatility... the smaller ones are ok.. but their interface is severely compromised by not having a display...
2 a doepfer dual adsr... why? what are you going to use the adsr for? using the filter as a pseudo vca? that takes 1 channel... so the other will be used for what?
3 hysteria... ok it's a vco... your only source of pitch information is the minibrute, which will already be quantized, so the quantize function is pointless, taking into account the rest of the modules present...
4 a filter ok
BUT what's missing... the important bits... particularly vcas and modulation at this stage...
for vcas: a quad cascading vca is a worthwhile investment (a veils clone for example) - it can also double up as a mono mixer... vcas are one of the fundamental building blocks of synthesis... they are massively important for note shaping and gain control within synthesizers and can also be used for modulation sources, to control the amount of modulation being sent to a module, with another modulation source (modulating modulation - a very powerful technique)
modulation: I'd rather have a decent quad lfo (batumi perhaps) or a good function generator (maths, perhaps) - or even better both - than an adsr in a limited set of modules to combine with a minibrute (the minibrute already has an adsr & no real way of creating a second gate to drive a second envelope generator)
maths - download the 'maths illustrated supplement' this is imo by far the most useful piece of documentation for eurorack modules... buy a maths and work your way through it... concentrating on what, why and how the patches work... this will not only introduce you to patch programming maths, but will also serve as a primer for patching modular synthesizers in general
if you only have the money for this case and this set f modules... I'd buy the rackbrute and a maths... you'll learn more and be able to do more... and then add a second voice in the future when you can afford one...
also take a look at my signature - read it, think about it, think some more, ask questions, think some more and then redesign your rack taking into account advice (not just mine), etc, or don't...
-- JimHowell1970
So for the build I have the rackbrute 6u, maths, viggen (veils clone), batumi quad lfo, and rez (rings clone). That should be everything for now.
I'm starting to break the ice for my minibrute 2s and created a small inexspensive eurorack to expand the subtractive sythesis sound. Feedback is welcome
Thank you both.
The reason for the choice of modules was that I was looking for modules with "additive elements" to beef up the basic subtractive structure of the minibrute. I will definetly take a look at maths, the veils clone and the quad lfo modules. A few hours before I posted this, I spoke with sweetwater thus choice for a case would be the 7u by intellijel as well as the doepfer vcos, vca, and filters. But more improtatnly I'm looking for something to separate the subtractive synthesizer with additive modules if that's possible.
As for the genre/style, I'm looking into making power electronics/dark ambient with my eurorack build. The sound I'm acheiving with the eurorack build is primarily drone/noise/percussion. Something close to Blood and Sand by The Grey Wolves (this is just one of many influencetial styles of the genre).
I'm also looking for a module that could do sampling, like cut-up, lopping and mangling of sorts any recommendations?
I'm starting to break the ice for my minibrute 2s and created a small inexspensive eurorack to expand the subtractive sythesis sound. Feedback is welcome
