Your "Ah-Hah" moment with modular

mwvm · Post by **mwvm** » Tue Oct 07, 2014 2:10 pm

Starting and ending every day patchless. Always remove all the patches regardless.

If I like the patch I take a photo.

MrNovember · Post by **MrNovember** » Tue Oct 07, 2014 2:11 pm

mwvm wrote:Starting and ending every day patchless. Always remove all the patches regardless.

If I like the patch I take a photo.

I like this idea

dmod · Post by **dmod** » Wed Oct 08, 2014 3:39 am

I have been an avid synth collector, specially vintage stuff my whole life. So I got into modular with that 'vintage' sound mentality and was always trying to make everything sound that way but my big aha moment was when i realized. why? I have other synths for 'that' sound and my modular is awesome and it really sounds frickin good too. So I should just let it be its own thing, its own sound. That really set me free to explore the depth of sound creation and not worry so much on if it had a certain sound. Now i even love digital VCOs just as much as some of my analogs!

matttech · Post by **matttech** » Wed Oct 08, 2014 5:00 am

probably when I realised that - no matter how much you spend or what you buy - there will ALWAYS be at least one thing that is irritating about any given module

.....but it is important NOT to get too focused on any shortcomings, as there are usually a number of things that will make the module a ton of fun....and once you start patching away and integrating it with the rest of your setup you soon forget about its flaw.

Modular isn't for everyone, and if you're one of those people who get obsessed with everything working perfectly (and I can be guilty of this at times your honour..) it may be a frustrating experience.

Many times it's the imperfections that make patches interesting

Oh, and another "aha" moment was when I realised that my system would NEVER be "complete" or perfectly laid out. Once I accepted that any setup was merely a transitional or temporary state, my OCD in that area subsided dramatically!

sduck · Post by **sduck** » Wed Oct 08, 2014 11:18 am

eole wrote:By the way, this thread isn't euro specific at all...

...and hence, moving it

m-m · Post by **m-m** » Wed Oct 08, 2014 11:30 am

Coming from software synths the big moment was when I left the MIDI->audio-mentality and realized it is all voltage. There is no difference between control and audio paths, when the voltage moves fast enough you can hear it, that's all. And anything can modulate anything.

:mygod:

After that I had minor aha-moments, like an oscillator is always "on", I was just used to them being connected to a VCA and a keyboard. There was lots of droning after that

And getting a sequencer (Brains+2xPP, later on a Rene too) and bypassing the keyboard altogether, using gates, logic and so on really makes much more sense to me.

czern · Post by **czern** » Wed Oct 08, 2014 11:43 am

when I ran audio rate into the all the inputs on the Hertz Donut and realized just how crazy your system can get when you cross modulate everything.

and first day using Maths for clocking and realizing standard bpm and MIDI would be left in the dust.

Liquidyzer · Post by **Liquidyzer** » Wed Oct 08, 2014 12:01 pm

double post...

Liquidyzer · Post by **Liquidyzer** » Wed Oct 08, 2014 12:01 pm

dmod wrote:I have been an avid synth collector, specially vintage stuff my whole life. So I got into modular with that 'vintage' sound mentality and was always trying to make everything sound that way but my big aha moment was when i realized. why? I have other synths for 'that' sound and my modular is awesome and it really sounds frickin good too. So I should just let it be its own thing, its own sound. That really set me free to explore the depth of sound creation and not worry so much on if it had a certain sound. Now i even love digital VCOs just as much as some of my analogs!

God this is so true. When you give up the vintage sound it also free's your view on things like:

Sequencing: no you dont always need a step sequencer or DAW, try random and logic, way more fun

Synthesis: VCO's> LFO> ENV> Filter> VCA... actually f*k that, any order goes experiment, why the f*k am i trying to make a Moogish Bassline anyway?

Only analog is superior sounding: Try again...

eole · Post by **eole** » Wed Oct 08, 2014 6:04 pm

Same here!

