The current state of grid sound

[ether]

after a lot of internal debate i’ve finally arrived at my ideal (for now) portable gigging setup : 12U of modular (including various monome modules), a 128, and an octatrack

i tried an aleph, but didn’t gel with it

i tried computers, but lost all inspiration

i tried double the amount of euro, but couldn’t carry it

i tried various midi controllers, but hate the plasticyness

etc, etc.

the octatrack was a win for several reasons:

it can be the mixer (as long as I stick to 4 ins, which is fine for me)
it can be the master sequencer
it can be an audio backing track playback device : super important for me
its a very capable machine in its own right
its got a lot of performance oriented features that are great (scenes and the fader for example)
its super portable
its black!
etc.

i’d love to see a monome inspired mixer one day, but for now i’m set

time to make music and not futz around with gear!

(that’s my “studio b” case - teletype arriving this week!)

[scanner_darkly]

^ i’ve just recently arrived at a very similar configuration, 104hp 12U + octatrack + machinedrum + mackie 802vlz4 mixer which i mostly picked for it’s slimmer profile but yeah, there are several things about it that are not ideal for my setup. thought about using the octa as the main mixer but decided i really prefer the immediacy of having an actual mixer.

nice setup btw! how are you sequencing with octa? don’t see any midi2cv modules… i’ve got hexinverter midi2cv specifically so that i could sequence from octa, just to try out the workflow - plocks will also be really handy with CVs. thinking if this works well then might upgrade to yarns or vermona.

[ether]

@scanner_darkly for now i’m actually not midi sequencing from the ot, though i probably will eventually.

the “plan” - as far as I have one - is to have two main “modes” i shift between :

1. beats, where I have the ot and the euro sync’d up (more on that below) and doing dark tech kind of stuff, with each doing minimal mostly non-melodic grooves and hits, with no midi sequencing.

2. ambient-ish euro jamming over ot backing tracks. no sync, just nice drones streaming from the cf card on the ot, allowing me to go all free jazz bonkers on the modular.

not shown in the pic above is a Hinton Gearbox, which takes mid clock from the ot, and gives me triggers at various musical divisions to drive the modular (actually works in reverse too, so the modular can be master to the ot’s slave).

for now that’s all i want to do, until i’ve mastered the ot, which will take a while!

my tt also arrives today, which i’m planning on using as one of the main melodic tools i think.

long term i probably see a yarns in my future, in a separate small ‘sync box’ with the hinton module.

i would love a high quality external mixer and some excellent effects, but i’m soooooo sick of lugging gear around. too many heavy guitar amps in my past.

[drehleierguy]

I’ve always been a big fan of matrix mixers, especially since mounting versions of David Tudor’s Rainforest series. Commercial mixers rarely did what I needed them to do. One of my first matrix mixers was a passive 6X6 with momentary cut buttons:

One of the more recent (and ridiculous) projects was an active 16X16 with ~10X pre-amps on the inputs:

Haven’t quite, um, finished that one…

I’m doing less and less of the the analog ‘plug everything into everything else’ sort of live electronics these days. Mostly focusing on live hurdy gurdy and, now that I’m more comfortable with Max/msp at last, more in-the-box electronics.

I’m always up for another go at a Rainforest installation, however!

Great ideas and inspiration from you all - thanks for taking the time to contribute. I wish that I had more to pitch in at the moment.

All the best,

ben

[shellfritsch]

for me it’s psychically better to use a walkman with a cassette, fed into a mixer.

it’s big and heavy, but i love my tascam 424 mkIII. multitrack cassette playback and ample inputs with effects sends works really nicely in a live setup.

i’ve seen someone record a pulse to one tape track and use that to keep hardware in sync… been meaning to try it myself.

[accountboy]

of course what this means is that i may be designing a weirdly semi-specialized analog mixer in the medium-term future.

Isms brought me (back) here

[spqr6510]

obsession (isms) bring me here dailly

[bobbcorr]

“studio b” case

Love your setup - if you have a modulargrid link, and hopefully a link to the case manufacturer, I’d be very grateful!

[myecholalia]

That’s an Amalgamod case. I know, because I’ve got one
There are threads on the muffwiggler forum about it. And amalgamod.com has a contact form, even if the site hasn’t been updated with content last time I looked.

[gingity]

I did a quick search and can’t seem to find anything about a grid 128 controlled eurorack switch matrix?

