# Why Modular??



## RSK (Oct 8, 2021)

OK, I've been experimenting with virtual modular before plunging into the hardware abyss, and frankly I don't get the point. If the idea is to get an awesome mono tone, why not just use a model D? Or an MS-20? Or any of several other great mono synths? This Eurorack, plug-something-into-something-else, spend a fortune to get a single note workflow just doesn't make sense to me. And yet, there are sane, talented people who have a whole wall full of this stuff (I'm looking at you, Hans Zimmer and Deadmau5). Why?


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## Jeremy Morgan (Oct 8, 2021)

I'm totally not down that rabbit hole and a minilogue XD and soft synths is more than enough for me but the appeal I believe is the infinite possibilities to modulate your sounds and do literally any conceivable thing with it many times over with hardware analog sound and with the tactile feel. There is a module for everything and you can route anything anywhere.


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## gsilbers (Oct 8, 2021)

Yep, some people like that. And you can get very interesting sounds. 
ambient modular has a ""feel" and Ive seen a lot of those live stream from deadmaus which are like 6 hours or so. 
but you can hear a lot of it in his famous albums. 

Moog and behringer went fort hat market in different ways. Moog develope those Dfam, mother 32 and subharmonicon to work together and try to get a similar vibe for euroack. Berhinger did the mono synths with cv i/o. 


Also, one big thing that for us its wierd, is that te idea is not to compose or squence music in a daw. I bought the elekton analog four mk2 and was very disapointed but later saw a lot of videos where the point of it was not to use it as a synth, like you would use in a daw, but to use it as a sequencer and make 4 mono lines and create "live" stuff. 
Basically making electronic music without a computer. 

And if you see ricahrd Devine's studio you can see how crazy it can get. I see his stuff in tweeter and amazed that in whatever short video he posts, i can see he owns more stuff there than i do in life (moneywise)lol. 
And yet, everything souds terrible (to me). Just blippi noises. 

There are plenty of eurorack synths. 




__





VCV Rack - The Eurorack Simulator for Windows/Mac/Linux


VCV Rack - Virtual Eurorack Studio. Free download




vcvrack.com


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## heisenberg (Oct 8, 2021)

Good relaxing music just before the main event...




and a bit more mellow...


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## RSK (Oct 8, 2021)

heisenberg said:


> Good relaxing music just before the main event...
> 
> 
> 
> ...



This seems a little like State Azure. I like his music, but he has Elektron Digitakt, Wavestate, Hydrasynth, ad nauseum in addition to his Eurorack so I'm never sure what is playing what.


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## Jeremy Morgan (Oct 8, 2021)

My true problem with euro rack is everytime I look at it all I see is Indian telephone pole.


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## heisenberg (Oct 8, 2021)

I found it! This is really something, if you are into modular and the history of synthesis...


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## jmauz (Oct 8, 2021)

Why Modular? Because gear. Duh. 

Joking (sort of) aside, mod synths are a treasure trove of creativity, uniqueness and overall sonic goodness and fun. Think of them not as just another synth but rather an entirely different instrument. 
Personally I use my mod synth as much for inspiration as anything. It gets the juices flowing.

if you're only interested in the result and not the process, then sure, there are easier ways to get drones, step sequences, beats, etc. But if you love the process of creating, if you love plugging in cables, pushing buttons and turning knobs, mod synths are where it's at.


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## rroc (Oct 9, 2021)

Why Modular? Believe me, I've asked myself this question more than most... It has something primal to build a sound from scratch. If feels good to plug cables into sockets, it feels good to turn lots of knobs. But on the other hand I have the problem that once I've got something good it's sooo painful to have to rip it apart again to start something new. Breaks my heart. Every single time.

So I've built a modular synth for virtual reality (and I'm still working on it in my spare time). It's an excellent way to learn the basics of modular synthesis without having to spent _a lot _of money (if you already have a VR headset, that is), it lets you spawn endless modules (well, as many as your PC can handle - and the bottleneck is actually graphics performance) and it can do a few things no physical synth can do...


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## José Herring (Oct 9, 2021)

Hardware modular has a unique sound all its own and I find generally tends to be somewhat higher quality. Guys like Hans lean towards Moog and Roland modular which have a sound all their own. But.....

A lot of Eurorack modules have actually gone digital which is making the distinction between software and hardware very very small. Soft modulars like Softube's Modular, Voltage and VCV rack as well as Reaktor Blocks sound very good. Softube is practically indistinguishable from my hardware modular by actual test. The only real difference is the Osc in Softube just sounds a bit too perfect compared to my Hardware Euroracks.

