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Nice! Well if I get a job where I can score deals on modular gear than it will help me piece together my portable setups for space and industrial music. Something that can do industrial, house, techno, deep psy-trance. Bands like Infected Mushroom and Shpongle come to mind. Unfortunately it is hard to find out what actual gear Infected Mushroom and Shpongle actual used!

So here are my thoughts:

Industrial modular rack
House/Trance/Techno/Psy-trance, ambience spacey sounds

My Elektron, Moog, and Make Noise 0-coast do a fairly decent coverage of house/techno/bass ground.

The Oberheim semi modular system looks good as does the Analogue Systems gear.

Kraftwerk also used modular gear starting in the late 1990s, mainly Doepfer stuff. But really, not until then.

If you want to talk about who was the heaviest modular user in the Krautrock scene during its most significant period, that would have to be Klaus Schulze. Klaus's setups during the latter part of the 1970s would find EMS AKS, Korg PS3300, ARP 2600s alongside a huge hybrid Moog/PPG modular plus a bunch of other prebuilds, all in use at the same time, especially live.

Hmm good to know I did see Nord gear as well at one live concert used by Tangerine Dream as well as Moog gear and Roland synthesizers. So probably an Oberheim SEM would be good for the spacey sounds since I already have a Moog Sub 37.

TD: anything Moog-like. Basically, 5U-type stuff, or Eurorack gear that uses typical 1970s subtractive methods. The fact is that a lot of Tangerine Dream's sound was not due to the modulars...these mainly dealt with the sequencing layers. More typical gear would be devices such as Oberheim SEM polysynths, Elka Rhapsody, and later the initial PPG Wave series, starting with the 340/380 and going on from there. And Edgar's guitar work.

Kraftwerk: none. Much of what they did during their classic period between "Autobahn" and "Computer World" was on off-the-rack devices as well as some custom gear, but none of this was modular. The spacier parts of their work often made use of an instrument that I can guarantee you will NEVER, EVER get your hands on called a Vako Orchestron., which was something like a 'pro-grade' Mattel Optigan. I might be one of the very few users on MG to have ever played one, perhaps, since both Vako and I are products of Nashville, and I got to have a bit of time with one c. 1979. After "Computer World", a lot of what you hear up until "TDF Soundtracks" was Synclavier.

What kind of modular setup would be great for ambient, spacey trance and house sounds like that from Tangerine Dream and Kraftwerk? Besides industrial this is a sound that I love.

One person suggested that maybe it could also be implemented "outside the rack", re: on the list of modules.
-- ParanormalPatroler

Yes, that would be cool, I look into that. First I have to fight the bug that it is now impossible to delete slim 1u modules with the mouse because the zoom button pushes the delete button away

[...] I like the purple colour on the button.
-- ParanormalPatroler

Haha, thanks, I am no designer. So I just rotated the primary blue color in Newtons color wheel by 120° and hoped that the miracle of numbers will get a pleasing result :)

The new Zoom function is excellent. One person suggested that maybe it could also be implemented "outside the rack", re: on the list of modules. Hover over a module, and press z to get a bigger shot of the panel. Doesn't seem that bad when browsing through the list of modules available; should cut down on time if you don't to open the Info page for each and every module.

That Spinal Cat module made it in the demo image of the MG marketplace default offer.

Lovely, too bad that not all modules are available in New Zealand. Otherwise I think it would fit ideally to the under-water conditions of cove diving.

Ahhh, but since I insist on automatic convenience, the interior 'wiring' is designed so that you don't even need the extra switch. Just turn it on...and IT EXPLODES! Which, in a sense, is the answer to many synthesists' prayers: auto-programming in a modular. It's a technical innovation that is guaranteed to be groundbreaking...probably for your funeral if you're standing over it when you power it up, actually.

It's also auto-tuning and totally drift-free. I guarantee that whatever extremely momentary noise this emits will be perfectly cent-accurate compliant to some sort of scale in some way or another. Yet another horrible and long-vexing technical issue SOLVED!

Nice!

Looks cool- all that it needs is a detonator switch and wires and wick then you have an explosive synth!

One technical detail not visible in the build is a number of frayed, bare wires inside the skiff, which is also packed with quite a bit of gun-cotton.

I guarantee this will be the most excitement available in Eurorack today!

(insomnia. just say no.)

EDITED Apr 25th 2018, 17:52

Agree in many ways extremely fortunate to have the power of what would cost MILLIONS of dollars years ago and require a large studio to use. The flip side today is that making a living off of music is nigh impossible due to the flood of cheap music gear and everyone is an instant DJ/musician online and music is free on most channels.