There are many posts about elaborate mixers, but I find there are already many mixers out there. There aren’t however (from what I’ve found) many musically controllable switch matrices. They’re also all huge. The WMD SSM is probably the most useful one (and compact to boot), esp w the expander. But it still only has 4x4.

I feel like somebody could very quickly put together a simple 8x8 (16 jacks total) switch matrix where every jack is routable to any another jack (or combination of jacks) - all of this being controlled by a grid. The control interfacing on the grid probably would need a bit of finessing, maybe some multi-colour LED’s on the actual module to denote connections (but probably not even necessary).

Then adding one more jack for cv control between presets routing scenes/“keyframes” (similar to wmd ssm or mutables frames) would take it into super useful territory.

Maybe it’s just me, but 4x4 isn’t quite enough but 8x8 could built enough interesting routing for a long extended diverse set (without extensive repatching). I can’t waste like 30+ hp on a these massive matrix modules if I’m trying to condense everything into a flight case.

Perhaps this can’t be done technically in a small space though.

Final note… it would be incredible if this could be done with op-amps and some sort of slew/morphing between routings heh but alas I get ahead of myself.

[kisielk]

8x8 grid controlling a VCA matrix. Press a pad to get control over the level. Set the level with a knob or right hand side LEDs (maybe for the whole row at once?). Levels are indicated by pad brightness in the 8x8 grid. That would be amazing

[scanner_darkly]

yeah, this was briefly discussed in another thread somewhere - agreed, this would be great to have. especially if it wasn’t just on/off but had VCAs built in. a dedicated module would be pretty expensive though, especially for 8x8.

a better solution, perhaps, would be being able to interface some module that can interface with grid with the Switch Matrix or similar modules via i2c or something.

but yeah, i’ve been doing this exactly with a combo of 4ms VCA Matrix and nw2s::b modules, the ::b is a perfect companion for the matrix with its 16 analog outs.

[kisielk]

Yeah it’s just too bad the VCA Matrix is already pretty huge. It would be a lot more compact if it didn’t need all those panel controls.

It seems they use some obsolete SSM chips though, it would probably be pretty expensive to use discrete VCAs.

[madeofoak]

late to this thread, sorry for the bump…

+1 on reducing technical complexity in performance! i’m constantly trying to refine my setup so i’m never too concerned with the non-musical, technical aspects of the performance and enhance the parts that inspire me night to night.

very interested to hear the OP-1 / mlr material, are there any recordings from the tour?

[rknLA]

I’m grateful for the bump. Probably would’ve missed this otherwise.

I’ve been plundering around Darwin’s podcast for a few weeks (months?) now after seeing a link to the episode with @rodrigo, and it’s been really help me get back into the swing of things. The episode with Andrew Pask that @tehn mentioned is also really relevant to where I’m at mentally right now.

It’s interesting to look at the role of mixers in performance. I’ve been going over a particular new hardware setup on paper for months now, before finally settling on getting a LaunchControl XL for in the box stuff. (The Livid DS1 looked nicer, and more sturdy, but is also more expensive, and has a larger footprint than I was interested in). It seems that whether analog or controller, there’s still a need for a surface to fulfill the conceptual role.

Maybe I’ve just been out of the loop too long, but what’s going on in the second app shown in the video in the OP? Is that skitter?

[tehn]

mlrv

sadly mac os 10.10+ wrecked something with soundcard input and we’re still trying to figure out how to revive it.

[tehn]

hilariously, amazingly, right after typing that i downloaded the standalone v2.5 and it worked completely perfectly even with my motu microbook. whattt. annoyed, but excited annoyed.

trentgill/mlrv2

[myecholalia]

nice! going to retest on my 10.10 laptop.

[rknLA]

Ah weird, I guess the light patterns threw me for a whirl. Are the stuck lights in the middle rows microloops then? I’m also confused by the blinking 0,0 light, without seeing a pattern light O_o

Fun stuff

[nuun]

This thread inspired me to make short introduction video’s of different patches for the grid. Maybe helpfull for new users, although i’ve only 6 vids so far…

https://instagram.com/p/BbUIXvoHf7-/

https://instagram.com/p/BbUIx3PHSy_/

https://instagram.com/p/BbUKBAQHZle/

https://instagram.com/p/BbUKv1XHuvh/

https://instagram.com/p/BbULRgInuFS/

https://instagram.com/p/BbULkPbH_Jb/

Hope you enjoy