If you don't want to go down the modular rabbit hole then getting something like Moog Matriarch and Softtube modular will fill the modular void quite nicely.

On the other hand, I didn't really get synthesis until I started building a modular system and studying their manuals as well as vintage Moog and Roland modules. So there's that too. And, it does sound very unique and good still.

Another thing is learning to patch hardware really helps you with software synths.


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## mscp (Oct 9, 2021)

RSK said:


> OK, I've been experimenting with virtual modular before plunging into the hardware abyss, and frankly I don't get the point. If the idea is to get an awesome mono tone, why not just use a model D? Or an MS-20? Or any of several other great mono synths? This Eurorack, plug-something-into-something-else, spend a fortune to get a single note workflow just doesn't make sense to me. And yet, there are sane, talented people who have a whole wall full of this stuff (I'm looking at you, Hans Zimmer and Deadmau5). Why?


Eurorack can do poly too. It depends what you have and how you patch things up.
Also, Eurorack is about routing, and endless possibilities. If you build a system based on a single voice, the standand VCF, Env, VCA configuration, perhaps it is not you (unless you want to have a tactile experience).

Eurorack or any other modular system (SERGE, Mu, ...) is great. My tip is: be exposed to your virtual modular more before you dive into the real thing, because one of the most common pitfalls a user generally experiences is falling under the 'hype' of owning modular instead of going "I wish I could..".


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## tressie5 (May 14, 2022)

I suppose if I had the funds, and was finished supporting my local food banks, I'd invest in hardware modular although, when I do watch generative videos on YT, those gigantic systems remind me of Darren Aronofsky's film PI.


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## Pier (May 14, 2022)

Jeremy Morgan said:


> My true problem with euro rack is everytime I look at it all I see is Indian telephone pole.


Same.

That's actually the reason I couldn't gel with Bazille. Sounds amazing but there's so much effort into trying to decode a preset.


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## Pier (May 14, 2022)

tressie5 said:


> I suppose if I had the funds, and was finished supporting my local food banks, I'd invest in hardware modular although, when I do watch generative videos on YT, those gigantic systems remind me of Darren Aronofsky's film PI.


Amazing film.


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## charlieclouser (May 14, 2022)

Why? In two words - tone chasing. That's all I'm in it for.

Yes, that ignores a massive slice of the spectrum of what hardware modular is capable of (generative, Buchla Bongos™, bug farts), but those wormholes are not of use to me, although I do have a couple of generative / euclidean modules, just so I can have a self-randomizing pulse once in a while. 

I'm a huge proponent of software synths and processing, and not just for the obvious convenience features, but there's a few areas of zoomed-in tone chasing in which software still leaves me wanting. Some types of saturated sounds that I can get from things like Erica Fusion tube-based VCOs, Trogotronic tube VCAs, and a few old Doepfer filters are somehow in a different league than what I can get from software. It's not fuzz like a guitar pedal, it's not saturation like a tape simulator, it's a grinding growl that I can fine-tune to be exactly what I'm hearing in my head.

In another direction, I have nifty performance patch set up where I use the touch strips on the Intellijel Tetrapad+Tete to control wavetable oscillators like the Cloud Terrarium or Piston Honda, routed into Clouds or a derivative, and that produces evil drone-scapes that I can perform live to picture with a couple of fingers. That usually goes beyond what I'm hearing in my head and leads to new sounds and textures that actually inspire new directions for cues. 

And then there's the world of pulses. I use simple step sequencers like the Erica Black Sequencer to generate fairly basic "row of sixteenth notes" sequences but with additional layers of control for filter cutoff, drive amounts, etc. With a bunch of different filters to choose from and layer together, I can create and control pulses like drum-like thumpers, pitched basslines, tick-tack percussion, and higher-pitched plucks. Way quicker, mores solid, and more controllable than either using a Kontakt "cinematic pulses" instrument or browsing through thousands of loops.

I do have all the software modulars (VCV Rack, Softube, Cherry, etc.) and some of them (especially Softube) can sound quite good. But for me they are usually slower and more hassle to use than the hardware, which I did not expect to be the case. However they are a great way to experiment and see what types of hardware modules might interest you. Softube has some authorized clones of Buchla and Mutable modules, and it's almost worth the price for Clouds alone. In fact, I bought it mainly because I wanted a Clouds plugin, and although it's more hassle than a simple Clouds plugin would be, it's capable of a lot of the same stuff as the hardware and sounds quite good. And when it comes to Buchla, I'm glad I did not plunk down $25k for a big 200e system (although my finger has hovered over the "add to cart" button a few times) because all I really wanted from it was the Twisted Waveform Generator, which is in Softube modular. 

