It would seem there really is no endgame for some of you guys...

I don't mean that as an insult, I am just cut from a different cloth. I want to finish the little project box I set out to make, and then quit buying sh1t, for a long time. I can totally see how after I've exhausted all the possibilities of my system I might want to either change some things around or maybe even expand a little, but even then it would only be adding one row max. I never run out of stuff to try with my tiny little 7U, maybe it will happen someday.

So, I'm curious about you guys (Derp, Cane Creek, Septik, etc you know who you are) or anyone else who is on the other side of this from me-

In all seriousness, Is there an actual end in sight? Like a point you imagine when you are "done"?

I have 30U and my end game is hopefully adding one more 6U X 168HP doepfer case on top of that. (42U in total)

and the 6U rast for experimenting with testing newly build modules etc.

Surprised to hear you're not feeling the SQ-1 dating the Mutable stuff because you got them to sing so nicely together. Anything specific that you don't like about it?

Also surprised that you're ready to sell off the PP after hearing you make her sing so nicely as well. Do you think it's faulty? I think the PP + Brains + Rene is a nice combo but everyone has nice things to say about the Metropolis too.

I checked out the Lifeforms and ModCan Touch sequencer but they aren't getting my butt shaking just yet. Guess I have to watch some YT vids of them in action.

Thanks for the info...

I would think the Sputnik random is in the same basic family as WoggleBug/Noise Ring/Serge Random. Verbos has one coming. You can get a Russian made wogglebug off eBay (no clue about that). I would think they all have their own quirks from each other, but otherwise you get similar stuff out of them.

On the Envelator, it's a function generator like half a section of Maths. I'm actually looking to get one. If you end up not being interested in it, let me know.

Hey let's make a module and give it to Richard Devine so he can make a 30 second clip and ignor everybody's questions, always tickles me that, Rainmaker is his latest victim

I have an end game, for sure I do, I've been pretty good sticking to my plans, I'm still figuring out my complete system but I'm getting closer and the less I buy and more I read and research the more refined the finished product will be.

See I like making music and music videos, complete songs/tracks is so much more of a buzz than GAS imo, GAS just does your head in constantly, there's never ever any real long term satisfaction/relief from it, you buy the thing you lusted over and then you immediately lust after something else.., it's just mind numbing it really is...

I'm seeing my goal in sight, money to buy everything and finish it is what keeps it a slow process, some people have money to burn endlessly, I have to work a lot of overtime and every public holiday under the sun to be afford something, the downside to that is I miss my family a lot as I'm nearly always at work, so to have this thing finished will be super awesome as I can go back to working normal 40 hr week instead of these 60+ hrs a week I've been putting in the last year or so..

Trust me when mines finished it will be a celebration in determination, I can't wait to turn that last screw in that last module that completes the jig saw finally, and say...whew, now that's a f'kin synth..

Something more four on the floor this time. It's still generally terrible, but I got to get a feel for the new modules (damn you, Chrisso for making me think about extra button presses on modules, now I can't help but give the Peaks dirty looks even though it's an otherwise awesome tool) and try out a couple new tricks that I should have tried before but never did.

I guess the main reason I like making these intentionally cruddy little ditties is to show off some of what the modules can do and learn them as well in a hands-on context.

Modules:
EMW Boozy VCF
Make Noise Maths
Pittsburgh Analog Delay
Dave Smith DSM02
Happy Nerding Super Sawtor
Mutable Braids
MFB OSC-01
Mutable Peaks
Delptronics Triggerman
Mutable Grids
Mutable Branches
Music Thing Radio Music
Future Sound Systems Convulsion Generator
EMW Analog Drum Synth
EMW Snare Lab 101
Leploop Cassa
Blue Lantern Mini Shimmery
Hexinverter Galilean Moons
Blue Lantern BMX
MFB Kraftzwerg
Roland Scooper
Bastl Grandpa (Tried some new tricks with it this time)
Bastl SPA
Doepfer A-143-3 Quad LFO
Doepfer A-115 Audio Divider
Animodule Shnoize
Mutable Shelves
Zlob THEQ
Pittsburgh Verbtronic
Flame FX-16
Audio Damage Aeverb

I do have an endgame, actually. I know it doesn't seem like it since I buy so many modules on a whim without more than a teaspoon's worth of research, but there is a plan.