Then again, music to me is a hobby and way to explore and eventually create the soundtracks to my short stories, screenplays and novels that I one day hope to complete and spin into small films or animated features. It would cost me a fortune to pay a band like KMFDM or Metallica to use their music. BUT I can create my own takes with the gear widely available to me.

In fact I was producing some tracks the other day with my Elektron and Make Noise 0-coast that sounds very industrial KMFDM and Skinny Puppy/NIN in many ways. That brought smiles to me. Now I just a mike to record harsh lyrics and write some songs the record to Ableton or Cubase and remix/remaster.

That's because it kinda is.

I was just commenting in email to an old collaborator of mine that these days have blown the doors wide open. If you can imagine something, it can probably be realized somehow, and in the course of doing so, six more ideas are likely to appear. I would've never envisioned something like the electronic music environment that exists today; there were certainly indications of it decades ago, but the combination of inexpensive and powerful tech combined with decades of gear from which to pick and choose, and the ability to link it all up like is possible now...we'd never really envisioned that back when I was way back in undergrad studies and so much of this was unobtainable or didn't exist at all.

I can hardly believe what I can do now, sometimes.

You'll notice that I changed a few things (as in most of it):

OK...only the Akemie's and M32 remain from the original. Everything else is different; here's why...

The Akemie's Castle is an algorithmic FM setup. As such, it wants envelopes. Lots. Chowning FM eats envelopes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. So I fixed the modulation section to accomodate that. There's now ten AD envelopes, plus the two Doepfer VCS modules (each is more or less the same thing as half of the Maths, but this frees up 4 hp) and a triple VCA. All of this is supposed to be used together! This takes care of the complex modulation that will make the Akemie's really open up and go.

Lower tier had me removing the Endorphin Shuttle Control in favor of an Expert Sleepers FH-1. Same idea, but perhaps a bit more flexible and definitely smaller. You'll want to use two MIDI channels here: one feeds the FH-1 via USB, and the other goes to the Moog via the usual DIN.

The two VCFs after the Moog are for the Akemie's outputs. Optimally, you'd want to feed these to the L and R inputs on the Mixup (ie: 1 and 2), then you can feed the Moog to the L #3 input for mono. Result at the output: your Akemie's is in stereo with the Moog bringing up the background in mono.

Power was added, also, just in case this was an unpowered cab.

This should work a lot better. It gives you a true two-voice rig in stereo, with the ability to put the FM CVs and a lot of the triggering under the FH-1's control, with some clocking tie-in from the Moog (which can send its clock back down the FH-1 to lock up your main sync, allowing you master tempo control from the Moog's internal sequencer). The modulation is very capable, also; not only do you have the twelve mod generators, you also have three VCAs (summable) which can be used to obtain modulation amplitude control, which will make the FM programming really nuanced and complex-sounding. Definitely an improved version!

Yeah old SP was fun- hard to listen too as they were quite experimental for the time but very insightful use of synthesizers. I also like the old New Order stuff back when they were Joy Division. KMFDM had the best lyrics and overall package and made use of samples quite a bit on their old stuff. BUT my favorite is Wumpscut that one man show Rudy had some harsh industrial grade cuts. Sad that he gave it up after admit he could not make a living out of music.

That would be fun to have all the different tools for exploring all fields of synthesis: subtractive, west coast, FM, wave table, and granular. Hope I land gig and can score discounts to fund these ventures as it is not cheap! But will see if contenders like Behringer over time can lower entry costs as the Neutron looks promising for a 3 oscillator modular desktop with patching options. That and the Plankton Ants are quite affordable steps. I am blown away at how much I can get by on just with my tiny Make Noise 0-coast device. It sounds like a mini Buchla in many ways.

Note that I didn't mention 'voltage' as a control method. It's probably something more insidious.

Those first two were actually sort of in a transitional period in synths. KMFDM used both analog but also quite a bit of digital. SP, however, seemed to use anything you could plug into a wall socket as long as it spat noise out the other end. I still have fond memories of grad study back at the University of TN, cruising up to Gatlinburg on my downtime and blasting Puppy's early racket (ie: 'Bites', 'Remission', 'Mind') out of the car to the apparent dismay of tourists. "Why...that doesn't sound like mountain music..." Heh...no sh*t, Sherlock.

