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Lots of helpful info there @Lugia, thanks for sharing. I'm pretty sure I'm going to go with a couple RS panels and see how that turns out, no magic expected per se but I'd like to supplement my excessively digital main rack with something a little more old school and that rewards reflection and understanding of synthesis.

A new contender has appeared: https://elby-designs.com/contents/en-us/d69_ES_-_Euro_Serge.html

Interesting wrinkle... anyone have experience with Elby?

I recently got a Chord V2 and I've been enjoying the chord function on the Akemie's Castle a lot, but doing it all analog with a Harmonaig sounds pretty rad.

Looks pretty good! How do you like the Harmonaig? I've been thinking about getting one but haven't pulled the trigger yet.

@GarfieldModular, just my two cents but I've found that opening up the posting gates can open up the creativity and flow. I used to keep my tunes really close to the chest but earlier this year I decided to just post anything I made, or just about anything, and it lead me down a really nice path for 3-4 months, which I of course upset by deciding to pick up a whole new instrument and build a modular lol.

We can often be our own worst critics, and sometimes the most important thing is just to let it live. Those are my thoughts for the day!

EDITED Jun 26th 2020, 00:14

I've been thinking about a Serge rack and curious what people think about it. I have a very Euro-y rack I've been putting together recently with a ton of digital modules, but I'd also like to explore a more strict approach to synthesis, and there seem to be a lot of folks out there who just love Serge. I've taken a crack at it, and you can see it here:

There's a few non-Serge utility modules (do they not make any VCAs for Euro?), but it's 95% Serge. The biggest question I have right now is if the sequencer is really worth all that HP, so I'd love to hear thoughts on that and just Serge in Euro in general. Does it live up to the hype? Would it make more sense to just buy the old school Serge format racks like the Bestia? (I'd really love to chain my synths together though!)

Thanks in advance as always for any help!

Thanks for sharing @baltergeist, looking forward to giving it a listen.

Nice one wishbone, digging the melodies a few minutes in a lot

Very good stuff @baltergeist, I especially like fly and grace, a wide range there.

Nice, I'll give em a listen!

Nice @wishbonebrewery, I need to find a disting but they're MIA everywhere right now! One takeaway from your rack that I'll give you kudos on is how much you've prioritized smaller modules. I took a look at mine after seeing yours and was like "Everything's too big!!" I need to reevaluate my next steps

Nice pieces, I'm especially enjoying STO in the wash. Are the pads generally from the Clouds clone? They sound really great.

I remember their stuff from way back in the day and stumbled on them again recently, it's very cool that they're still making synths. Have any sounds you've made that you'd want to share? I'd be curious to give it a listen.

I've been looking at this one for a bit and pretty sure I'm going to get it. Thanks for the demo!

Pretty new to all this, but I'm curious what street your stuck on and might help others.

That was my hope for it @farkas, but so far I don't find myself ever wanting to use it. Could just be me missing that quantizer though

Absolutely @kel_ !

Thought I'd update everyone with the current state of things:

Some early thoughts/questions:

Overall I have to say I'm thrilled and this is a pretty incredible format, so thanks to to you @farkas for your help. It's fascinating making sound in such a different way (which is its own question I guess: how the heck do you actually get a working process with these?!! => instead of just noodling, but I'll save that for another day) and this site and all the great content here made the leap a lot easier.
Challenge-wise, I'm not sure the Pressure Points is working out as I'd hoped, though that's probably partially because I'm missing a quantizer. That said, I'm thinking I'd rather have an Arturia KeyStep. I'm curious how other people use the PP and if it's a lasting feature of a lot of people's racks as I could definitely be missing something?
What's next? I definitely want another oscillator and I'm thinking about getting a Serge NTO. Do these live up to the hype? They're expensive and use up a lot of HP, but a lot of artists I respect seem to be Serge fanatics (not necessarily because of the NTO, but still), so I'm thinking it'd be fun to try. Would love to hear anyone's thoughts on this one.

Thanks as always for any help, and hope folks are staying safe (and protesting too!).

@farkas I took a look at your rig, and no joke about your wallet lol. Lots of great units in there though, I can see I want a lofi junky already! Take care yourself, and thank you again.

@farkas Thank you for a very thoughtful reply, and a nice looking, more focused rack, I think I learned a lot already! To the "taking it slow point," I'm not necessarily planning to buy everything in one go, but a few things are kind of early commits for me (e.g. I love FM synthesis and the Castle looks incredible) so I want to lean into them at the beginning and get some early bang for the buck as it were. Realistically, I think I'd probably buy about half of this upfront and go from there.

The only comment I have back on this build is that max has pretty incredible sequencing capabilities (not built in though, you have to build it all yourself) so I probably don't need the Varigate. That said, maybe it'd also be nice to just plug and play as it were and not worry about always needing a laptop for that piece of the puzzle. I'll reflect on that a bit and I'll dig in to the modules I'm less familiar with here as well.

Thank you again for your help!

Hello! I've been making music on and off for ~18 years, primarily with max/msp, but also with a few hardware synths, including a Korg MS-10, and I've decided recently to make the dive into Eurorack after wanting to for years. So, I've put together a first rack. It's a little intense and I'd love to get some feedback on the design and anything that might seem redundant or that might be missing. FWIW I've decided I'm on the Euro train, so while I understand the "go slow" advice, I will not be listening to it, warning in advance :p

I am primarily looking to make drone-y ambient-ish work (including microtonal if possible) and also dance, particularly acid/IDM, driven by my laptop running max, which I think I've prepped myself for with the rack in question. There are 3 synthesis techniques (pluck, akemie, Erica VCO => A-120) that I can leverage (ideally simultaneously with the ES-8), a ton of modulating capabilities with the LFOs and VCA matrix, some additional nice filtering with the Doepfer, and I've wanted a spring reverb for years so the A-199 rounds it out.

Having worked with max/msp for about 18 years now I mostly feel prepped with for a modular mindset, but there are a few points I'm unclear on, so questions:

1) I guess the biggest is, does the design broadly make sense? I feel like it does, but I'd love to hear from others.
2) I'm going to be honest, I'm not quite sure I 100% understand what the Pamela's New Workout does, but it seems critical for properly driving things from the ES-8. Am I understanding this properly? Are there better options that I'm missing?
3) Is a Stages and a Maths too much given that a Maths can also do envelope generation?
4) Is a stereo Mixer (the Erica V2) overkill in this setup? (this one is more subjective but I'm curious)
5) The HPO is added so I can listen in easily, but I think the ES-8 can route back into my laptop, so I'm wondering if maybe the HPO isn't really needed? (not that that's the real cost issue here, but still)
6) Just generally, any recommendations of modules that would fit here, things that are outright missing, or that might be superior to ones I've selected?

I know this is a pretty big rack for a starter and that I've got a lot to learn still, but I've worked with almost all these approaches in the past (just not in this format), and I'm really excited about the potential. Thank you for your help in finding the right answers here!

EDITED May 12th 2020, 05:14