all hardware setup

[oblioblioblio]

fukit
whats the point

Wow I won an argument on the internet!!!

The fact that it's even being discussed in terms of winning / or argument, makes me feel sad and have little respect for your view, dude.

There's nothing to win or lose hear. The fact is that modular is a goldmine, in every possible sense. Personally I feel like it's polite to point this out to fellow musicians. I am not trying to win or lose at anything. I get a little worked up and emotional about it, cos there is so much resistance from people who are quick to judge and say their view, but without actually giving proper thought to the pros and cons of modular. And, like many others, modular has changhed my life, and the thought of vsts and DAWs make me feel ill.

Sure, not everyone is interested in modular gear, for whatever reason they might have, but I find it hard when people jump to conclusions without any first hand experience.

Steevio is totally right, unless you have seen it first hand, then you don't have a proper backbone for your viewpoint.

I feel bored with defending modular as well. Everything that can be said, has been said as well as it's ever going to be said. First hand experience goes much further, and there are many opporunties for first hand experience, showrooms, meetups etc etc.

I was talking to some guys about it at the weekend, and I actually feel that modular scares people, becuase there is nowhere to hide... no surfing presets and automatic linear composition. If you don't have some passion and appetite for knowledge and exploration, then modular isn't gonna make music for you. But if you have these things, then, like said, modular is the holy grail and you will only ever continue to be surprised about what you can find.

[tone-def]

the thing i hate about software is the GBs of samples and presets that come with every product.

[dubgil2]

my signal path isnt 100% analogue, i record into a pro quality soundcard in stereo, no multitracking, which i consider to be the main point in the chain where things start to go wrong.

Hmm... while I'm not gonna be mr. modular, i've concluded I can't work with Ableton Live (though I find it to be fucking incredible). I prefer to work with machines, I'll probably be working with Elektron MD and MnM exclusive pretty soon. It's good to read that I wasn't crazy in thinking of just going into the box in stereo, no multitracking either... just use Live or Reaper or soemthing as a tape deck:)

[oblioblioblio]

fukit
whats the point

Wow I won an argument on the internet!!!




Only joking. I respect your gear choices and position on how you do stuff. Its just not for me.

sorry dude. i jumped to conclusions myself there in my last post. didn't see the joking part.

I still believe that people are quick to dismiss modular without looking at it properly.

But for myself I've run out of steam ranting about it. People can use whatever gear they like. I've said everything I can do about a method of production that doesn't get much exposure. If people wanna see it further then it's possible for them to do that.

[dubgil2]

A few of us on this discussion went back n forth about how you often hear nothing about bleeps and bloops on you tube clips, and then I found some worthy youtube clips. I found it interesting that when i looked up LIVEWIRE's website, you're imediately introducded to sound clips of nothing but space farts. If I was a newcomer, I would certainly be perplexed as to why modular is gaining popularity

http://www.livewire-synthesizers.com/

understand, i am just sharing this not taking a position, I too am one who plans to start off small with enough modules to fit within a Happy Ends thingie

when i first started surfing all the module sites, i was confronted with all the same sh!t you guys have seen and heard, but i just saw straight through it.

i dont want anyone to take this the wrong way, but if you're an experienced synthesist, you only have to look at the specifications of each module to know what it does, and then you simply decide if it will do what you want it to do in your set-up. the sound is not even an issue, i have over 50 modules and all the ones which make or shape sound, sound way better than anything else ive ever heard in software, and virtual analogues, and are on a par with or better than vintage analogue synths.

you simply cannot judge the power of a piece of kit by some video of some geek playing around with the knobs of an individual module or a couple wired together, no more than you can judge a software synth by some guy playing around with the resonance knob of one filter.

these are pieces of precision equipment that are parts of a jigsaw puzzle which you have to put together yourself. you are building your own synthesiser piece by piece, and no two people will ever come up with the same result. some people will make bleeps and bloops, and others will write complex classical music.

i really think that anyone who dismisses it without actually spending some quality time on a modular is very short sighted. if you really understand synthesis, a modular is the holy grail, the ultimate tool for individual expression.
in comparison i had a fairly good knowledge of synthesis before i started, but i realise now that i was only scratching the surface of an ocean deep phenomena.
.

you hit the nail on the head right there. My understanding of synthesis is becoming stronger and I accept it as a current weakness. I also understand that you modular guys can read the specs of a unit and imediately know what that will fill your needs with. I plan to be there someday. I'm not knocking modular at all, but like you said it took you a good deal of experience to see through it all. And so, new comers should be advised not to jump on some bandwagon because Deadmau5 is going now showing off a Doepfer system in Keyboard Mag or something.

My attraction to electronic music is synthesis. There will be a right time and place for modular in my world and I appreciate all the input/feedback/DEFENSE you provide us Steevio, but I can see it's taxing and we're not trying to win some game here...

[AK]

because Deadmau5 is going now showing off a Doepfer system in Keyboard Mag or something.

Well he owns a Voyager and that never got a bad rep. Then again, I have read people ask about the Voyager for the best Trance sounds...

I guess modular is the new Trance, or is called Electro House nowadays?

[oblioblioblio]

the thing i hate about software is the GBs of samples and presets that come with every product.

I was surfing thru VSTs, stuff which was all fascinating technology, but it very rarely lived up to it's expectation creatively. I could get some interesting results, but I could never motivate myself to fully explore it.

Camel Audio Alchemy, that was supposed to be the Dog's Bollocks, and conceptually it was fascinating, but after the initial awe subsided, I just couldn't click with it. I loaded in a few samples and frequency analysed them, and thought hey wow thats great. You can now make a voice... but then... to compose like that is so conscious and mind driven... You have to plan ahead every mode. Modular is much more intuitive, you can kind of drive the process, but you don't go 'ok I want this kind of sound', you just patch it and then get surprised and then just go with the flow. And before you know it there are cables everywhere and the machine is playing itself and the music is beautiful.

Reaktor and MaxMSP were my favourite things, but even with them I lost huge amounts of time to construction, and the cross between musical creativity and patching was non existant. It was either mindfuck headache stupid geeky drawing lines and trying to understand things. And then once you had a patch, it was always reasonably conventional synthesis, but more fine tuned and interesting than commercial vsts. I would spend lots of time down alleys working out how to distort digital filters, and building a granulizer. Kind of interesting, but for me using prebuilt modules that some weirdo has done all that work to make the machine perfect and set it in stone is just perfect(some guys even take 10 years to perfect a design)... It fills that niche in my soul of playing a 'real' instrument, and being so happy with it that I want to play it all my life, like some Jazz guy.

And then when using it ,patching is totally fluid. I have to sratch my head, and sometimes stop to think about things. But it's nothing like the uphill struggle of building a max patch.

I loved analogue machines, but everything out there had so much work to do, to be able to use it exactly how I'd want to use it. Had to convert Roland machines to take gate in, but then you can't use the sequencer which itself is interesting. Dave Smith, quite frankly is just software with a bit better sound.

Modular is my perfect happy creative middle ground. I'm gonna skip and dance around here for as long into the future as I can see.

[tone-def]

the way i plan on starting a modular is by making a simple mono synth synth and add to it module by module as money becomes avalible.