Firstly you must find an interest that has no end goal, the propulsion of this endless interest is what will drive you, if you look at what your saying, you seem like you want to start building and designing your own 'Brand' of modules to sell onto people..another boutique module maker...?? honestly there is never enough builders and makers, don't ever let that sway you, what the main challenge is though is to come up with something someone else hasn't already done ten times before you..TXBDan wrote:Hello all,
I'm new to the forum, but have been lurking for months. This post is as much for myself as it is for anyone else, so please bear with me. I'm using this to collect my thoughts and bounce them off you guys.
As background, I'm 35, an engineer and have lots of hobbies and interests. I've been into music off and on since being a kid playing guitar in garage bands including the obligatory Teen Spirit in the 8th grade talent show. In college, I played guitar in a band, got into recording and started a little apartment studio. I got into building tube guitar amps and sold a few as a little business. I did sound for the university theater and a couple venues as well.
If I'm perfectly honest with myself, I always enjoyed the technical side of music more than the creative side. I'd rather build a gadget or record and produce a band than play a live gig. Well, actually, playing a gig is fun, but trying to come up with songs and music is work to me. I've had moments of inspiration where I'd crank something out, but honestly that's not what compels me.
So I'm starting to realize that what I enjoy is really the learning and exploration of things. Its the journey. As soon as I figure it out, I'm sort of done with it. However, in some ways, having something too big with too many options paralyzes me. When recording and producing, I could kill an entire day digging through reverb plugins trying to decide on the right one. I've made more music on my phone than I ever have using Logic or Ableton. I don't think I do well with that degree of flexibility.
Getting back to modular synths. I've been tinkered with the idea of building synth modules (interesting I typed build instead of play) for about ten years, but for the past few months I've been obsessed with it. I only recently learned about euro modular and the blowing up of DIY modules, etc. I'm also really excited about the idea of modular in general, endless creating patching of various functions. It's all very technical and logical yet creative.
Getting to the end goal. Before I shell out bucks (I have only a Mother 32 now), I'm trying to understand what my goal is, what I want from this, what I will do with this. I think my goal would not be to compose or perform or to pressure myself into having to create "songs". I think my goal would be to learn and build and tinker and explore. I think I would limit myself to hardware only and not even (re)open the pandoras box of computers and software. That sounds fun, right?
What are your end goals? Anyone "exploring" and not explicitly creating content?
2 modules I can think of that would fit the bill of not being done properly before is one..,. a 16 bit sampler with 4 separate outs and knobs for editing start and end points of sampled audio...cv/gate/triggering..pitch and envelope control etc
another is a module that has mixer chan and EQ built in...people could buy them one at a time and interlock them together to build up rows of mixer chans with EQ..
get going laddy what are you waiting for..
and patching. I do record and perform with the modular but I've yet to put out a concise collection of "songs" with it. I use an Octatrack to record and arrange sounds I create when I'm being more productive but all in all I really just enjoy losing myself in the practice of patching and forgetting the bs of daily life. 
