#7

This question speaks to me. I took some time over the holidays to consider this question. I thought I’d nailed it in trying to have something like 2-3 multitimbral percussion sources (Akemie’s Taiko and BIA) in addition to a big oscillator (Furthrrrr), two filters and some choice effects. But in trying to perform and write with it, I found it to be too scattered, like a smattering of sound sources akin to VST’s to choose for a certain sound in the studio, rather than a system with a performance / praxis philosophy.

I started to look at things like the MN Shared System, the Verbos Master System, Surgeon’s live system, Robert AA Lowe’s live system, and wrote out a simple analysis of what the balance of Oscillators, VCA’s (of east/west varieties), Sound-Making devices (samplers? FX?), Filters, etc they had. It was interesting and definitely revealing of a variety of performance philosophies.

Here’s where I ended up: http://www.modulargrid.net/e/racks/image/573875.jpg

It’s a system that can do a wide variety of things, opening itself up to both experimentation in many forms, as well as more straight ahead east-coast sequencing if that’s what’s required. Technically speaking, it’s got as many as 8 sound sources just thinking about it if you wire it up right (HO, BLD, both filters, Just Friends, DLD, Clouds, and Maths if you cycle fast enough), but with as many as 13 channels of concurrent CV sequencing (4 from the Ansible, you can do up to 8 from Pam’s with a turing machine-like random on each channel, plus the Sequence Selector). Only thing really up in the air for me at the moment is the DLD - I may swap it out for the Erbe Verb, which I vacillate on constantly.

I will say, I do have a spillover 104hp to include tools that I do find valuable to be able to wire up in the studio for compositional purposes that maybe don’t serve as much of a purpose or take up too much space in the “system” so to speak. I think this is the balance for me, really, is to have one system that can be pushed into a load of different sonic territories in the model of some of those mentioned shared systems, and then some residual studio-specific tools.

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#8

I have a lot of sequencing, both CV and trigger/gate as well as routing, combiner and logic modules. These make up about half of the case. I wish I had more modulation sources and I’m content with only a few sound sources and effects (delay, spring reverb).

Sequencing, clock sources, routing, voltage adders and utilities are the most interesting for me and I’m aiming for a system with a couple of flexible sound sources (Mysteron, BI) and plenty of things to trigger them and manipulate the rythms and sequences.

Edit: this was a lot more coherrent before I wrote it. But I’m surprised how much of control modules conpared to sound sources I have/want.

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#9

Yeah, that was the idea of the Doepfer mini case - just some outboard stuff that I could trade in and out. All 8 hp. All with a unique functionality depending on what I want…external processing - Sewastopol. Max interfacing - ES-8. Octatrack - MIDI2CV or Zularic Repetitor…

Thanks for the input everyone. I’d still love to hear more perspectives on this little thought puzzle.

A modular koan of sorts :slight_smile:

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#10

I don’t have any grand wisdom here aside from: if you DO find a balance, leave it alone for a good stretch of time. Build up some muscle memory before you shuffle it again.

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#11

Ha, yeah! I have a buddy who is always messing with his layout. It was a big lesson in how to lose momentum. I have had basically 6 setups in 5 years that were notable revisions. I felt good about that, but this new case has me in a dark place :slight_smile: classic overthinking…

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#12

I have a TipTop Mantis case that I chiefly use for percussion sounds, a drum sequencer, oscillators, filter, mixer etc. But I’m constantly simply using it for that purpose rather than exploring it properly - having those things next to each other does make you work in a certain way.

#13

I tend to consider my case as a number of instruments that can all work together or be arranged in different ways. I have two “complete” voices (i.e. one or two oscillators, modulation, maybe a filter, envelopes, VCA), a sampler and drum row, some effects, and lots of sequencing and modulation.

I have had it laid out roughly like this for a while now and seem to like it:

Row 1 - sampler, drum modules, FX, and some attenuators/VCAs
Row 2A - Mannequins + IFM (roughly two complete synth voices, but can be more or less)
Row 3 - Modulators and utilities (generally)
Row 4 - Sequencers, utilities, and physical/external interfaces

#14

Trying to settle on a setup myself and it’s tricky. The things that have stayed throughout the various iterations have been my ER-301, Clouds, 3 Sisters, and Batumi. I do tend to go now for multipurpose modules of different flavors and especially like when the line is blurred between filter/oscillator as well as LFO/Envelope/Oscillator, as it makes you think about control voltage more and how to manipulate it.

