what do you think i need more?


Two thoughts.

1) You have a lot of nice modules here, and I wouldn't necessarily drop anything that you already have. But I would say that you're missing the architecture necessary to actually use a lot of the modules: utilities. You should be thinking about how to actually get signals to the modules and how you'll morph the signals along the way. For example, you have Batumi for LFOs. Awesome choice, but how are you gonna tame the signal without wasting Maths? Maybe an attenuator (or better yet, attenuverter) or two would help. Or, of course, you could have more VCAs. A sample and hold or track and hold might be worth considering for turning those random voltages into step sequences. A quantizer would be cool, too. What if you want to route a signal to multiple locations? Buffered mults will allow that without any drop in voltage. I particularly like the Doepfer Switched Multiples and Sequential switch for these purposes. There are many utilities that will allow you to mangle, tame, move, or manipulate the signal; don't forget about them! Maybe check out a multi-function tool or VCV rack to get a sense of which utilities you'll need.

2) How are you connecting to the outside world? Are you working with a computer or DAW, or just the standalone modular synth?

Best of luck!


HGsynth thanks for the reply. This already helps a lot. Worth of mentioning is that i'm using a beatstep pro as wel to clock everything and as a sequencer.
I was thinking about Pamela's new workout, or a extra vca from intelijel.

What kind of multi-fuction tool do i have to think of?

i'm not using a computer or a DaW. Just using the sum out of my linx mixer into a external mixer.

Thanks a lot for all the reply's. Help's a lot to make all these difficult choises :-)


Forgetting utilities, modulation sources, etc. is a very common mistake at the beginning. When we think about our dream house, we are mainly focused on the living room, the bedrooms, the kitchen, the bathroom... Corridors, doors, staircases and closets are less of a dream.

I can only recommend here modules that I use and appreciate:
Buff Mult (buffered multiple), A-180-2 (passive multiple), Sinc Defero (buffered quad attenuator), A-160-2 (clock/trigger divider), A-151 (sequential switch), CalTrans (calibrator and transposer), Booster Stage (amplifier to eurorack systems), Mutes (multi channel mute), Disting mk4 (multifunction module), Listen IO (input/output interface)...

'On ne devrait jamais quitter Montauban' (Fernand Naudin).


HGsynth thanks for the reply. This already helps a lot. Worth of mentioning is that i'm using a beatstep pro as wel to clock everything and as a sequencer. I was thinking about Pamela's new workout, or a extra vca from intelijel. What kind of multi-fuction tool do i have to think of?

My pleasure. Putting together a system without having tried all the modules is tough, particularly if you're new to this. Glad to help.

Ok, BSP is a fine choice. I love both my Pam's (I have "New Workout," haven't tried the "Pro") and my Intellijel quad VCA; both massively changed how I used my system. Also, the Pam's brings us back to utilities, because you should consider what you want to do with the clock from Pam's. How will you mult the boring regular pulses from one output so you can make use of Pam's more interesting features in the others, like euclidean rhythms, logic, quantization, or smooth random? Do you want to be able to multiply or divide the clock to send different speeds of the signal around your system? Do you want to use the gates as envelopes?
Clock dividers or multipliers (e.g, 4ms QCD), buffered mults (e.g., Joranalogue Link2), VCAs (so many different ones), attenuators/attenuverters/inverters (e.g., Happy Nerding 3xMIA, Frap 321, etc.), and slew (e.g., Joranalogue Contour 1, Doepfer A-171, etc.) all seem to make more sense when you think about it that way.

Other utilities, like window comparators, logic, precision adders, S/H or T/H, gate-trigger converters, etc. all are harder to conceptualize until you need one while patching. For example, what if I wanted to pick gates off of two related LFOs whenever their voltages reach a certain range? Or I want to make a step sequence from a complex LFO or smooth random voltages? Or what if one of my modules is not reacting properly to a gate because it only like triggers or the voltage is not high enough? All situations I've come across, leading to getting the utilities above.

For a multi-tool, I think Ornament and Crime is a complete game-changer. It's menu-diving is only 2 steps deep, and it has so many tools on it (personally, I prefer the Hemispheres option). Play around with that for a while and you'll get to know what utilities you need. People also love the Disting EX and MK4, but I haven't tried those personally. The EX is on my to get list, though. I recommend watching some videos about the different utilities to figure them out. There are a lot of good ones: Divkid, loopop, mylarmelodies, red means recordings, etc... so many great folks in the community explaining how modules work and giving patching ideas. I always watch a ton of those before making a purchase.

Good luck!

Forgetting utilities, modulation sources, etc. is a very common mistake at the beginning. When we think about our dream house, we are mainly focused on the living room, the bedrooms, the kitchen, the bathroom... Corridors, doors, staircases and closets are less of a dream.

@Sweelinck, I love this analogy. Definitely using it in the future. Thanks!