Came to this thread to learn more about Dreadbox, and I’m pretty sure that Hysteria will be in the next expansion, but I now know that the Unicorn Boom exists! Bwahahaha! That panel is awesome. I don’t care what it does. I guess I’ll never not be 12. ;-)
Ugh! It happened again - I crafted an long, detailed response about my studio set up and my real-world example, but when I hit submit it got lost in the ether...
Oh well, here's the shorter version - I have my entire synth studio being fed from a single outlet. No noise, no anomalies, no weirdness that might be power related that I can tell. I have a Furman M-8Dx plugged into the wall and four PST-8 power strips into that. Everything except the computer and its two monitors is either in a PST-8 or direct to the M-8Dx. That includes seven hardware synths, two 7U cases full, two Yamaha HS80Ms and matching subwoofer, Presonus StudioLive32 and a ton of other stuff like lighting and pedals etc. I keep the computer on its own power strip plugged into the wall so I can leave it on and have a single switch to power off all the other gear. I added up all the power requirements for EVERYTHING in my studio on that circuit and it's about 12 amps (remarkably low for all that gear).
I "believe" this is a safe setup but I am not 100% confident. I'd love to get a UPS but they are expensive at this scale - like $1,500 for a Furman. Is it really necessary?
I am not an expert here either and would love to hear from other folks.
Roger that. I did actually debate if it would be better to adjust the yellow channel scale or keep them all at the same scale. I just figured keeping them consistent would be easiest to relate. Cheers!
Hi folks - I just put a bunch of scope videos of Sloths on YT. I included detailed notes on the routing, the Sloths outputs used and some performance notes for each video. Each clip starts out dry but I do drench them with effects since that's how I would use these particular sounds. It certainly is an interesting module and I can't wait to do something musical with it (clearly these videos are just clinical...).
I hope someone finds these useful. Cheers.
Disclaimer: I've never done anything like this before and my video skills are non-existent, so I may have missed the mark on these, but I'd be happy to set up another test if someone wants to see something specific.
I just installed Sloths today and it’s immediately making Plaits do very cool things by modulating timbre, morph and harmonics. I’ve also got it hooked up to Data so I can see the waves. I was thinking about doing a video of the scope with some detailed descriptions- there’s not much out there to help understand exactly how it works.
The image looks like it has a 50% phase offset in addition to mirroring the wave. If it’s just a “mirror” you want wouldn’t a standard inverter do that? Maybe I’m missing something.
I would like EQ capabilities in my rack and might think about adding it when I eventually upgrade to bigger rack space. But as noted, without it I have turned to more careful sound design, filtering, arranging, enveloping, panning and effects use to avoid sonic clashes in the final mix (with varying degrees of success).
That Jumble Henge looks pretty compelling, and definitely sounds effective, but I guess I could only use it on things I want to sub-mix prior to hitting my main rack mixer.
I often use a Korg TM-40 for tuning my Mother32 and Subharmonicon since they’re not in my 7U cases. I just prop it up in front of a monitor. It’s not ideal but it does the job and it’s cheap. I put Data in my rack and use that for tuning everything else. I know you said you weren’t really considering it, but I can’t recommend it enough especially for the scope functionality. Very educational.
I believe it’s known as contagion. Which is a bit of a creepy term. “Value” is certainly a complex philosophical concept, but at least it’s also a decidedly personal one. No doubt many would empty their bank accounts for an item that Jesus farted on. ;-)
Great sounds in this. Am I wrong that you have a 4/4 and a 5/4 overlapping time signature thing going on here? I've been trying to tap out the different rhythms and would like to know more about how this patch is working.
Really enjoyed that @TumeniKnobs...very nice!
All the sounds play well with each other...are you running into a DAW at all with the laptop in the background? Care to share what you're doing sequence-wise with this?
-- jb61264
Thanks JB! The audio recording itself is through an iRig into the iPhone directly out of the WMD PM headphone jack. It's not horrible and I can avoid messing around with video/audio sync later when doing a touch of mastering. For this track the laptop is there to provide a midi clock to the Intellijel Midi 1U into PNW, and the KeyStep Pro (I have been struggling to get reliable syncing between PNW and KSP). When I am not doing video I do use that laptop to record audio with Studio One through a Presonus Audiobox USB96 interface.