If I were to start all over again, I’m not sure if I would change much, as it’s been fun to try different modules. It is a goal of mine to stop reconfiguring, so perhaps that should be added to my 2018 goals so I can be held accountable. :rofl:

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#15

I approach all this with an end goal - to make a finished piece of music in a style i like. Better to start from there and work backwards instead of buying the latest and greatest modules first when you were probably missing the most basic things like a $60 doepfer precision adder or quantizer! I see it as building an instrument rather than just a collection of modules. Basically do what you need to get the job done and don’t always follow the crowd. There seems to be no mention about the type of music you want to make or whether you want external sequencing / effects or onboard. Both of which take up alot of space in modular. I have found my maximum working limit to 12u but could put all the core modules in 6u. I have cases with different systems, but to be honest, that is just excess modules that i found a way to work with. I do onboard sequencing and have found i need to dedicate at least 50% (in my case 70%) of the case to sequencers, clock dividers/multipliers, envelopes, random and modulation. I found from experience, that for me, its all about the CV sources and not about the number of sound sources and filters (i use wavefolders not filters), but that is totally dependant on the style of music. I get more stuff done in smaller setups. I put core modules i want to learn in tiny lunchbox setups so i can focus and learn. The advise i would give is look at your favourite modular artists in the style of music you want to play and look at their setups. When i started i was looking at Keith Whitman. Theres some great videos with people explaining their setups.

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#16

shouts out to KFW, good idea, i’ll check that out

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#17

Thanks for the thoughts. :slight_smile:

I’m not new to this, but I appreciate the variety of perspectives folks are offering. I think I definitely have reached my peak in amount of voices as I use a matrix mixer which limits me to a max of 4 separate outputs into the Octatrack or MAX. That restrictive element has really helped me focus more. Mainly this new case has shaken things up for me in a way that it has me thinking about these things for the first time in a long time. I thought I’d start the topic publicly thinking it’d be interesting and useful for others to share their approaches and philosophies. Glad it seems to be sparking a bit of discussion.

Also, I’m definitely with you - lots of people get so caught up with the ‘sexy’ stuff that they forget about utilities. My personal fixation that many seem to ignore: offsets and attenuverters :slight_smile:

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#18

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#19

Keith is great. He’s always been supportive of my work going back to the early 00s and he’s just so knowledgeable and passionate about music. I am so grateful to have somewhat of a mentor in people like KFW and Greg Davis - who tried the punk rock approach of endless touring with laptop shit back in the day. Plus, I was thankful to get them to Louisville multiple times when they were in that zone! :slight_smile: It meant (and still means) so much.

I love Generators and its variations, but it took me awhile to click with some of his other more recent works, but love Occlusions and Disingenuity (with I could track down a copy of that gem!). Late Monoliths is something I have to spend more time with. I’m REALLY hoping to hear his collabs with Mark Fell though maybe most of all.

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#20

hes recently, in the last few months, been putting his back catalogue up on bandcamp https://keithfullertonwhitman.bandcamp.com

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#21

Yeah - I picked up a few random things that don’t have distro in America like Late Monoliths. I’m happy he’s enjoying Australia, but shipping is absurd. Also picked up that Tokyo release :slight_smile:

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#22

A realization I had while reading this: I shuffle things in and out of my 7U 104HP case to make the music I want to make, often mid-patch, currently having almost double the HP in modules as I do in space. But that means, in theory, if I had a case twice as large, everything I’ve ever patched would have worked in it!

Of course, I can only imagine that if I got to patching a system of that size, I’d find I’d want to grow again. So I think working within space limitations just forces you to play and find what works for you, and maybe it’s possible to find a balance that you’ll settle on and I think it’ll be totally different for everyone. For me, sometimes I want to build a piece with one sound source and six effects, other times I have these complex interweaving percussion voices and need to dedicate a quarter of my case to mixing. Unless a day comes when I can forget about space concerns altogether, I think I’ll always be shuffling.

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#23

Keith is interesting because his case is always dedicated to specific pieces of music, with specific titles etc…, rather than general sets of functions

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#24

that video gets NUTS toward the end. thanks for sharing!

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#25

Yeah, I just really want to have one setup. It might be nice to have more, but it’s not going to happen because I’d go insane thinking about different setups and I just don’t have the money for that anyway. I’ve been very set on the idea of one case. Period. I have 8 hp I can slide one module in and out with others, but otherwise, I’m not interested in that game. The shuffling can get exhausting and I lose productivity. So while I’m lost in this, cool, but once I settle on something in the next week, I’m sticking with it.

Again, different people have different approaches, which is totally cool, this is just what works for me.

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#26

yes indeed, its an interesting video because hes applying very specific modular techniques and knows exactly what hes going for. Hes been playing iterations of that patch on/off for the best part of 8 years. Its pretty much based around driving an ASR in interesting ways. He started that patch with doepfer / plan b modules and changed the modules over the years as they got more advanced - like switching the Plan B ASR for a Quantimator, changing to a uLFO and PEG, and switching the Oscillators from mk1 Dixies to STO’s but still did the same patch, just adding and tweaking it.

Heres the original Generators patch from 7 years ago.

The Occlusions album setup is here, its more Harvestman Zorlon Cannon / Double Andore driven :
http://vimeo.com/44665906

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