And that plan is to never stop buying modules and to only sell a module if it proves to be redundant.

I know that sounds like an anti-plan, but that's actually been my intention from the start:

I rambled about this in another thread, but I like having lots of gear, but two things end up working against me: 1.) When I'm doing the all cheap gear thing, I tend to run into a roadblock once I hit thirty-two MIDI channels. It's like a magic number for me. Once I get to that point, it just becomes impossible to manage it and everything sort of falls apart. 2.) I don't get along with analog. I love the way they sound, but I have the worst possible luck when it comes to tuning. I can't get anything to stay in tune even with itself for more than an hour. Coming from a guitarist background where I retune once a day and do a full setup only once every few months, this is just unacceptable. 2.1) I can't stack analog synths together in a mix the way I can with cheap digital synths. Probably attributable to the tuning issue.

Since I switched to building patches in the samplers, doing the bulk of the effects on the samplers, and recording to a VS2480 loaded with VS8F's, it's become the best of all nine worlds for me. Running just the Fantom and the MPC, I've got thirty-two channels going. Realistically, I could drop the MPC down to one channel and scoot the Virus back into the main workroom, but I like having the optional channels to expand upon should I ever need them. I can retune all my samples after the fact and never have to worry about tuning them ever again. As far as stacking, it's really easy to skinny up sounds using the onboard EQ's on the MPC and Fantom so that I can stack them up nice and tall. And the complaint that samplers will make your samples too static? I've figured out that's not true IF you plan the sound out first. For example, if you wanted say a dubstep wobble and you know precisely how you want that filter to wiggle at one time while everything else wobbles around it, just build the sped up wobble into the sample, but at a latter part of the sample so that you can have your predictable wiggles most of the time and the bizarre wibble wobbles when you hold the note. And if I want just a little bit of analog instability back in, the Fantom has an analog emulation algorithm that's pretty convincing. With this arrangement, I can feed the samplers back into the modular for post-processing (hence why I'm collecting triggering modules in addition to sound sources/manipulators.) I haven't done any full tracks with this arrangement, yet. Right now I'm bouncing between doing some grunt work in the other workspace and sample farming, but I've done some experiments as a proof of concept to show that it's going to work:



(These were done before I got the VS2480 into the main room, so they're not really indicative of what the final product will be like.)

So why no limitations on my system's size? Because in my main workroom when I'm making tuneage, functionally I'm only dealing with two instruments: The Fantom G, and the MPC5000. The modular is a sample generator and processing machine. Admittedly I'm already in a state with the modular where it is a bit overwhelming. This is a lot of machine that a.) I don't actually know that well at all b.) isn't very well organized (hint: if you're going to go big, don't group the damn modules by function!) and c.) has component that get practically forgotten about (thanks to its location, even though I heart the sound of my Dot Com, I just neglect to use it very often because it's not staring me in the face). But here's the thing: Whereas I've found out the hard way many times that you can have too many instruments, I've never found myself with too many samples. And with this system, I can have any sample I want right at my fingertips. They're (mostly) so easy to use, so immediate, so hands-on, and so versatile. And with so many different flavors of the same type of module on hand (can you have too many low pass filters? Me thinks NOT) I can not only emulate pretty much any synth I could want to (sorry Cane, I know copping fixed-architecture synths and vintage machines is a peeve of yours) but I can invent sounds that few have heard of (not that I have that kind of creativity.) Really, this sample farming thing I'm doing now where I'm building myself a bunch of presets really isn't necessary, but the plan is that I can use them as starting points and add samples as I need to. So yeah, I know that what I have is way too much, but I can still sample and compose effectively this way, so no need to limit myself.

And all of that aside, if I'm being completely honest with myself? I know I'm never going to be a rockstar. Many of us here are at a point now that if we were at this point fifteen years ago, we wouldn't need day jobs. Composing music for ourselves as a source of income just isn't realistic anymore. Making music and shoving my nihilistic viewpoint in other people's faces is fun and all, but like my lyrical themes, there's no future. You know what I really enjoy, though? Making my own weird ass noises. These stupid things I post on Soundcloud are FUN to make! I could happily spend the rest of my life patching the modular and enjoying the smell of my own farts.

