Post

Hey,

Nice rack! There's a lot going on there. As you already thought about, you're probably going to want some VCOs as sources. You've got plenty of modulation in there. You can patch everything all over the place in circular routes, but at the end of the chain, you're only really changing whatever initial wave you start with, but you have to have it to start! The Piston Honda is a wavetable, which sounds great, but really isn't the same as an analog, or even a digital, VCO. With VCOs, you can patch back practically any single output into another VCO and FM the bajeezus out of it, run it through a filter or two and get the same result as a wall of filters, or even a wavetable module (almost). The point is that one doesn't need to have loads of modules to make good tracks. You just need the right modules for your music.

I use mostly analog VCOs, such as the Castor & Pollux, four Electrosmith 3340s, and a few of Doepfer's VCOs I've bought for my racks and tracks. Pick any of those and patch them back into themselves for some great sounding FM. If I need it to be more harsh, the Doepfer Wasp is an excellent filtering tool. I have two of them and they make it into a track whenever I need to brighten the sound up. Intellijel's Polaris is another excellent and versatile filter.

Envelopes and amps are your friends. The Zadar is great. I use the MI Blinds which I really like b/c its also a polarizer. I've never worked with the Quadigy so I can't comment. I will say that no two EGs are quite the same and you definitely want range and sensitivity when it comes to an EG. Doepfer's EGs aren't sensitive enough for me. Having good EGs is critically important.

You can never have too many VCAs. The MI Veils are fine, but I think there are better ones available. The Xaoc Tallin is one of my favs. Lots of gain that can be pushed to clip in a nice toasty and pleasing way. I have two and they get used a lot. I wish they were less wide. VCAs can be used everywhere for many different applications. I always find I'm short a VCA when things start getting super involved!

Lastly, I will say that simper is better, especially when (if) you're performing. You're probably never going to use every module every patch and after buying tens of thousands of dollars worth of modules, I find that I use only a handful on any track. There are some that are always used and some that I really should sell because they rarely if ever get used. Anyway, nice work. Get some VCOs is my only advice.