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Joined: May 23 2013
Location: UK
Status: Offline
Points: 2826
Posted: November 12 2015 at 09:17
eBay is your friend, Meltdowner. Although I'd be tempted to buy new, as you'll get the warranty and the prices are only about 10% more than typical eBay ones.....
Some of the new MS20's have wobbly potentiometers. I'm lucky, I just got one on mine. Easily sorted with a spanner, so long as you know what you're doing and don't stress the PCB underneath.
The SQ1 is refreshingly cheap. Actually, you can get rid of a sequencer entirely if you hand write the MIDI.
Does anyone hear remember the Digisound Modular 80 synthesiser kits from the early 80s. I built one of these back in about 1982. It was a set of modules - you bought the PCB and the component for each module. The modules were all connected using patch cords. I don't know why it was called "Digisound" because it was definitely analogue - marketing probably, everything was "digital" back then to make it sound modern.
Mine had two VCOs, a VCF, VCA, an LFO, and. 49 key keyboard. My dad made a huge wooden case to mount them all in, which I was told looked like a coffin by a friend's mum. I was an electronics student at university, so I took it all into the university lab to set it all up and calibrate the oscillators.
I still have it in the garage, haven't opened the case in 20 years. Probably all rusted up now, my garage is damp. It'll take a while to get at it with the amount of stuff it's under, but I must take a photo of it for this thread.
Joined: May 23 2013
Location: UK
Status: Offline
Points: 2826
Posted: December 04 2015 at 07:35
Lovely. Looking forwards to seeing it, Timbo, if you ever find it ! ;-)
The synth is coming along. I've just got distracted (you do) (I do anyway) by finding another Doepfer Dark Time sequencer - cheap. Mine's got wooden sides, similar to ........ well, the one below. You can bolt several Dark Time or Dark Energy synths together, so they use common sides, so ! This is what I'm up to. A common sequencer unit which can be used to drive a couple of synths.
Joined: May 23 2013
Location: UK
Status: Offline
Points: 2826
Posted: December 04 2015 at 07:38
Talking of which.
There's going to be a separate bass synth in the mix, here. In this case, I'm using a Moog Minitaur (coming in about January) - this has got the same wooden sides as the Dark Times I'll already have (expecting the second Dark Time tonight). I could have bought a Dark Energy but it's too similar in sound to the Arturia Minibrute I already use.
Joined: May 23 2013
Location: UK
Status: Offline
Points: 2826
Posted: December 04 2015 at 07:42
- the Minibrute is, er, also getting wood sides - on order from the US. Seems to be some kind of perversion for me.
All of these, including the modular, go through a Mackie ProFX12 mixer. Should turn goat pee into gasoline when it's finished. ;-)
Chance of a live gig ? Zero. Chance of anyone actually buying the music ? Experience suggests zero, too. ;-) Never mind. I'll get some trippy oil wheel projectors from Optikinetics and turn the garage into a psychedelic freak out palace, man. ;-)
May get another Korg, too. You can never have too much of a good thing.
Joined: May 23 2013
Location: UK
Status: Offline
Points: 2826
Posted: December 04 2015 at 07:47
PS I'll also be putting together a website documenting "how to build a modular synth from two cardboard boxes full of bits" for anyone who's insanely and unwisely interested in joining Club Frustration / Money Burning. ;-)
Joined: August 18 2013
Location: Germany
Status: Offline
Points: 373
Posted: December 04 2015 at 08:49
A modular synth doesn't need keys. It needs a ribbon controller. Why? Because the keyboard is, if you think about it, a very inappropriate user interface for a monophonic analog synth. A keyboard makes sense for instruments which produce only a finite set of pitches, and can play several notes at once. This is true for the piano, the pipe organ, the Hammond, the Mellotron. But not for the analog synth! It is monophonic but offers continuous pitch, so a keyboard is simply the wrong way of playing it. If I was to acquire a modular synth, I'd like it to have a ribbon controller instead of a keyboard.