TL;DR: No end in sight because patching is my real hobby.

It's not easy to get tight drums on modular or is it..??? granted I don't have a trigger module but using what I have they seem kinda loose and meh..just firing a trigger into the two peaks inputs gives you two really nice 808 sounds ( kick n snare ) individually they rock, but together they don't sound much good nor are they tight enough...I need a proper trigger module me thinks..

I get tight results using trigger and gate sequencers myself. The Peaks has a function on it for creating burst triggers at random based on what's input into it.

As far as trigger modules, listening to your tuneage, i'm guessing something fairly precise and less random would be more your speed. Grids is fun, but might be too imprecise for your purposes. Maybe Triggerman would be up your alley? It's only got eight steps per channel, but it's cheap and very fun: Instead of manually entering in steps, it has an algorithm that allows you to get achieve every possible sequence with only two knobs. You can put together some very fun grooves very quickly with it.

My drums are as tight as they've ever been. I'm using a MPC-1k as my master clock, using a Analogue Solutions Europa to turn MIDI into analog timing pulses. That's usually run into Metropolis, and then a Circuit Abbey G8. I frequently use the G8 to trigger sounds off of a Roland TD-6, which I like to run through an MFOS Soundlab. I have been sampling the results of that back into the MPC or else just running into Reaper, and do bashing either in it or Ableton. It's been winding up pretty good.

I don't want to use my modular for drums specifically or it be the rhythmic foundation of my tracks, I'm really into putting any drums last in my tracks so i wanted two sounds..kick n snare from the 808 that I could access really quickly to drop back patterns over synth riffs and patterns that I have created just so I get a feel for how the track will sound when I get serious about it and move into my DAW, the reason I got Peaks was for this exact purpose, an 808 module that I could use to put in very non obvious beats in the background to see how the groove of the track is coming, obviously I need a better trigger option and triggerman or Pamela's Workout is what I'll be getting I think..

I don't know... I guess the SQ-1 is just not inspiring me, probably because I already know what the Metropolis can do (8 Pulse Ratcheting per Step!) and really want something mountable in the rack.

And I too am surprised about PP... maybe I should just put it aside for a bit until I expand to a bigger case where I can get a second PP and Brains to drive them.


I had a couple of other people ask me about this (as well as customers that come into our little Synthrotek shop) so I just did a quick and simple tutorial on how to use Peaks and Warps as an Envelope/VCA for Braids, for those of us new to the modular world (since the ADSR is usually connected to the VCA on fixed synths.)

I decided to learn C++, they say if you learn that the other languages are easy to pick up.

So I've downloaded lots of C++ video tutorials and I'm slowly just going through them, it seems to me that once you learn the code it's all about house keeping trying to keep your code tidy as there lots of ways of achieving the same result so doing it the shortest neatest way is obviously better.

So once I've learned C++ (all about time) Ive managed to get hold of some programming ARM processor video tutorials so I'll learn that.

Oliver from mutable instruments it's said to write some lovely code and it's all open source, so once I've learnt C++ I'll study Oliver's code to learn how he does things.

And once you learn C++ programming a Arduino should be simple, but then again I'd rather be spending my time doing the ARM stuff that's in the processors that are mutable modules.

So anyway that's my plan, but as always life always seems to get in the way of a good plan.

I had a large Euro system in the late 90's.
When I got back into Euro about 8 years ago I bought a large custom case. I filled it and more.....
But then I started to get disgruntled with modules that had bugs, cheaply made modules, or modules that didn't work well with other modules.
Now I have a very small case, but I plan to buy one of the Roland system cases (and just a couple of the Roland modules).
I still buy a few modules, but also sell from time to time. I won't go beyond my current case (plus Roland). I'm not attracted to the super large systems, especially in the fiddly Euro format.

The Innerclock IILS (Aussie) is super tight. I use mine for drums all the time, although it's expensive and requires a computer for the tempo.