Not only possible, but there's competing devices:
https://www.percussa.com/
https://www.tastychips.nl/?page_id=2182

The Percussa SSP can also be found on here, while the GR-1 is more of a stand-alone instrument. Also, the Percussa SSP appears to be part of a larger system that Percussa has further parts of, such as the SoundCubes, etc.

I doubt it, because everyone knows that nothing can leave Omsk, even the voltage.

What do do you think about this configuration?

True and back then before modular became popular, bands like KMFDM, Skinny Puppy, Funker Voght and Front Line Assembly were using hardware synths like Roland SH-01, Korg MS-20, Nord and Access Virus.

Thank you Lugia for the great explanation! I think getting an Akamie's Castle module for FM
and Waldorf Wave table oscillator with VCA and VCF works for wave table synthesis.

Regarding granular synthesis, is this even possible on modular gear or is it too complex and expensive?
Normally computers do this but I'd be curious if modular can do granular synthesis and how to do that as well.

The basic PPG signal chain is a digital wavetable oscillator into an analog VCF (lowpass) to an analog VCA, with analog control over the whole thing. Very simple. That right there would be more or less a PPG Wave Carrier, save that the bit depth/sample rate of a present-day wavetable oscillator would be a lot higher than the original, which was rather gritty and aliased like crazy at high frequencies (which, in truth, was an asset as you could work that aliasing into patches in interesting ways).

As for FM...that can be as complicated or as simple as you want. An Akemie's would work, or a couple of Doepfer's TZFM VCOs, or just combining basic sine VCOs with arrays of EGs and VCAs to build the operator chains yourself to get the classic Chowning methodology in analog. That can be a bitch to program, however. Plus, as Yamaha found, having some sort of filter after that generation section helps that sound out a lot.

The other 'got done a lot in digital' method is, of course, additive. But that's sort of nightmarish in analog: you'd need a sine VCO for each partial with the proper offsetting on each so that all of the VCOs track properly, then a VCA for each with its own DADSR (yes, you want a delayed envelope in all cases) to control the VCA amplitudes, with all VCAs summing into a mixer with individual level controls. On the other hand, doing additive this way allows a lot of inharmonic partial settings, possible phase-shifting of various partials...but also, a potential brain hemorrhage from trying to keep the whole mess programmed!

Yeah the Waldorf and Akamie's Castle would fit the bill for wave table and FM synthesis in a Eurorack! Do I need lots of VCAs and filters for those two modules? I think having FM, wave table and the few industrial niche modules plus utilities, power/case and some Erica Synth pico modules would make for a fun portable setup. I don't have 50k plus like our wealthy friend on here. Something like this might work?

Of course I would take out the Sputnik touchpad and have it separate to free up rack space for other modules.

EDITED Apr 25th 2018, 01:06

All Eurorack modules use the same bus. If there's enough current from the power supply present on the supply rails to support both, then the answer would be yes.

Waldorf NW1! Basically, a monophonic baby PPG generator, with your computer doing the 'Waveterm' part via USB.

My guess is that it doesn't need it. It's actually controlled by the FSB remotely from a bunker under Omsk.

Mind you, it uses that now...but if you wind the clock back to the inception of industrial, West Coast devices didn't enter into the game at all. Throbbing Gristle, for example, was one of the first 'major' artists to make major and consistent use of a Roland System 700, which is very Moog-like in its architecture. Daniel Miller started off with an early Korg monosynth. Cabaret Voltaire were very much into Roland and Yamaha stuff, along with Chris Watson's prominent use of a Vox Super Continental.

The first West Coast industrial user I can recall off the top of my head was Naut Humon, of both Rhythm & Noise and Tipsy (much later), who had some direct connections with SMS and Serge back in the late 1970s/early 1980s. And he, naturally, was on the West Coast, based in SF. It wasn't until considerably later, after the modular 'purge' starting in the mid-1980s up into the early 1990s, that you saw a lot of Buchla and Serge use by users outside of either academia or the segment of the pop industry that had bushels of cash necessary to spend on such things. But it was also that 'purge' that allowed that to happen, as prices on these things plummeted; I still kick myself over letting an 11-panel Serge 'blue panel' system plus modular video synth get away from me back in the early 1990s because I didn't have $3500 to drop on it. Of course, these days, you may as well add an extra zero to that figure along with a lot of other upward math.

does anyone know if the "ALM PAMELA'S NEW WORKOUT" module can be used on the same power bus to which a "MUTABLE YARNS INSTRUMENTS" is already connected?
thanks a lot for your help

Nice references! Thanks!

Hi all,

I want to build a rack that has modules to use for exploring FM and wave table synthesis! Besides the industrial sound from modules like Subconscious Communications, Trogrotronic, and Metasonix, what would you recommend for such a rack and why?

I figure that I can have my one row of industrial special modules and one row for FM and one for wave table!

Where's CV???7??7

is it approved by putin?

blyat

Wise man Lugia, same here. I used Elektron before and needed a hardware sampler/sequencer/synth that was light and portable and can handle modular gear and MIDI. The 0-coast is my baby step into the world of modular on a budget and so far a lot of fun.

I prefer west coast synthesis , FM and wave table synthesis to traditional east coast subtractive synthesis (eg: Moog) because of the unique approach of creating from a fresh scratch pad and building up a soundscape versus using filters to take away until the final product is developed. Also the industrial aggro music uses mostly FM and west coast synthesis eg) NIN and Ministry for crafting their sound.

I like this from square one. Possibly one of the more ominous-looking modules; would make a good control button for some Bond villain's death-ray. Don't even both translating the panel; the Cyrillic just makes it scarier. The ony question I have is: when and how much?

Yeah, that works! It's got a real loopy, goofy feel sort of like mu-Ziq's stuff circa 'In Pine Effect'. Love the nasty sound qualities, too...very Rephlex-ish. That's one you oughta shop around...

FYI, I initially misread the thread header as 'Disasterous peace and Wasps'. I actually think that's a better title.

EDITED Apr 24th 2018, 01:59

The Bastl stuff seems to be better at processing/altering external signals than at their own signal generation. As for Dupont pins to 3.5mm, it's safe to the gear (as long as you have an established ground between the pinpatchable and the Eurorack gear, as well as between all pinpatchables), but perhaps not to your mind. The other Folktek stuff makes for an exceptional way to transit between formats, also, plus the Mescaline also has some adaptive patchpoints onboard.

As for a complete pinpatch rack, see http://tangiblewaves.weebly.com/ and hold on tightly to your credit cards. That's a work in progress, also; Robert is continuously developing new modules for the system, which also includes pin-to-3.5mm modules. These work 1:1 with Bastl as well.

Hm...came up with the same screenshot as before. Try this: paste the URL of the page you actually build the rack on into the next post. That should bring the image up in the post...but before doing this, do a refresh of that page and call up the screenshot and refresh it as well so that it matches the rack's work-page.

I've dropped sums like that before...but when I have, it was always preceded by extensive research, sometimes as much as years worth. Even back when choosing gear was simpler due to there being less to choose from, I would still expend a lot of care on checking and crosschecking as much info as possible before money ever entered into the equation. There's a saying: 'informed customers are better customers'...and this is true, because when you're dead-certain about where you want to go and how to get there, the expenditure process becomes effortless because all of the 'hard part' has been done already.

Right...it's what I call 'adaptive multitracking': assembling sources as discrete track sources, but not in a fixed linear form such as on a 2" reel. DAWs, especially ones like Ableton that blur the line between DAW and instrument, can be made to work like old-school multitracking, but you miss the whole point of having the temporal pliability that something like DAWs afford.

I still know how to cut to 2" (or any multitrack tape, really), and can even cut up 2" with a splicing block and tape (terrifying to do, actually...so much can go wrong), but I won't voluntarily go back to that working method. It's like apples and oranges when compared to working in digital.

2 x Joysticks
3 x VCLFO
1 x Sample & Hold + Noise
2 x CV Processors
2 x VCA

Thanks.

I've switched Cwejman's & Twin Peaks for 2 rossum filters.
As for Mescaline - for now i'm gonna have her in the rack - when i fill everything up then ill surely think about the next steps.
Dupont to 3.5mm - is that considered safe ? That might open up Mescaline a LOT : ) . Curious.

I love folktek sound and will be sure to follow what they do, but Conduit as a standalone module is imo not enough, and i already have matter with 4 resists on "mental' module with custom breadboard so i'm kind of waiting for them to expand upon the lineup a bit more to maybe make a full folktek/dupont rack :). I've looked at bastl dupont things and while they seem like fun pieces, the sounds they make are kind of meh for me.

EDITED Apr 23rd 2018, 20:34

Nice! Just saw that. Looks cool and I like the purple colour on the button.

like the idea of the DMX module but as you say limited run so I'd need to be quick, the Moddemix was mainly for its ring-mod functionality so thank for the heads-up on the Wogglebug.
I'm leaning toward this,
https://cdn.modulargrid.net/img/racks/modulargrid_650962.jpg
though the mixer and VCA could be swapped as far as size and manufacturer. Again, thank for the help.