There are four sequences/arpeggios in this track. Since it started as just an experiment with Bloom, I just tuned the first eight steps in Cm and adjusted its Branches and Path knobs until it was doing something I liked. I think it ended up with three branches with right path bias, playing in forward order. That's the first sequence that you hear. PNW is feeding an 11/16 euclidian rhythm to the Bloom Clock in to give it something more interesting than a straight pulse. That same clock is feeding input 2 of the Disting EX to drive the hi-hat type sound so they line up.
Rene 2 is providing the simple bass line. It's 16 steps that I broke out into four separate four note sections with the first two notes of each section being the same and the last two notes different for each section. Nothing crazy, but just varied enough to not be super repetitive. Originally I had a ton of modulation on the osc and filter, but dropped it all to just get a consistent low end foundation going with the very plain kick/hi-hat beat.
Marbles is providing the third sequence feeding Rings set to that guitar pluck sound that I love (cliche perhaps, but still a lovely sound). PNW is feeding a steady clock to Marbles and I am using the t3 gate and x3 cv to provide irregular timing. I tuned Marbles to Cm with the KSP so it stays within the scale but it still does its Marbley thing with note selection and rhythm.
There's a very subtle track with the Piston Honda that just a pulsing C panning around with some filter freq modulation and some delay being mixed in from an LFO to give it a double-time feel rhythmically. But it's not exactly a sequence since it's just one note.
And finally I am using the KSP in arpeggio mode to manually play constantly changing arps into Plaits. I just improvised on the keyboard within Cm. The arp octave control is set to +1. I used "Order" mode so I could control the direction of the arp up or down or jumping around based on what order I pressed the keys. I did manually change the clock division from 1/8 to 1/16 and back to break it up a bit.
Cheers and thanks for listening.
Hi TuminiKnobs,
Ha, ha, how did you know that I love the combination of French (preferable a good Bordeaux) red wine with strong French cheese? :-) But no, I didn't had that for a long time :-( Instead I enjoyed your lovely music ;-)
Kind regards, Garfield.
-- GarfieldModular
Ohhh! Who doesn't love that combination? I lived for over 40 years just outside of New York City and I could get any French wine or cheese you can imagine, even the Mont D'Or. It's not so easy here in Indiana...
So I’m still relatively new to this as a hobby and this might be a really stupid question, but after spending a lot of time scouring Reverb listings, I have to ask … who exactly is JunkieXL and why would I care that something was owned by him?
-- eexee
Haha! I asked that same question when I saw those listings. I didn't ask it when Rick Wakeman liquidated a load of warehoused items. I'm just glad I had the sense to let my brain make the decisions when browsing those listings. It would have been cool to have a Rick Wakeman Prophet 5 in the studio, but "cool" isn't enough justification for me to blow the extra bucks.
Thanks Garfield. Maybe you were having a bit too much wine and some really strong cheese when you were listening? ;-) You’re definitely right about one thing - those Hollywood folks certainly are nuts! Cheers and thanks for checking it out.
Not sure how I missed this thread, but these aqua drum tracks are fantastic! I’ve never seen that instrument before and you’re making it sound great. Thanks for sharing.
Wow! I love the seemingly off-kilter scales/notes/progression in this. It somehow sounds like it shouldn't work, but it really does. I went back and listened to a bunch of your more ambient tracks and again really loved Pandorum. You have a great Kenji Kawai - Ghost in the Shell soundtrack thing going on. Subbed. :-)
I love how this evolves and has great dynamics. That's something I am still struggling with. Great sounds and sound quality too. Nicely done!
I removed the Roland 531 and a MN Pan Mix to get the PM in the rack. I was going to sell them, but I think I am going to keep them for the utility that sub-mixers provide and the inevitable expansion. ;-) Yeah, I deliberated for a long time before I bought the PM and looked at a load of the alternatives. Ultimately I choose the PM as offering the most bang for the buck with a reputable manufacturer. It is not the ultimate mixer for all racks, but that module doesn't exist.
This started as an experiment with some new modules – Qu-bit Bloom, WMD Performance Mixer and Mutable Instruments Beads. It turned into something I liked so I figured I’d try another video (but I didn’t actually use Beads in this recording). I spent a ton of time balancing the voices, so I'm curious if the mix sounds decent.
I'm really liking the PM and the extra channels and bells/whistles vs the Roland 531. The aux outs and ins are awesome, so I no longer have to wash the whole mix in reverb just to get reverb on tracks that I think want it – no more swimmy bass lines. ;-)
Bloom sits nicely between Rene 2 and Marbles. I haven’t had time to deep dive with it yet, but it was easy to immediately get cool sequences going. It kinda feels more like an arpeggiator than a sequencer, but that’s great for this rack.