Genshi you legend, thanks a bunch for that, as I have all those modules except for braids..( I can use my own oscillators ) I can play around with this now, I'm to assume that you can split peaks into 2 envelopes but the 4 knobs become 2 Attack and 2 Decay knobs only..no sustain or release..??

That makes sense. Figured from your Soundcloud that you were getting decent enough results from the Oct attack.

With that being the case, Grids might be back on the menu because there is a basic four on the floor pattern hidden in there (the last noodle I posted uses that pattern) and turning up the chaos knob a hair adds some variation to it to keep it from being monotonous.

Triggerman definitely will fit the bill though because it's cheaper than Grids and takes up less hp. Getting it setup to the way you work sucks, but after you do it for the first time, you don't have to worry about it again. As a bonus, you're not stuck with 4x4 patterns if you don't want to be, the timing will be a bit more rigid than Grids, and you can use the other six channels for clock division, resetting modules, and triggering envelope modulation.
I haven't used Pam's workout but thought it looked kinda cryptic for something.g that's focused on manipulating clock signals.

Of course there's always 4ms RCD.

I'm not sure how you're currently clocking your modular or if you're using a reset signal (if you're considering a trigger sequencer or clock divider, this is something you'll have to keep in mind to really keep things locked in time) but another alternative if you don't mind going external would be a Beatstep Pro. It's cheap, has it's own clock output, can be clocked from MIDI, USB, or CV, and the drum sequencer can be repurposed into a trigger sequencer and can be made to send out clock reset signals if you end up needing them. All the other features are a bonus. This thing takes a little tweaking in the software to get it right (the default clock timing is ridiculously fast for CV and the voltage offsets in the pitch sequences are far from normal) but after you get it setup, it's a cool little party machine.

That's correct. In split mode, it's an AR envelope. Buy holding the mode button down for one second, you can switch to Expert mode and use it as two separate and independent ADSR's, just single-press the mode button again to switch channels.

I heard it's a bugfest from a trusted friend.
https://gearspace.com/board/electron...light=beatstep

At the moment I'm still in a relationship with my modular, trying things out and learning what does what and how, I have my Analog keys as the master clock from CV output D...so CV A is Pitch, CV B is Gate, CV C is trigger and CV D is clock, they all go into a synapse module then I distribute those 4 signals into a 4 way buffered multi, so I then have 4 of each of those signals, it's a great way of expanding your signals you use a lot everywhere.

So I send one clock signal to my analog sequencer and that drives oscillators etc, and another copy of the clock signal goes to an arp clock in etc etc...using the buffered multi is great, it's like an instant patchbay for various common signals. I want a trigger module though so I can send various quantized triggers to different modules like peaks so I can have a trigger on the kick and a different one on the snare...pretty basic stuff but you need the right tools just the same...

Five-second button = no way, because people perform drones with this module and use the built-in PLAY button as the sole trigger source.

Dedicated buttons = well, when I released the module one year ago, there was no extra mode.

I added them later because some owners of Elements were kind of pissed off that the newly released Rings could do things (chords, waveguide) that were not available in Elements. So I "gave away" the ability to make some of Rings' code run into Elements.

The extra options are unofficial, are actually not mentioned in the manual, and are not factory-installed on the module.

I give a lot of freedom to musicians (freedom to run modified firmware, freedom to "import" features from a module into another one instead of paying for it...), and I'm aware this can impact readability.

I understand you had a bad experience with your module not configured in its normal state, but I can't prevent this experience from happening without depriving people of their right to tinker with, or expand their modules as they like. "Keeping things simple" is one noble goal, but expecting customers to pay for every single additional feature is another story.

A hidden quantizer mode might be clutter to you. To someone else, the mere physical presence of a brand new quantizer module in the rack, the extra cables in a patch, and the money paid is the clutter.

None of these features were part of the original design, in which the encoder only selected models. They came in later firmware updates, as requested by the community. Feel free to ignore these extra features, which are, to me, beyond the scope of the module and are just shortcuts/freebies for people who are willing to sacrifice a bit of time/memory instead of adding a new module to their system and paying for it.