... brought to you by the Weeping Elf
"What does Elvish rock music sound like?" - "Yes."
But at the time I made mine, I had over 10 years of experience of playing keyboards (primarily through organ lessons). Therefore for me, the keyboard was the most natural interface to choose. 30+ years later, that is still true, and the keyboard is still the best interface for me.
In fact I would argue, the best interface is the one that you can use most effectively to make music. If that is a ribbon interface, then great. If it's a keyboard, then use that. Most western music is made up of discrete tones anyway, so a ribbon interface might be fine for avant garde music, but for music conforming to traditional scales and tones, it is not.
Even most instruments with continuous pitch, such as the guitar, have been adapted to play discrete tones (e.g. by adding frets) to fit into that paradigm. I am a very weak guitar player, so the most effective interface for me is the keyboard regardless of the means of sound production (doesn't stop me trying to play guitar though).
The best interface is the one the player is able to use to make the best music (whatever your definition of "best" is).
Joined: May 23 2013
Location: UK
Status: Offline
Points: 2826
Posted: December 04 2015 at 09:35
Horses for courses, folks.
Incidentally, ribbon controllers ARE available for modulars. Nothing is really correct. You can get a Ondes Martinot style controller from Analogue Solutions (for a small fortune) - MIDI keyboard for me.
If you want weird effects, an analogue will serve your needs as you can always produce them some way. But there are no rights and wrongs, merely output. :-)
Joined: May 23 2013
Location: UK
Status: Offline
Points: 2826
Posted: December 04 2015 at 11:04
About £800 / $1200, I think. You can't quite see it but there's a little ring controller under the keyboard, a la Ondes Martinot.
Doepfer and Synthesizers.com do a range of equally expensive CV keyboards. Or. You can get a bog standard MIDI keyboard and use a MIDI to CV interface for a hell of a lot less money.
Joined: August 18 2013
Location: Germany
Status: Offline
Points: 373
Posted: December 05 2015 at 15:06
timbo wrote:
That may be true, Weeping Elf.
But at the time I made mine, I had over 10 years of experience of playing keyboards (primarily through organ lessons). Therefore for me, the keyboard was the most natural interface to choose. 30+ years later, that is still true, and the keyboard is still the best interface for me.
I am a keyboards player myself, and I would thus have a much easier time playing a modular synth with a keyboard than with a ribbon controller. Yet, I feel that adding a keyboard to a modular synth adds a limitation to the instrument, like adding frets to a violin but worse. But as you say, that is a limitation that pervades most western music, and when you are going to play together with guitars, for instance, the pitches the keyboards limit you to are those you will want to use anyway.
And of course, this is not really an "either/or" choice. You can equip your modular synth with both, and use whatever seems more convenient to you at the moment.
In fact I would argue, the best interface is the one that you can use most effectively to make music. If that is a ribbon interface, then great. If it's a keyboard, then use that. Most western music is made up of discrete tones anyway, so a ribbon interface might be fine for avant garde music, but for music conforming to traditional scales and tones, it is not.
True. Most music these days (including most prog rock) is in 12-tet, and for that a keyboard is indeed appropriate.
Even most instruments with continuous pitch, such as the guitar, have been adapted to play discrete tones (e.g. by adding frets) to fit into that paradigm. I am a very weak guitar player, so the most effective interface for me is the keyboard regardless of the means of sound production (doesn't stop me trying to play guitar though).
The best interface is the one the player is able to use to make the best music (whatever your definition of "best" is).
Sure.
EDIT: There is of course yet another way of playing a modular synth: route in an audio signal from an external source, such as a guitar. There is certainly a lot a modular synth can do to the sound of an electric guitar!
Edited by WeepingElf - December 07 2015 at 13:57
... brought to you by the Weeping Elf
"What does Elvish rock music sound like?" - "Yes."
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timbo wrote: