Eurorack: discussion, advice, learning, questions

[Artaos]

FWIW I swapped my Polyend Poly 2 for an Expert Sleepers FH-2, which I found vastly superior. (Lower latency over USB, better support from the developers, ultimately more configurable.)

[buddhafingers]

I find myself a bit confused by the many Mutable Instruments clones/remixes and if there are improvements over the originals. Is there any good source on this? And also could anyone tell me how firmware and such tends to work for these remixes/clones? Like if MI pushes out a new feature via firmware, can I be adrift without it by choosing a remix until someone updates their fork?

[dubiousphil]

Save for the numerous clouds reworks (Supercell, Typhoon, Monsoon etc.) I’m not aware of any real improvements made to the clones. I believe that the edges clone often features the midi expander but that should be it. You’re usually sacrificing ergonomics for space and knob quality.
There should be no clone that is unable to host the same firmware as the factory modules, so don’t worry about that.

In my opinion, only the clouds reworks are really worth it as they give you access to (and voltage control of) some crucial parameters. Monsoon or typhoon are good choices I think. The rest is just people capitalising on the open source nature of Emilié’s business model.

//edit:
I want to add that I don‘t want to disparage anyone using the open source stuff for learning or maybe selling something they built for their own use, it‘s just the actual commercial operations that sell clones of things that are currently in production that annoy me.

[srogers91]

+1 to everything mentioned above. I went from a few full size MI modules to a couple of the smaller clones to save space, but switched back to the full size not long afterwards because I couldn’t stand using the mini pots on the smaller clones.

[forestcaver]

Here are three of my reworks of MI stuff:
(open source - never received any cash for them!)

Jinx - 3x S+H section from Kinks
3x buff mult section from Links
2V - 2x sections of Veils - can chain an unlimited number…

[wardores]

I’ll second the recommendation for Monsoon. Having VC over feedback is so much fun, and worth it on its own.

[Starthief]

I haven’t personally tried it, but I also imagine Plancks (and other slider versions of Frames) might be good choices in terms of interface.

I tried a 3rd party build of Warps and it wasn’t bad, but the lackluster replacement for the “big knob” was a lot less fun than the original.

[Tyler]

I’ve been pretty enamored with the Odessa since I found out about it the other night. Does anyone know how harmonic oscillators like this are accomplished hardware-wise?

[yams]

Have a bit of a puzzle. There’s a neat thing that happens when a quantizer reaches a new value, where it also outputs a gate along with that new value it reaches. I’m looking to replicate this behavior (or, at least, learn what it’s called) so that I can use it in conjunction with teletype (which only reads incoming values on a gate – rather than emitting a gate upon shifts in the incoming value). Is there some way to do this between Maths and Cold Mac? I have found / deployed some higher-level analog programming wizardry with that stuff before, but not sure what would yield a gate upon a change in signal in relative to a quantized reference >.>

[grey]

I think you’re looking for “comparator”? Also Teletype’s metro script can most certainly evaluate its incoming CV to perform the behavior you describe.

[yams]

OF COURSE! thanks so much – running m at 25 ms is something I’ve done frequently, but for some reason was so obsessed with calibrating offsets it hadn’t occurred to me

q: I’ve heard faster metro times can lead to freezes / crashes at higher BPM. Is this something you’ve experienced at all? Right now my I2C bus is more packed than it’s every been, and I’m a tad nervous about encountering issues in a patch after committing to this solution ( txi, txo, ansible, txb).

[grey]

I wouldn’t sweat it until it starts happening, then you can troubleshoot. Freezing won’t damage your modules, just make sure you save your substantial changes with Teletype.

[rileycraft]

noob to modular but learning day by day and messing around w/ vcv rack. I built this ridiculous rack on MG lol. I’m not going to go out and buy all of this of course. Im using it to bookmark modules of future interest. I did order a 9U 104 case and plan to start small. I will soon buy the basics (probably 3-4 modules) just to get some sound going and twiddle around. I want to learn each module really well then expand slowly from there. But hypothetically speaking, if I did succumb to GAS and decided to buy all these modules right now which ones would be redundant? What would you add to this rack? It has a lot of popular trendy modules bc im new and they are the ones I see talked about most. I want to make generative ambient brian eno tunes.

Generative

[hermbot]

I think a high pass filter gets you there. The constant of the held signal is basically removed and the rate of change is preserved.

edit: Just tried it in VCV rack for easy scoping. The high pass works okay but nothing that would be stable enough to be a trigger. If it gets fed into a comparator that’s looking just above zero, it works fairly well. The problem is a truly random S&H will sometimes have very small steps that aren’t easily picked up with this method.

edit 2: Okay, I set something up on my rig and with a little knob tuning it works out.

S&H Output -> HP Filter -> Maths Channel 2 -> SUM Out to Channel 1 In = EOR Output Triggers

Maths Attenuverter Settings:
CH1: Noon
CH2: Fully clockwise
CH3: Adjust here
CH4: Noon

The gist is that you are offsetting the high-passed signal just enough to cause the Maths to work as a comparator. You need just a teensy bit of offset from the CH3 attenuverter. This has gotten me a reliable trigger from a S&H change in voltage for several minutes now.

The CH3 offset has to be just a touch off center, and every time the pulse from the HP filter descends, it triggers the EOR output.

edit 3: What would be really trick is a gain amplifier after the high pass, but those are pretty rare in Eurorack unfortunately.

[renegog]

i don’t have experience with most of these modules, but it sounds like you’ve got the right idea: go slow, mess with vcv rack, etc. Hard to say what would be redundant for you or what you’d want more of. Based on vcv rack you might have some idea what your favorites of the Mutable Instruments modules are so that might help direct you. If I was in your position I might be more inclined to go with analogue modules and pair them with the VCV rack where it’s appropriate. For reference, Émilie Gillet’s advice for starting (she’s mutable instruments):

If you don’t know how to start, just do this:

• 1 sound source (oscillator, sample player…)
• 1 modifier (filter, wavefolder, effect processor…)
• 1 modulation source that can do both looping and one-shot modulations
• Optionally, one control module – allowing you to “play” the modules (MIDI/CV interface or sequencer). This might no longer be necessary, with so much gear these days having CV/Gate outputs!

based on this, from your modules I’d personally do mangrove, 3 sisters, maths, and marbles (and cold mac as a bonus if you’ve got the cash) but my bias there is towards the modules I know.

(Sorry if I’m going on too long, I’m avoiding other responsibilities lol) as far as redundancies I would say the thing that jumps out is a lot of sort of different types of sequencing. It might take some time for you to develop your own favorite strategies for generative sequencing, but marbles seems to be a powerful centerpiece for such a system whereas a lot of the other stuff seems less conducive. I could be wrong, but I would think about how you’re handling sequencing in VCV rack and which things you like about it and which things aren’t working for you. Combining effects and how many sound sources are all to taste, possible overlap between DLD and mimeophone, possibly too many sound sources and not enough modulation/VCAs — very hard for anyone to say. This is why it’s so valuable to start slow and learn the modules you have and grow from there, no one can tell you for sure

[hinterlands]

A straight up comparator won’t do this exactly as it will only output a gate once it passes a certain threshold and then stay high until it goes lower than the threshold, rather than output a gate on every change. I used to have a Doepfer a-156 quantizer and I really miss the trigger on ever new quantized note behavior - I would use it with Maths to create off the grid trigger streams. Comparators are still useful for all kinds of patches though.

[mgscheue]

Interesting idea to build this from high pass filter and comparator modules. I remember building a differentiator circuit, when I was in school, using an op amp and it was basically a high pass filter. I don’t have one but I’m guessing the Ladik J-110 Derivator essentially works that way.

[rileycraft]

@renegog

(Sorry if I’m going on too long, I’m avoiding other responsibilities lol)

Please don’t be! I appreciate the response. Even though I’ve been reading up on modular for months now, patching things irl still feels intimidating and seeing it written out this way is very helpful.

@renegog

based on this, from your modules I’d personally do mangrove, 3 sisters, maths, and marbles (and cold mac as a bonus if you’ve got the cash) but my bias there is towards the modules I know.

Cool cool, I’ll look more into those. Maths seems like a must-have staple so I’ll certainly pick it up. I was just reading the manual. it does so many things! I really like what I heard with marbles, it seems to pair well with Rings but getting both of them might be a little overkill for a beginner so I will opt for just marbles right now.

@renegog

not enough modulation/VCAs

I don’t think I completely understand what a modulation module is. I thought clock modules produced modulation but it seems as though they are more like a sequencer/randomizer. Would Modulation be referring to LFO modules?

[renegog]

“modulation” could refer to anything that you modulate parameters with, so it’s not very specific except in that I am referring to things you can use to modulate sound. Yes you could use random or sequences to modulate, for sure. Maths is also a modulator. Pamela’s new workout, just as an example, is a modulator but having it and Mimetic Digitalis and Marbles might be overkill. At a certain point you might want more things like Sloths, or that give you manual control or something else. This is a down the road question that you’ll discover your way through, though; those critique’s were in the hypothetical where you get this whole rack at once—which I would not recommend, obviously

If you like rings and it inspires you, then don’t let me discourage that—a lot of people make great music with it I’ve just never personally tried it. In Gillet’s formulation, my understanding is you could consider rings a sound source or a modifier. You could probably make a lot of cool sounds with just maths marbles and rings to be honest

Edit: @rileycraft https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISocvvnT0xw

[kveye]

You have a lot of sound sources and vcas but really lack envelopes.
Math only has two. Either you need Low pass gates instead of some of vcas or more envelopes.
Also some oscillators that you planned have somewhat similar sounds Sto and plaits for example. I’d personally try to make a mix of really differently sounding sources to complement each other. Also I’d recommend picking up small noise source, though I might’ve missed one there

Also there is no reason for full sized ornament and crime. Look for micro version