And it's quite possible to avoid having a wall-sized setup. I admit to being a little jealous when I see smaller setups that are more focused than mine, maybe a single Mantis case on the desk instead of my five-row behemoth. And as the years go by I am tending to eliminate modules that are rarely used or only good for one thing I don't do anymore, and hopefully one day I'll wind up with a single Mantis case that's eliminated the fluff. 

Look at what Allessandro Cortini and others do with relatively small systems like the MakeNoise Shared System. That's around $4,500, and other pre-built systems like the Erica Black, Techno, or Liquid Sky, or the Behringer System 55 (a Moog 55 clone) are around the same price or less. A Mantis case with a Clouds clone, a couple of interesting VCOs and filters, a step sequencer, and enough utility modules to get it all working, is around the same price as a Sequential Prophet-5 reissue, so it's not totally nuts - unless you lack self-control! 

Before I got the big behemoth case I had everything in Doepfer 6-space rack cases, and I had it divided up into three separate systems that could stay patched - the pulses+drums machine, the ribbon-controller drone machine, and the processing machine. I might move back in that direction instead of having it all in one giant unit.

While I do have a substantial system, it's been 15+ years in the building, with a couple big buy-ins and a few $1,500 late-night buying sprees over the years. And I have almost as many modules banished to the "to be sold" racks as I have in the working rack. I'm surprised there isn't an LA-area event that's a "modular garage sale and swap meet" where we could all bring our un-needed stuff to sell and swap. Leave home with 40 modules and come home with 10 new modules and a little cash.

While some sophisticated modules like the Cloud Terrarium are $500-ish, some of my favorite modules, like various flavors of Doepfer filters, were $80-$120 each. Hardware modular might not seem like the most cost-effective solution at first, but endlessly buying $300 Kontakt libraries or $99 WAV packs is basically the same thing as endlessly buying $300 oscillators and $99 filters.


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## Living Fossil (May 14, 2022)

Diving into modular synths is mostly a good thing if you want to end a relationship without all the hurtful vitriol that normally is part of separation.

It's straight forward without the need of cheeting, lying or being unfaithful in any other not-so-nice way.

You dive into modular modules and modulating modular modules and your wife dives into nuances of the feeling of being neglected and before you end up with having created a single "bleep" that – of course – sounds very special because there where 231 cables and 35 modules involved you get all the prepared paperwork that you just have to sign in order to get your divorce done.

Of course, it won't erase all the discomfort that comes with a divorce; like who gets what.
In some reported tragic cases there were some synthesists who had to leave half of their modular modules to their wives who then sold the whole package on Ebay. Tragic stories. "Bleep - boing - boing - bleep -boing" [original modular mourning sequence]


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## charlieclouser (May 14, 2022)

Living Fossil said:


> Of course, it won't erase all the discomfort that comes with a divorce; like who gets what.
> In some reported tragic cases there were some synthesists who had to leave half of their modular modules to their wives who then sold the whole package on Ebay. Tragic stories. "Bleep - boing - boing - bleep -boing" [original modular mourning sequence]


I have seen a couple of sales on Reverb of truly MASSIVE systems, not sure if they were the result of divorce, death, or just being sick of it all. One big sale had three massive cabinets filled to the brim with absolutely every single bad-ass or hard-to-get module, like Rossum stuff etc. The prices were maybe 2/3 of what it would cost new, so not exactly fire sale prices, but....

Here and there you find people just flinging their whole rig overboard to Davey Jones's Locker, but weirdly it's never fire sale prices. "No lowballers, I know what I have..."

I need to cast off about 600hp of modules and three or four Doepfer racks, but the agony of selling it off one module at a time kills my will to live, so I might just price 'em at $1k each and say, "No module swaps, no substitutions, you're getting a $600 rack and $2,000+ of modules for $1k, keep what you want and sell the rest." just to clear out the Rack Of Banishment™.

Lots of those modules were bought in the first age, in the early 2000's, and have been made obsolete by newer, more compact modules. Things like having an array of eight clock dividers that I could daisy-chain to create every division from whole-note down to 64th note, which can now be done with a single module with a digital core, etc. Still works, still useful, but I've replaced them with a smaller, more intelligent version. Others are things I just didn't care for or wound up not using much, but that's personal taste. Like the Schippmann filter, which people seem to go crazy for and buy used for $800 and up, but made me go "meh". Etc.


