Intellijel Palette help needed (ambient /generative)

Hey ya'll

Looking to be making some Ambient/drones generative sounds and wanted to get your opinions on what is needed in this case?

Any and all thoughts appreciated!

Hi Spencerdeathwaltz,

Main advice: Look into a much bigger case, the one you showing here is far too small. Depending on what other gear you might have you might need a large or a medium size casing but I advise strongly against such small case.

Depending on how much synthesizer experience you have, you might need to read yourself into the basic principles of synthesizers and of modular in common.

A good start would be the post I just replied today to, which is here in this Forum as well, also in this Rack section and then look for the post that's called: "First modular rack build" from Metal_Serra. I explained there in many details about rack space, modular basic setup, etcetera. That should give you a good jump start then.

Good luck and kind regards, Garfield Modular.

I see lots of new modular folks posting Palette case builds, and I totally get it... the case looks cool (and I have one, it absolutely is cool!), and it seems like starting out with just 62 hp of modules plus a 1u row is going to be manageable. But I actually think the Palette case is much better for people with some experience... they will know what they want to achieve, and what they can include or leave out. I myself have a Palette case, plus a Pittsburgh 360 hp case... I use the Palette for when I want to noodle around in a different location, or for when I want to really spend time with a particular module or two. As your only case, you'll quickly outgrow the Palette... and worse, you'll probably get frustrated with the limitations it will inevitably have.

That said, for the same money as the Palette case, you could get a TipTop Mantis... or if you can spend just a little more, Eowave now has a 7u, 104 hp case that uses the Intellijel 1u standard... you can order it from Juno Records in the UK for just a little over $400, and that's a great bargain (the build quality isn't as good as Intellijel's, but unless you're taking it out to gigs all the time, that won't matter).

Thanks both I appreciate the replies! I love the three module challenge videos and this youtube clip absolutely tells me I can go with a palette case

I also have a 0-Coast and ton of pedals... so I am not worried and just having the palette

Instruo Arbhar is fantastic for lush Soundscapes. But that won't fit in your Palette :-(

Here's a Track I made with the Arbhar (with a litte Help from Morphagene for the Radio Chatter)

Why not getting the 84HP Performance Case?

EDITED May 11th 2020, 17:53

Hi Quantum_Eraser,

I clicked your sound/track and still busy with reading E-mails, so my brain's task was focusing on something completely else, not really listening at your music, to be honest but I couldn't focus on that work any more that I had so urgently to do. Your music... I can't find the words, I was forced to walk to my listening chair, stuck there...

The sound, the music, so subtle, so gripping, my brain stopped working only focussing on listening... almost as being in a trance. My heart protested, not really wanting to beat any more, wanted to listen as well via my ears...
After a while, I don't know how long, I got a shortage of oxygen, not realising that I didn't breath any longer...

This is not happening to me very often, but this... this is something really serious...

To me this sounds like some serious A-class movie sound track music! I don't know how you do it... (please let me know how you recorded it, technical details, devices used, etcetera --> I am struggling to find a good way of recording, perhaps your way might give me ideas for my own recording)

Fantastic! Extremely well done, so subtle, so good, this is by far the best sound track I have heard here on Modular Grid so far. The harmony, how it all fits together... I am still not functioning well... difficulties to look at what I am writing with half wet-eyes... speechless...

I have to stop, sorry, you really got me there (in a good way), my most well-meant respect for this track!

Kind regards, Garfield.

P.S.: Going to listen at your track for the 4th time, I don't think I will stop listening tonight, let me know the link to your album where this track is part of. I hope there is an album of such good music?! :-)

To me this sounds like some serious A-class movie sound track music! I don't know how you do it... (please let me know how you recorded it, technical details, devices used, etcetera --> I am struggling to find a good way of recording, perhaps your way might give me ideas for my own recording)

Fantastic! Extremely well done, so subtle, so good, this is by far the best sound track I have heard here on Modular Grid so far. The harmony, how it all fits together... I am still not functioning well... difficulties to look at what I am writing with half wet-eyes... speechless...

I have to stop, sorry, you really got me there (in a good way), my most well-meant respect for this track!

Hi GarfieldModular

Oh my God. I wasn't expecting a feedback like yours for my Track. Thanks soooo much. I really appreciate it. You made my day!!

