Can we talk about modular synths?

[Muse FTW]

That’s a beautiful little music area Behndy. Whatever is going on outside your window looks magical too in this photo.

I’ve been having some issues with my modular that date back to before my live gig. There has been a chain reaction of mistakes and bad luck, including me reverse wiring power on a module, which apparently survived but caused a different module to fail. I’m being patient and trying to resolve issues with this one module before I even go through the rest of my system and make sure everything else is ok (I don’t even know for sure yet!) I’ve been feeling a bit apathetic about the universe while I try to get things sorted.

Oversharing: To matters worse I’ve been on a medical staycation (vasectomy boys!) and I had been planning to spend much of the extra free time with my synth.

I'm sorry on both fronts.

[behndy]

NEVER BE SORRY. EMPTYING OUT THE CHILDREN CANOE IS THE BEST DECISION EVER.

so. much. better. sexy times.

the other thing sucks though. i have only reversed the power on one module, but my PitsMod case just flashed all the modules on and off and i realized what i had done right away. got lucky?

EVERY MODULE SHOULD HAVE KEYED POWER SPOTS. JUST SAYIN'.

lol. oh jia. and what's going on outside the window is like 2 decades of half dead half alive ALL ZOMBIE Blackberry Sticker Bush Getting All Evil Dead On A Cherry Tree MADNESS.

[Muse FTW]

Just bought a Varigate 8+, Rossum Morpheus (this thing flew WAY under my radar), and Noise Engineering's LIP. Methinks I'm going to sell some more stuff this week, but I'm planning on getting a Cloud Terrarium and Manis Iteritas to replace some of what's going out once they are re-stocked (and/or just order the E352 direct). I'm not 100% sold on the Varigate 8+ (I have the 4 and I definitely need more gates) but I haven't found a drum programmer that I love yet. Varigate 8+ at least gets the closest to what I imagine.

There's a new polysynth in my future, too...

[Strange Tales]

I just bought a E352 so I'm excited to really get down and dirty with that thing.

For drum gates, I just set three of my channels on my Pamela's workout as varying euclidean patterns. I really don't need more than 3 different sounds (honestly I could probably get by with 2) but there is a lot of varying stuff you can do with just Pam's.

[behndy]

also, how's the general sentiment about the LxD? i like the Mengqi DPLPG, but i might move the Euclidean Circlets to the second case to make room for the Nebulae 2, and would room for the LxD.

also, so.... how bad was the fuckening that QuBit gave people with the OG Nebulae? is it bad to support them now?

[oscillateur]

Some of you have an ER-301, right ? I think Strange Tales at least.

How is the workflow for you with this and what do you use it for ? How do you control it, too ?

I'm considering one maybe later this year if I sell some things (BIA and some other stuff). I first need to get rid of the Folktek Mescaline ideally locally and finally get a Teletype but it could be a good solution for a number of things in my still 7U/84HP case (looping, recording, sample playing, FX that do not need too many hands-on controls).

[MrNovember]

also, so.... how bad was the fuckening that QuBit gave people with the OG Nebulae? is it bad to support them now?

What's this about? I don't recall anything shady happening with the OG? I had an OG Nebulae and I loved it. It was incredibly limited compared to this new one, but it was pretty damned awesome. I'm going to try to fit the new one into my plan somehow.

[behndy]

i have been told.... by people IN THE KNOW.... that QuBit fucked over a bunch of people when the original Nebulae was released. i don't know the deets. so.....

yeah. i'm super into the new one. only thing i can see that it might miss from the SampleSlicer that i would care about, and mebbe he just didna demo it in the 2 almost identical vidjas i saw of it, would be one shot play. but everything else it looks like a huge as balls upgrade on everything i love about the SampleSluice.

[Strange Tales]

Some of you have an ER-301, right ? I think Strange Tales at least.

How is the workflow for you with this and what do you use it for ? How do you control it, too ?

I'm considering one maybe later this year if I sell some things (BIA and some other stuff). I first need to get rid of the Folktek Mescaline ideally locally and finally get a Teletype but it could be a good solution for a number of things in my still 7U/84HP case (looping, recording, sample playing, FX that do not need too many hands-on controls).

I believe Dark Barn and Ruiner have one as well.

As with something that deep it'll take a a damn while to get everything down pat. I'm nowhere close to mastery with it. It's stupid powerful though.

When I'm feeling lazy I just use it as a triggered sample player, but you can do whatever you want before or after wards in the chain though. You have to really try to max out the CPU on the thing so the sky is the limit. Someone made an entire FM synth module for the thing and even that only uses 75% of the CPU at max.

To control it you can feed whatever you want into the 16 jacks on the bottom right side. Triggers, LFOs, sadness, whatever you want to control it with. The interface is also pretty intuitive once you get the hang of it, latency basically doesn't exist either so it's very responsive.

TLDR: It costs a lot, it's worth it (in my eyes).

[baremountain]

Dang yeah the ER-301 always piques my interest when I look into it, but I'll probably hold off for a while on that. I've got one more piece of gear to acquire (Rene) then I think I'm retreating into my synth cave for ages.

I got kbit's DPO in yesterday & redid my case and it is WICKED. I spent about an hour messing around with self-patching and sending modulation to various parameters and I was getting some out-of-this-world timbres & textures. I can't wait to get home this afternoon and really start working it out.

[Strange Tales]

Yea I'm looking at using two oscillators as one weird complex machine right now. I think I'll get an Intellijel uFold to round it out at the end, but I'm going to look at patching the Mangrove and NLC CEM3340 together this weekend to see what comes out.

[Dark Barn]

Yep I have a ER-301 but like Strange Tales I mostly don’t push the boundaries with it. I usually use it as a drum rompler, but I sometimes do other things with samples or use it as a polysynth. There have also been some exciting custom units in the OD forums that you can try out, like the FM synth ST mentioned, or a nice Clouds style emulation or a nice degraded tape emulator, etc.

[MrNovember]

Yea I'm looking at using two oscillators as one weird complex machine right now. I think I'll get an Intellijel uFold to round it out at the end, but I'm going to look at patching the Mangrove and NLC CEM3340 together this weekend to see what comes out.

I would recommend something like the WMD/SSF Ultrafold over the uFold. uFold is good, but kind of bland and vanilla compared to the Ultrafold. Ultrafold is the same size, only a few dollars more, and has way more controls.

[Strange Tales]

Yea I'm looking at using two oscillators as one weird complex machine right now. I think I'll get an Intellijel uFold to round it out at the end, but I'm going to look at patching the Mangrove and NLC CEM3340 together this weekend to see what comes out.

I would recommend something like the WMD/SSF Ultrafold over the uFold. uFold is good, but kind of bland and vanilla compared to the Ultrafold. Ultrafold is the same size, only a few dollars more, and has way more controls.

Thanks for the rec, I'll compare videos of the two. I always see people recommend the uFold as THE go to wavefolder for size/capability comparison.

Definitely hard to see what will happen when I can't be the one demoing them though.

[Dark Barn]

The new Antimatter Crossfold seems interesting Strange Tales. I own a Ultrafold and I do like it but the folding is a little tame by itself on it IMO and you must use it in conjunction with the gain and +/- feedback to get buckwilin’. I’m not complaining though, it has some great sweet spots and sounds good every time i use it.