Just stick to what's shown on the panel and what's described in the printed manual, that's how I personally designed things.

I'm currently using Elements in it's original, basic set up.

Elements is sick, I could write a hundred tracks just using that module and nothing else seriously it's incredible, what's up with the reverb sounding so good too...I think if I can stretch it next pay check I'll land Clouds and a trigger module of some sort, having those two in my set up would keep me chugging along nicely for a while as I save up for the next purchases..

YMMV, apparently. The only one of those on that list I've had issues with is the first, and that was addressed through one of the settings in the setup software that I was too lazy to disconnect from my rig and hook up to a computron. Sorry you cats are having issues, but apparently that's not the case for everybody. In any case...

Coolio, so you don't really need anything like the BSP. (And kudos for being able to decipher my sloppy cell phone-ese!) I still vote Triggerman. Since it's a step sequencer at it's core, it can be used as anything from an actual step sequencer to a funky clock divider to a clock f*ckerupper. It's pretty versatile.

Oh my gawd, Oliver! What are you doing here!? Go back to your home! Don't you want to go home!?

Customers should be made to pay for every additional feature. Customers are sh*tty people after all. I mean, here you are giving away all this bonus stuff and even literal free toys, and we have the nerve to bitch about it, right? Stick it to us! Hell, we're stupid enough, we'll gladly pay for additional operating systems or hell, whole new modules that cover territory that other modules could have taken care of. You've seen these cats with whole systems made up of your modules exclusively, so you know it's true: We'll pay and we'll be glad for the opportunity. We'll even pay more than what you think is reasonable. We are the cult of MI. All hail the tiny golden statue!

In all seriousness, sorry I came off as a jerk. I got into your modules late in the game, so I didn't know that these features weren't standard. They're cool gizmos for making the neighbors think I've got some satanic hare krishna voodoo snake cult going on and I really do appreciate all the extra features that you and the kids at Parasites have come up with.

I don't know jack about coding, so realistically how hard would it be for a dumbass like me to jump into the code for elements and change the mode of accessing features? I imagine a single-press of the play button wouldn't be possible because the button and the jack are probably normalized together, right? Ringified is cool and all (though I plan to buy Rings later on anyway as I think that module is even cooler) but I would lurve to be able to pop in and out of that FM synth mode whenever I want to. That sucker's temporarily distracted me from getting Akemie's Castle it's so good!

Also while I've got you on the horn: Is there anywhere I can buy a Mutable branded faceplate and knobs? Mine came with Grayscale and I think the Grayscale thing is hideous (not to mention insane because they changed some of the labeling so following along in the instructions becomes ULTRA annoying.)

Funny you asked about endgame above...

I have only 6U of euro - 104 HP i believe...and i have no desire for more. in fact I still find it very difficult to use my modular in any way other than as a subtractive synth ( i honestly feel like I have no other way to set it up) and perhaps because of that I am not understanding the GAS that many people in euroland have.
Part of the problem is that my time to make music is often very limited and if I only have 45 mins or an hour at most then creating a modular patch, wondering why it isn't doing what I want and then recording the session and then picking out the bits that work....aaaaaaaarrrggghhhh....

Just so much easier to get drums going on my drum machines and a pattern going on my sh101, xoxbox and boomstar and play some wavestation pads over top!

However I have a never-ending gas for hardware synths and effects. Current desires are SEM, Monomachine and Machinedrum...

Maybe you know someone who programs a bit and could do it for you? It's not very hard to change just a few bits in the code detecting the presses / pots position.

The checks are here:

https://github.com/pichenettes/euror...ents/ui.cc#L62
https://github.com/pichenettes/euror...v_scaler.h#L66

You can repurpose the function of the play button too:

https://github.com/pichenettes/euror...nts/ui.cc#L138

The seller of your module doesn't have them? Is it a genuine module or a DIY build?

Let me know when you're ready to give up on modular and sell me that Cyclebox!

https://www.modulargrid.net/e/other-...oneknob-louder

Modular Grid April Fools Prank (or at least I'm hoping it's a prank.) Hardware versions of the Waves Oneknob plugins.

There's a Louder module, Better module, and Faster module so far.