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Garfield, I think we agree on this pretty much, I think you are right in that LilP should start more basic, if he wants a chord machine later on there are a few good ones. Study filters and when you find a filter you like, chances are Doepher is selling a clone of it for 80 euros. What I like about his rack is Plaits, I think he could have fun with that one. He seems to be going more west coast so additive may be his thing. Hysteria from Dreadbox is actually a very good oscillator, goes for a 100, has a quantizer, is additive in part, perfect for sync and stays in tune.
I am not sure if I can follow you, perhaps you can define polyphonic so we talk about the same thing? :-)
I always thought that modular can be either monophonic or polyphonic, totally up to the user?
Thank you very much in advance and kind regards, Garfield Modular.
-- GarfieldModular
It can of course, you can do what ever you like, however a modular synth is of little use if you are only going to try and emulate a polyphonic synth with it. So for new guys who are met with this polyphonic discussion they tend to get sidetracked.
Doepher is marketing quad vco's, quad envelopes (although fun when chained, rather than used as 4 envelopes), and polyphonic controllers which I think are of limited use for modular artists. I'm not going to explain Polyphony for you since you seem like a guy who doesn't need the explanation. However in the context of Eurorack I just think there is a polyphonic snob going on.
I have the ACL Sinfonion which is a quantizer and controller for oscillators, a chord machine. However using it on many identical oscillators or a module with many, is something I would probably not do. Those are simply my own views on the matter, I use a Novation Peak and a Roland hybrid synth for my polyphonic stuff and I think I can safely say that's what most people do.
I feel the polyphonic discussion is a little misguided, Modular synths are monophonic, if you want a polyphonic synth I use other instruments for that which are polyphonic. What is so spectacular about a modular synth are the harmonically rich and sometimes larger than life soundscapes you can obtain with a well constructed modular voice. Those types of sounds are not well suited to use in chords, you will simply need to strip down those sounds and make them more narrow, so now the whole polyphonic idea looks quite a bit different.
Think of a modular as a string quartet where you have different voices, each with its own distinct signal path and each playing a different role in your composition.
The 4ms 6 oscillator wave table module is an impressive piece of gear, it's pretty and it comes with a nice software that allows you to edit and morph between wave tables. For the price of it you could buy 4 different oscillators, take each of them through different signal paths and come out with a more rich orchestral overall picture, each voice obtaining clarity and definition, Check out Doepher, Dreadbox and other companys that make quality modules, the Behringer Neutron mentioned above is a very good semimodular synth, there you already have two voices and you can patch in and out of it in many different ways, for a wavetable synth check out Waldorf, I think you can get 3 of them for the price of the 4ms module. But you need to do your homework, nobody can tell you what to buy. Pretty much all the modules on Modulargrid are presented on youtube and going through that material is highly educational.
You need filters and/or low pass gates, a blend of the two is good, you need envelopes, you need vca's, a mixer that takes both cv and audio signals and with an output which is audio level, effects. Maths is good in that it has different functions, it's a slew limiter, a mixer and an attenuator. It can do a number of things, again a semimodular like the Neutron, although it is more of a east cost synth while Maths is a take on an old Buchla module, will serve you better in the beginning. But you need to study, there is a ton of material out there. Final word, if you want 4 or even 6 voices that sound the same, get yourself a nice polyphonic synth, a modular is a wall of often very distinct and different sounding signal paths.
I'm finally finishing up my rack (for now), and I've decided to add a nice subtractive voice to round it out. I tossed around the idea of adding a Moog Grandmother or Matriarch, but decided to keep it in the rack. I'm going to go with two AJH Minimod VCOs for sure. I'm usually pretty decisive, but I really can't choose between the Minimod VCF and the Gemini 2412 filter. There are pros and cons to each, and they both sound incredible with different character. I'm not necessarily trying to build a fully faithful Minimoog sound, just a really great sounding subtractive voice.
I am a little stuck. Any tips or user experience with AJH out there?
Thanks in advance.
-- farkas
The question is weather you prefer State Variable Filters or Ladder filters. I'd go for the ladder filter but that's just my preference.