First let me tell you that I'm still just in my learning process in the Modular World. This Track is my second Patch with the Arbhar. It is quite simple. I recorded 4 different harmonically related Layers of Snippets from Songs of the Japanese Post-Rock Band Mono, pitched down with Arbhar. I recorded straight from my iPod. The Length Setting for the Grains is set Low. I used a very slow LFO (Ochd from Instruo/DivKid) to Scan back and forth through the Layer. For the Layer change between the 4 Layers I patched another slow LFO from Ochd into the Intellijel 1U Quadratt (Offset). Without the Offset Arbhar is changing through all the 6 Layers. With offsetting the LFO it changes slowly from Layer 1 to 4 and back. Maybe there's another Way to do this.

Arbhar is not boosting external Audio to Modular Level like the Morphagene does. I just ordered a Pico Input to boost external Audio :-)

The Russian Radio Chatter is taken from Youtube. It's real Chatter from Russian Troops Surrounded by Enemy Troops. That's why the Track is called Surrounded :-). I just sampled it into Morphagene.

Reverb for the Arbhar is from TipTop Audio ZDSP. Reverb for the Radio Chatter is from Happy Nerding FXAid.

Arbhar is such an amazing Module. The main reason I bought it is to mangle around with external Audio.

I recorded the Track with the 4ms WAV Recorder straight to SD Card. No external processing used.

Thanks again for your very kind words!!

Greetings from Switzerland :-)

Hi Quantum_Eraser,

You are welcome and thank you very much for your kind E-mail with the so detailed answer on your patch and how you made this music. Very interesting to read. No worries, I am not going to copy your music style or this track, I was just wondering how you did it. While typing this message, I listen again at your track, still beautiful :-)

I was actually asking about your recorder, so you did that with the 4ms WAV recorder, wow, didn't expect that :-) What's the technical spec of that one? Ah, 24 bits/96 kHz, okay not too bad, no wonder it sounds good (from a recording point of view). Good to hear that you didn't do any external processing, because I had that in mind as well: I am looking for a physical recorder and then hopefully not having the need for using a computer. Not sure if I am going to succeed, I still might end up with a computer based solution :-(

What is amazing is your nice (relatively) simple approach here: taking some Russian radio chatter (nice one by the way) from youtube and the way you used snippets of Mono is an interesting idea too :-) Yeah, I call that beautiful music engineering ;-)

The way you describe the Arbhar, it sounds like I need to check out that module and see if that's something I would like to use as well, I am going to investigate that module, thanks for the hint and highlighting that here in your track.

Okay, if you don't mind I continue listening at your track, the next click on your track will be the 12th time I am going to listen at it :-)

I hope you will share more of your music and if you ever come with the brilliant idea of coming up with an album you must let us know ;-) Oh yes, and include that above track to that album, please?! Meanwhile enjoy modular, good luck with music creation and greetings from Germany, Garfield.

Sorry @Spencerdeathwaltz for hijacking your Thread

@GarfieldModular

The 4ms WAV Recorder really works great for me. First I wanted to buy a simple Focusrite Scarlet Interface. But I hate using a Computer in my Workflow. Even if it's just for Recording. Then someone hinted me the WAV Recorder.

If you don't want to do Multitrack Recording I can really recommend the WAV Recorder. It's so simple to use.

Yeah, Defenitely check out the Arbhar if you like Granular Stuff.

I think I only scratched the Surface so far. This Weekend I want to try out the Build in Microphone of the Arbhar. I already got a funny Idea for this. If it works I will share it on Modulargrid in the "You" Section.

Thanks again for your nice comments on my Track. It makes me happy :-)

Thanks both I appreciate the replies! I love the three module challenge videos and this youtube clip absolutely tells me I can go with a palette case

I also have a 0-Coast and ton of pedals... so I am not worried and just having the palette
-- Spencerdeathwaltz

(1) you are absolutely right you can make fine music with just a pallete.
(2) ricky's video's are great and most people on this forum probably watch his video's
(3) the beauty of modular is that there is no right and there is no wrong. 3 moduless. 62 HP. 15 modules. 316HP case. it doesn't matter. todd barton could probably make a vca sound like radiohead.
(4) if you watch the most recent ricky video he even talks about "going back" to a bigger case. what the other posters were tryin to say - pretty clearly too - is that cases like the pallette & the 4ms pods are great lil additional ligaments, if you will, to existing 'bigger' cases. can they be there own system? absolutely they can be. again no right no wrong. 1 modules or 304 HP. don't matter. but even if you look at the evolution of ricky's small case video's he has new modules in there all the time. where do those other modules go? in their box? how do you learn them then? he's got a bigger case he has them all in...for sure. and then the small case becomes a lil extra hand or if he wants to do his small lil jams with his additional synths then he can. the argument could then be made that if he had one 6u or 7u 84 HP case he could just have the one system..again no right or wrong. but something to consider.