PhineasFreak · Post by **PhineasFreak** » Wed Oct 08, 2014 10:03 pm

Dr. Sketch-n-Etch wrote:Around mid 2010, I had an "ah-hah" moment. I suddenly realized that modular synths were more fun to design and build than they were to play.

this - i dont know what i enjoy more, having ideas fr new modules, discussing how to makee em work with he oher RYO guys, breadboarding, hearing a module work for the first time or just plying with the damn thing like everyone else!

dkcg · Post by **dkcg** » Wed Oct 08, 2014 10:58 pm

m-m wrote:Coming from software synths the big moment was when I left the MIDI->audio-mentality and realized it is all voltage. There is no difference between control and audio paths, when the voltage moves fast enough you can hear it, that's all. And anything can modulate anything.

I had a similar epiphany. Everything can be an audio source or a control signal.

But then I went Buchla and that's no longer the case.

TheBradster · Post by **TheBradster** » Thu Oct 09, 2014 2:47 am

+1 on VC switches: it took me a day to "get" my A-150, but then

Bit-modifying CV signals.
Realising that an oscilloscope & mulitmeter are more or less necessary.
Realising that if something doesn't exist I can make it myself (in theory anyway).

fuzzbass · Post by **fuzzbass** » Thu Oct 09, 2014 5:28 pm

When I realized that reading the Maths manual was folly; that approaching this module in a deliberate way was missing the point.

Gringo Starr · Post by **Gringo Starr** » Thu Oct 09, 2014 6:44 pm

StoneLaw wrote:
Also, sample+hold was a big aha.... I had never really understood them, but when I finally did I realized all of the awesome things they can do in a modular (using one to 'freeze' sequencer notes to make a fast sequence play sustained notes,

How do you make this happen? Sample and Hold to me is still a little misunderstood.

milkshake · Post by **milkshake** » Fri Oct 10, 2014 4:58 am

Gringo Starr wrote:
StoneLaw wrote:
Also, sample+hold was a big aha.... I had never really understood them, but when I finally did I realized all of the awesome things they can do in a modular (using one to 'freeze' sequencer notes to make a fast sequence play sustained notes,
How do you make this happen? Sample and Hold to me is still a little misunderstood.

For this you need a sequencer with a trigger/gate output.

Normally when a sequencer plays you get a change in cv every step it makes.
Patch: output the CV to the S&H input. And trigger the S&H from the gate.
The result is that you now only get CV changes when you trigger the S&H with a gate. This creates longer notes.

mwvm · Post by **mwvm** » Sat Oct 11, 2014 1:49 pm

i big moment for me is... no frets where my fingers will automatically wander and no keyboard - *see frets*....

this is liberating

quietguy · Post by **quietguy** » Sun Oct 19, 2014 11:07 am

mwvm wrote:Starting and ending every day patchless. Always remove all the patches regardless.

If I like the patch I take a photo.

I'm new to modular and find mwvm's approach helpful to the spirit of discovery. As a noob every day exploring is it's own small epiphany but I'm still looking forward to the really big one that changes the whole landscape.

Elguapo505 · Post by **Elguapo505** » Sun Oct 19, 2014 5:49 pm

When i realized i could create the sounds in my head through my modular. Sweet

doombient.music · Post by **doombient.music** » Mon Oct 20, 2014 6:03 am

I went "aha!" when I realized I do not necessarily need a modular to create the music I want to create.

Stephen

Dcramer · Post by **Dcramer** » Mon Oct 20, 2014 8:47 am

Getting back into modular after years of software reminded me of what I had been missing; wide modulation ranges like being able to push an Osc in and out of audio range and correlated modulations like having one voice's vibrato speed tracking another voice's wavefolder depth

Carl Hungus · Post by **Carl Hungus** » Mon Oct 20, 2014 9:07 am

When my modular taught me that you can get crazy sounds from only a few sound sources,

And that my creativity is paralysed by too much choice,

And that I hate menu diving,

And that I don't care for that glossy multi-fx ITB heavy reverb sound,

So now I can focus on just the tools that excite me

stike · Post by **stike** » Tue Oct 21, 2014 1:02 pm

Sometimes fewer patch cords are better

Voggg · Post by **Voggg** » Tue Oct 21, 2014 2:15 pm

stopped thinking about "what a module does" (its features, overall role in the system etc) and focus instead on "ins and outs".

333 · Post by **333** » Tue Oct 21, 2014 11:34 pm

Carl Hungus wrote: And that my creativity is paralysed by too much choice,

true for me as well

MOD WIGGLER

MOD WIGGLER

Your "Ah-Hah" moment with modular