Hello Ronin1973,

For a common introduction please refer to my just previous message. I would like to reply to a few matters you mentioned in specific your reply.

For the hi-fi matter please refer to my common reply. Regarding hi-fi “consumer” audio... bbrrrr, the word consumer gives me cold thrills and I guess you meant it in a sarcastic or rather negative way and I only can agree with you, so no, I didn’t mean it in that way ;-)

As you can see from my previous common reply, I have not much experience other than my just now “3 months experience”, I almost not daring to mention it since it’s just close to zero experience indeed. But haven’t we all started with zero experience and starting either when we were a baby, a toddler or a youngster or like me a rather medium-aged person?

Indeed, very well noticed, I come from that “world” leaning back lazily in a comfortable chair and listening at good music from a good quality (I will avoid hi-fi ;-) ) audio installation, but that didn’t stop me, finally since February this year, to start with synthesizers, I am glad I did, the only little regret is it should have been 10, 20 or 30 years ago but hey, we all made mistakes, and this was my mistake ;-)

When I am (overly) enthusiastic, I usually am a bit “too soon” with that kind of things, either good or not I want a modular system ;-) Look at the amount of time I have spent into studying synthesizer stuff since end of February which is, in my opinion, totally abnormal, out of this world, but I did it. So, synthesizers must do something good with me, otherwise I wouldn’t have put so much efforts in it this far and this long... I guess...

Thank you for your kind warning that this is going to be expensive, I kind of “think that I know that” but one wouldn’t really know untill it’s too late, isn’t it? ;-) Anyway, I am okay with that, synthesizers became such an extreme hobby for me that I don’t mind as long as it kind of fits within the budget. The only scary feeling I have is that that budget might get extended, and extended, and extended, etcetera... yeah... sigh... isn’t that the case with almost all nice hobbies? :-)

You mention there are no wrong decisions, well isn’t that the fantastic beauty of modular synthesizers? What every you do with it, whatever you have patched or didn’t patch, whatever setting you have done or haven’t done, it might not be perfect but it isn’t a mistake either, that is modular to me! And I love it! :-)

I hope you don’t mind that I am saying this: You mention “programmed a synthesizer”, I know a bit or two about computers and programming a computer means you are going to “programme” the computer with a programming language like for example C, Pascal, Java or even assembler however I haven’t come across this with synthesizers?

May I assume that you meant to say “configuring a synthesizer”? Since being honest, I don’t believe that any one of us here really has “programmed” a synthesizer with perhaps a few rare exceptions if you had worked for example for a synthesizer manufacturer and you had there indeed hardcoded programmed some of their modules or something like that. We rather are doing complicated configurations, making patches, etcetera, yes, that one indeed you are right, I only start doing that since I got the Roland FA-06 in early March, before that, I never had configured indeed a synthesizer...

By the way, I had the opportunity of playing for about an hour with the Nord Lead G2 synthesizer, if of all synthesizers one comes close to “programming it” then it’s the G2, it’s still configuring it but on a very high and respectable level. For this moment, indeed, I consider that synthesizer as a few levels too complicated for me since my lack of experience. On the other hand, modular synthesizers are, at least that’s how I feel it, inviting me, almost screaming at me, to discover them, to test them, to figure them out, to get them “under control” ;-) and last but not least get some fantastic sounds out of it! That’s how I feel and I just can’t stop talking about modular stuff... sorry...

Oh yes, one last thing, you mentioned, modular is an expensive format to be your entry point into making music. Yes indeed, I do realise that and I wish it was about one tenth of the actual price, then it would be all more affordable ;-) But “making music” with it, you might be surprised with my reply on that matter however to be honest with you I don’t think I will make music with that, I don’t consider myself a musician and for the moment a modular system for me is the fun combination of testing it, trying it, getting weird and fun (and sometimes perhaps beautiful) sounds out of it and trying to understand it. So rather towards testing and sound design than really making music with it; well at least for the moment.

I love huge challenges, I always did and I always welcome new huge challenges, that’s one of the reasons why modular systems intrigue me so much that I want to get one, hopefully as soon as possible :-)

Thank you again for your kind help and I hope you will continue supporting me with my future questions/matters regarding modular synthesizers, very much appreciated!

For review reports of Eurorack modules, please refer to https://garfieldmodular.net/ for PDF formatted downloads