Full routing description is in the video comments.
I just installed one of these a couple of weeks ago to replace the Roland 531 mixer I started with. I just dialed in my first big patch with it and so far I am very happy with it. The comments you made are right in line with everything I read on the ModWiggler thread, so I knew what to expect. My system isn't huge (2x 7Ux104) so I am not hitting serious limitations with stereo channels yet.
I am patching stereo voices into channels 1/2 and 3/4 for example and panning left/right. I imagine that I can also group voices using the mono channel A&B inputs as long as I want to control them similarly. Totally agree that stereo aux would have been great, and I haven't tried using one of the stereo channels as the return yet, but this is a suggested workaround. But I really wanted to just use reverb on the aux and control the amount of effect per voice, and it does that perfectly. OK it'd be better if I could use the stereo reverb but I am satisfied with mono on the effect. CVing the panning controls on the channels gives enough stereo imaging for my taste.
No power gremlins so far with the maxed out Intellijel case it's in. Mute buttons would also be convenient, but I am OK so far using the A/B switch for the channel inputs or just slamming the faders.
If anyone is thinking about this I highly recommend you read the full thread on ModWiggler. It's long but super informative and reveals a ton of use cases with potential issues, workarounds and alternative mixer modules to consider. What I was really impressed with is the active forum participation of WMD and their approach to problem solving. WMD steps right in to resolve issues very quickly and the customer feedback about WMD support is also great.
I'm really glad I pulled the trigger.
Thank you all for the kind words. Much appreciated. Keyboard skills? Hmmmm... at least I managed not to hit a note out of the scale. ;-) Still a work in progress.
I know it's nothing new, but I'm still digging the concept of triggering Marbles' clock with the keyboard gate and letting Marbles choose the note to feed to an oscillator. As long as Marbles is trained to play in the same key as what you're playing on the keyboard, that random note added to the main keyboard line has been very cool to noodle with.
Cheers.
Ha! Many thanks for the kind, but clearly over exaggerated, comments. ;-) Modular has definitely sparked a lot of musical activity in me, and I’m grateful that that this place exists to learn from and share. Cheers.
Yes, I am right there with you. My synth adventure began in ernest about 18 months ago and I've hardly touched any of my guitars or basses or my drum set since. I sold off a bunch of stringed stuff (and a Ducati) to pay for synths, and I have absolutely no regrets about how synths and subsequently modular have affected my life, my musical tastes, my composition and my production. It's been the most awesome musical journey I have ever taken. You are so right that it can be all-consuming and I have to be conscious that it's a hobby and restrict play-time to after hours (or before-hours). But that's not always easy (it's 9:40 am and I should be working...).
Love your videos and the performance on the SH09 is excellent! Stay the course! Embrace the Crisis!
I let the album play in the background this morning and really liked what I heard. I'm listening more closely now and like it even more. You've got some fantastic atmospheres/textures going on and there are a ton of out-of-the-blue change-ups that are surprising and really interesting. Nice work!
Loving the groove on this. The drums sound great - are they all Squid Salmple?
Thank you all for the very kind comments. That one wasn't easy, so I really appreciate it.
Crappy weather has made me productive in the last couple of weeks... sorry for flooding the forum.
This one started as an experiment in the four dimensions of the Make Noise Rene 2 sequencer. The C axis is driving Rings which is what you first hear. The Y axis is driving a funky bass kinda thing through the Piston Honda. C axis is driving Plaits. The Z axis runs through variations of the sequences for all three oscillators. A big part of the performance includes enabling and disabling the sequencer gates in Rene as well as enabling/disabling glide on sequencer steps, so you get variation as it goes through the sequences. Mimeophon provides delay on the Rings sequence and is manually dialed in and out. The modular portion was recorded as a "live" performance and the rest of the parts were added after the fact.
I decided to pull a guitar off the wall for the little melody line, but the melody is later played on the Subsequent 37 and the Prophet Rev 2. I recorded many solos for this song on both guitar and synth, none of which were kept... I thought the modular track was already busy enough, so I took out the e-bow and did a guitar solo with that then ran it through a delay. Moog Taurus pedals provide the low bass line. Drums were pieced together with EZ drummer and are the only thing that was done with midi.
I have really liked watching folks show their rigs for their recording so I thought I'd give it a try. There's a lot going on in this patch, but there's no clocking so it's totally freeform from a timing perspective, and it's improvised after playing with the basic patch for a couple of weeks. Lesson learned on this was putting into practice Mylar's tips on practicing/rehearsing with your live rig so you can build muscle memory and not fumble around too much (although I still do quite a bit of fumbling here).