Interesting solution...but I wonder if it wouldn't have been a more direct solution to employ Silent Way/Volta/etc and a cheap, used multichannel audio interface (I use a MOTU 828 mkii for this...sort of obsolete, audio-wise, but great as a DC-coupled CV/gate/trig bidirectional interface) to just send clock pulses to one of the BSPs, then daisy-chain that one's 'clock out' to the second's 'clock in'? It seems more straightforward in practice, actually, plus it allows me to do trickery like using my Seeburg Select-a-rhythm as a master clock, with the intermediary of VERY tight bandpass filtering and a Truetone Time Bandit, sending the resulting pulses from that device to one of the 828's inputs. It's not 100% sample-accurate like the USAMO solution...but I've found over the years that when things become TOO precise, you're probably heading for the aural equivalent of the Uncanny Valley. The human hearing apparatus actually likes a little bit of "slop", as it makes things sound more like what we expect from live musicians.
-- Lugia
Well it depends on the type of music you are making and how. The Motu is DC-coupled which is a huge plus. If you for example record the base live, drums and bass all in one run or even your Eurorack live performances in one take, you may feel you don't need the rest in perfect time and if you have a workaround the discrepancies in the timing, you may even rely very little on sync all together, even more reason to consider weather you really need a different solution, I guess.
I am a drummer and I like to track the drums last or at least late in the recording process. So to do that I need totally accurate performance from the system, it's hard enough to play in perfect time with a computer, and if the system is acting up you just can't deal with that.
I did not find the solution online but since I have it running really well, I feel I should share the method.
I bought my Beatstep pro a few months ago and I really liked it, however when it came time to run it in sync with Protools the latency was totally impossible, I then got a 2nd BSP and I had a situation on my hands. Just to make it clear, this is not a Beatstep problem, it is a midi over usb problem. There are many discussions about this on many platforms so I will not dwell on the matters of latency per say. I simply want to present a solution that allows me to have 2 beatsteps and Protools work in sample accurate sync using USAMO from Expert Sleepers.
First to sync two beatsteps (pro) without a DAW, no other gear needed.
1) take a clock output from the 1st one (using the dongle), set it to "int" & "cc".
2) Now connect the clock from BSP 1 to the clock input on BSP 2.
3) Set BSP 2 to "clock" & "cc"
You are set.
Now slaving them to Protools
1) Connect USAMO via midi cable to the midi input of Beatstep 1.
2) Start Protools with the usb cable going from the splitter provided with Beatstep to your PC. (Ignore midi/HUI error message on startup)
3) Change the setting on BSP 1 to "usb" & "MCU/HUI"
Protools settings
1) Install the USAMO plugin.
2) Create an instrument track and name it USAMO. Add the Usamo plugin to the track. Connect a jack cable from your audio interface to the usamo box. Select the same audio interface channel as output on the instrument track.
3) Go to setup/midi input devices and make sure both your audio interface and BSP is selected.
4) Go to setup/peripherals and set "MTC reader port" to your audio interface, mine is a Focusrite 18/20.
5) Stay in Peripherals and go to "Machine control". Select "Midi machine control master" and set it to your audio interface.
6) Go to "midi controllers" and select HUI, set "receive from" to your audio interface and "send to" to the USAMO track you created.
7) On the USAMO track, open the USAMO plugin and start the "Clock".
This is it, USAMO costs 100 EU and it works, it has taken me 2 weeks to work this out, It may very well be that some of the midi pros have this down already without a 2nd thought, however this post is for the ones that are struggling with this like I have for the past two weeks.
Feel free to point out to me if some of those settings are considered bad practice or simply not necessary, however I have tested this setup for the past couple of days after receiving some suggestions from Arturia which worked but only up to a point. I think it's a good thing to have this here in the MG database for people to look up.
Yes it should resolve the latency, so you record a track to Live or Protools and when you want to add a track it does not line up with the first track. With Usamo, you actually have a plugin on a spare instrument track converting midi to audo and sending the audio to the usamo box. There the audio is converted to midi which is sample accurate. From there you hook up a beatstep or some other sequencer. Note that the DAW will be the master. Beatstep for example jitters alot. I am only going to use Usamo to send clock.
I am waiting for mine and I should receive it in a few days. There is another solution if you are using more midi channels which uses 3 modules from Expert Sleepers:
