How do You Control your Modular?

[coldbrightsunlight]

people who don’t find harsh noise soothing

mid 17th century: originally as plural plebs, from Latin plebs ‘the common people’. Later a shortened form of plebeian.

For controllers I just use my hands like Steve Jobs intended it when he created electronic music by crafting the world's first Macbook.

[01010111]

there are a LOT of options. there is no wrong answer. some of them suck, those are wrong answers. assuming no one wants to use the modular like I use the modular, I will show you sequencers.

http://www.five12.net/

https://squarp.net/pyramid

https://omsonic.co.uk/product/stochasti ... sequencer/

https://frap.tools/products/usta/

https://reverb.com/item/10521008-detach ... e-keyboard

That five12’s really interesting. Given its feature set, it seems like it could be a nice way to turn your eurorack into a control center for your entire setup. But where I’ve sort of lost interest in having a setup where I sequence every piece of equipment centrally and control it from a single hub. The Five12 can do it everything I want, but for that price I’d rather own a Mother 32 and supplement it a little to get the instrument I want. With the Five12 I’d still have to build out my system, and just doing that raises the cost of the entire system substantially. I’d imagine a system with the Five12 could easily jump the $2k mark (or maybe even twice that).

I can afford to buy a car, but that doesn’t mean I want to build a eurorack that‘s as expensive as a car.

Yeah totally understand, different strokes and all that. Personally I like both approaches. I don't think generative/morphing/drone patches are removing yourself from the music making so much as taking a different role in the composition - you're still setting the parameters and the tonality and choosing bits that sound good to record/loop. They're just different methods to the more traditional approach of writing every note, opening the process up to serendipity and chance. I enjoy setting things going then listening to them.

I have a lot of fun using my (not racked up) M32 along with my eurorack. If you like those specific sequencer features it has then it's probably not a bad choice. Then as you use it if you find limitations you don't like you can look into other stuff. I think there is probably purely euro gear that does what you want in a sequencer? And would be smaller too, though yes the price for good sequency things is typically quite high. And I can't remember the good examples off the top of my head. And the M32 is a nice sounding voice, though kinda huge as a module. The patching capability is actually quite good for what it is but yeah not as much as most synth voices built out of separate modules.

I suppose that’s a good way of thinking about that. I can’t really imagine myself enjoying that process more than creating pretty, ambient tracks using what I’ve got now. Conceptually I’d be doing something similar, but the amount of cognitive effort involved in doing it via eurorack verses me doing it with a guitar, a looper, and a handful of pedals seems kind of stark.

I think this discussion has me excited about the mother 32 again. My plan right now is to pair it with another 60hp of eurorack (build a little two tier moog rack). It fits in with what I want and like about gear: hands on, easy to use, and sounds good. One of my gear rules is that it should be simple enough to be understood by me when I’m drunk. The Mother 32 fits this, the Metropolis does not.

[coldbrightsunlight]

Nice! That's also an A+ rule. For all my talk my euro setup is small and simple haha. So I definitely agree with that.

[01010111]

That’s what I’m aiming for: something simple that I can use to explore my weirder modular ideas.

At one point the generative synthesis thing was really appealing, and I started designing weird setups on modulargrid with lots of logic gates. I eventually realized I was designing an extremely basic computer, and trying to change or debug a system like that would be a nightmare. That’s not exactly what I want from a musical instrument.

[eatyourguitar]

metropolis is pretty drunk friendly. so is the koma commander. one knob per function. there is also the division 6 sequencer.

[greyscales]

I will say one thing I read about frequently (and at times experienced) is how unintuitive the Mother 32 sequencer can be. It's a lot less drunk friendly than you'd think. Switching back and forth between step edit mode and keyboard mode and then there are a few multi-button presses to remember to change settings. It can do quite a few things but there isn't necessarily quick navigation to those. You'll end up checking the manual for some features. I made a few happy accidents happen but overall made a lot of things that sounded very same-y. Granted, this was before the firmware update.

Also check out the Stepper Acid. It has a lot of the same abilities as the M32 (1 octave keyboard, octave buttons, accent, pattern chaining) but in a more immediate interface. You lose the Moog voice but you'll gain a lot of drunk-proof functionality.

[coldbrightsunlight]

Ooo didn't know about the stepper acid. Goes down to 16 steps but does look more intuitive.

I do find myself looking at the manual for the M32 sequencer a lot but that's mostly because I use the sequencer a lot less than I use the synth itself, so I always learn how to use it then forget. I think if you learn it and use it a lot it's probably fairly easy to navigate

[01010111]

That stepper acid looks exactly like what I need. The 16 step restriction’s annoying, but the functionality outside of that’s spot on. The thing I know I’m going to hate about the Mother 32 is changing that assignable output. I’ll have to read about both of them and see which I want more given their features...