First bass sounds are sine and triangle outs from the Erica Synths Black VCO 2 through the Vult Freak and Chronoblob
The main lead is the sine of Osc A and the Final of Osc B of DPO through QPAS and Chronoblob (also running through Mordax Data for gratuitous Lissajous figures). I'm using aftertouch on the Keystep Pro to control FM on DPO for the vibrato effect.
A third voice is Rings which is fed notes from Marbles which I trained to E pentatonic minor. Marbles is triggered by the gate of the main lead as played on the keyboard, and biased for unpredictable trigger outs to Rings Strum input. Rings outs are going into Typhoon.
After I kill the initial low drone from the Black VCO I fade in a random sequence of drones. There are four voices that are faded in and out by four LFOs on Batumi running to the Quad VCA. The voices come from Disting EX, Piston Honda A and B and Plaits. Disting is running through Ripples, PH is running through dual filters on Bionic Lester and Plaits is running through Polaris. Those are all running through Mimeophon.
Everything runs through Big Sky Chorale effect direct to DAW.
Cheers.
Totally my thing. ;-) I checked out a bunch of your other tracks on SoundCloud - great stuff!
That was great..... I won't be alarmed ;-)
-- wishbonebrewery
Haha! Thanks for the comments gentlemen.
Very nice track! Subtle and melodically interesting. Enjoy the nice weather when you can! It's been cloudy and raining a lot here in Indianapolis (and MotoGP is on summer break - I'm a huge fan) so I have been spending a lot more time recently playing with instruments. But I'd like the hot sunny days to come back.
Lovely piece. Perfect to keep me from going crazy reading endless emails and listening to endless zoom meetings!
Wow! That is one crazy beepy bloopy machine. It does sound really good though. I could definitely see using this for accent sounds in ambient or soundscape type tracks. Thanks for posting that.
I recently picked up an Eventide Blackhole pedal and wanted to try it out with something ambient, so I hooked it up to the Mother 32 and the Subharmonicon and came up with the basic track for this recording. I then grabbed a few dialog clips from a hilarious scene in a ST: Voyager episode and ran them through the Granular engine in Pigments 3.0, then the Blackhole. I added some additional accents by manually triggering MI Marbles' clock-in with a keyboard gate-out and ran it into Rings, then Typhoon (Clouds). A bass drone was added using the Subsequent 37 and riding an expression pedal that was controlling the filter cutoff. That Blackhole reverb totally makes this track. :-)
Loving how natural sounding this is. Foreboding perimeter encampment in the middle of a steaming forest, with enemy troops and dangerous wildlife surrounding it, on some embattled planet (not this one). Truly bleepadelic. :-)
Is it just me or do I hear pops/clicks/clipping in the audio of the second video? I am very curious about this since a bought the iRig Duo Pro a couple of weeks ago, and no matter what I try I get random annoying little pops and clicks in the audio. Tried all kinds of level settings everywhere in the audio chain, and different video setting on the iPhone, and even tried recording in Airplane mode - but nothing worked. I will be sending it back. I tried recording audio and video separately last night using the iPhone for video and a Zoom recorder for the audio and syncing them together in Studio One 5. It was quite easy to do, so while it is a little more work, I think it's a better, cheaper way to go for me.
Mimeophon is one of the first modules I bought and I absolutely love it. It is very playable and musical, like all the Make Noise stuff I have. Most of the stuff I have posted on MG features the Mimeophon. I also have the Chronoblob and it too is amazing, but in a more standard delay type of way. Chronoblob into Mimeophon, both in ping pong mode, gets you quickly into really crazy delay space. :-)
That's a great listen! Just hit repeat. :-) I'd love to learn more about how it was done. Cheers.
Thanks! Yes, the Piston Honda "exciting" Rings produced some great (but sometimes ear piercing) feedback that sounded killer through my studio monitors. Mylar is awesome, and there are so many other folks producing great tutorial and review content. Soooo much to learn and explore. :-)
That's a great ambient atmosphere! Could have kept listening for a lot longer. Would love to see the patch notes on this.
I started listening a while ago and I'm in the middle of Lockdown. So far it's been awesome. Can't wait to hear the rest! Was Lockdown recorded in one take as a live recording or are there overdubs of different parts. Just curious. Cheers.
I listened a few times now. Nice, aptly named track. ;-) I might like it even more swimming in reverb, but I always overdo it, so maybe you're right. Can you give us some patch notes on this?
And welcome!
Listened to both of these the other day - two great tracks! Both have amazing atmosphere.
Thoroughly enjoyable! Love the squelchy filter stuff going on here. I was listening at work and had to look over so many times to see what was going on. Love the cat too. :-) Sadly I had to ban them from my basement after one of them peed on the power strip that was running my main mixing board, shorting it out and causing it to start making a very alarming crackling sound.
Nice! This is a really interesting track. I listened a bunch of times trying to wrap my head around exactly what's going on. Well done! Curious how many different sequences are used throughout the track and exactly how you transition. I also followed you on SoundCloud. :-)
I was watching Mylar's Suggested Systems 4 (link below) and he mentioned that Emilie has accused folks of being lazy with Rings and not "exciting" it, so I sat down to mess around with that (since Rings is relatively new in my rack). This patch developed over about 10 days and I just kept adding more modulation all over everything. Probably way too much, but it was a good learning experience and a lot of fun. I thought it was a good dark ambient follow-up to How Do You Make It Let Go.
Here's the live performance recording (take 11?) with a little EQ and compression added:
Here's the patch:
https://www.modulargrid.net/e/patches/view/78672
And here are some notes:
Master Clock from Pamela’s New Workout
A slow sequence from Rene’s X channel is driving OSC A on the Piston Honda
The sequence is in C Dorian
Piston Honda’s Y and Z wavetable banks are being slowly modulated by Ochd
That’s going into Bionic Lester’s Filter A.
BL’s Filter A Freq is being modulated by Ochd
That’s going to the In of Rings
Rene’s X channel gate is feeding Rings’ Strum input
Rings’ Brightness and Damping are being modulated by Ochd
Rings’ Position is being modulated by RND Step
Rings is going into Mimeophon and out
That same sequence is linked on the Piston Honda to OSC B
Those wavetables are also modulated by Ochd
That’s going into Bionic Lester Filter B, who’s Freq is modulated by a Quadrax LFO
BL is going to a delay
Rene Y channel is sending a slow sequence to Plaits
The clock for that sequence is set to 75% random skip chance on PNW
Plaits’ Timbre and morph are modulated by Ochd
Plaits is going into Ripples
Ripples Freq is modulated by RND Step
Ripples is going to Quad VCA with Quadrax for envelope and then to a delay
Disting EX providing kick and hit hat
PNW driving the triggers for Disting
Hi hat is a Euclidean pattern
Hi hat is going through Polaris
Polaris freq is modulated by a Quadrax LFO
Polaris Q is modulated by RND Step being triggered by a S&H LFO from PNW
Bass and hi hat are going to X-Pan
Hi Hat pan is modulated by a Quadrax LFO
Everything is going through a Big Sky and recorded in Studio One 5
Mylar's awesome tutorial on Generative Systems:
I second that request. That would make an awesome poster! If this rack is real it's got to be the best looking I've ever seen. So much eye candy. You'd hope the ear-candy factor would be just as high.
Hi! I am getting ready to pull out the credit card and fill in this rack. I have 104HP to fill up - it's half of an Intellijel 7U case. Here's what I currently have:
Here's a short list I've been considering:
Make Noise DPO - I'm pretty sold on this and love my other MN gear
Joranalogue Filter 8 - Looks powerful with a lot of character but I'm open to options - stereo options to the top of the list
Batumi - This just looks like a super useful module and I love the quadrature option
Marbles - This looks very interesting but with a learning curve, open to other random gate/CV generator suggestions
Clouds - Doesn't look like Beads is going to be available anytime soon, but something to do granular in the rack would be fun
Erica Black Joystick 2 - these look fun but I'm open to something else to manually add dynamics while recording live studio performances
PNW - I always seem to max out my existing PNW so was thinking another one would be very useful.
I know there are tons of other modules to consider, but this list is made of stuff I think I can actually buy, as opposed to hunt down over months. I've been having a ton of fun building light/dark ambient patches and multilayer sequence patches, but I always feel like I run out of modulation sources.
I "think" I am OK for envelopes/VCAs/attenuators/mixers to be able to use most if not all the sound sources simultaneously in this setup, but please let me know if you think otherwise.
Sequencing is covered by the Rene and a KeyStep Pro for sequencing and other external gear for more sequencing if needed.
Cheers!
I'd love to hear a sample of this. Is the DFAM required to get bird sounds? I have a M32 and SH and it'd be cool to add synth birds to my backyard bird recordings.