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## timprebble (May 14, 2022)

I think the core thing with modular is that every single user has a different motive and use for it. There is no 'standard' setup or use for modular, which is part of what makes it daunting for some people.

A very simplistic approach to it would be as OP described, an 'exploded' monosynth eg like an SH101 or EMS Synthi etc which has been broken apart into separate modules, allowing complete customization of every aspect of it. But that just one very basic example in an ocean of uses...

I first started into modular not for synthesis, but primarily as an outboard effects unit, with send/return from DAW. It gives me access to (zero latency very high quality) processing that simply is not possible in any other form. But since then I've expanded it to many other uses: custom drum machine, unique DSP processing, polyphonic sampler etc... with 8 channels of word clocked send/return from DAW.

And there is an absolute mountain of innovation occurring in the modular world. When I started there was only Doepfer, Plan B, Livewire and Cewjman. Now there would be hundreds of developers just for eurorack. And some/many are developing ideas I have not seen possible via other means eg just one example: the Stolper Beats module demo'd at SuperBooth is such a welcome addition to off grid drum sequencing!

Also to say: reading about modular is very different to using it. 
If you are actually interested I would recommend contacting a store (or a local person/advocate) and requesting some time to have a play/demo. As with plugins versus hardware synths, it is not just the sound that is different - it is also the experience. Different experiences leads to different outcomes.


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## vitocorleone123 (May 15, 2022)

Just read a rationale a short time ago from someone I respect over on Gearspace.



> But not until I can get the sound I want from modern gear. Even The River—my personal favorite of the next generation polys—is lacking power and grit in comparison to vintage Prophets and Oberheims.
> 
> With a choice selection of eurorack modules, however, I’ve been able to get close to that sound (you know, _that sound_).
> 
> ...



Modular is definitely not for me. I hate exposed wiring - makes me uncomfortable and uninspired. But I understand some of the motivation.


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## tressie5 (May 15, 2022)

It's interesting, trying to straddle two worlds, that of sound designer and musician. As a musician, I like firing up instruments and laying tracks down as quickly as possible. As a tinkerer, I don't mind looking under the hood of my synths. Somewhere along the way, though, restlessness wins the battle and I have to surrender to Apollo, the god of archery, dance and music.


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## Snoobydoobydoo (May 15, 2022)

Not for me too, too much needed for simple things, and uneconomical. But an endless self generating ambient patchery is fun, but thats all i would do with it.


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## ed buller (May 15, 2022)

I built my modular as a giant sequencer. I wanted to be able to play live and have lots' of options. It has eight voices . The sound is all vintage moog and I reached out to a guy in Berlin and got him to build me a bunch of modules that would connect all the moog stuff together. He is Moon Modular and those designs became modules that he sells. 

This is a little film I made for Hans as he wanted one too !



Best


e


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## Snoobydoobydoo (May 16, 2022)

ed buller said:


> This is a little film I made for Hans as he wanted one too !


Its like a temple made for worship pads.


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## dannthr (May 16, 2022)

Infinitely customizable voice architecture meets the visceral/physical feeling of designing sound with electricity while reaching, plugging/unplugging, turning/tuning/toggling, etc.

Like a minimoog 3osc+1noise, 1 filter, 2 envelope voice architecture is pretty great, but what if you could change that any time you want to be a different voice architecture? What if you wanted to add a high pass filter? What if you wanted something more like a CS80 voice architecture? Where you have two pulse or saw osc and noise passing through a HPF and an LPF with independent cutoffs and a sine wave added in afterward with separate envelopes for the filters vs the amp plus each voice has its own LFO for PWM separate from LFOs for pitch mod/vib/amp mod, etc.

What if, what if, what if?

Modular synthesis answers your what ifs.

If you're happy with a MiniMoog, then don't let anyone stop you from enjoying that, but if you ever asked "what if?" when it came to your synth design, then modular might be something you'd like to explore.


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## vallisoftware (May 17, 2022)

This guy is great at Hardware Modular
Look Mum No Computer

Check this one out.


I own *Softube Modular* and *Multiphonics CV-1* but would rather stick with the software side of Modular since it's easier to "Save As..." a preset in software, not with hardware.

Even *Logic Pro X* can be setup as a *Modular Software* as well.


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## ReleaseCandidate (May 17, 2022)

That's something like steps backward in time. First you use soft-synths, then digital hardware, then analog hardware, then modular und after that you end up with a real, non-amplified instrument


Btw. no-input mixers are way cooler:


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## vallisoftware (May 18, 2022)

vallisoftware said:


> Even *Logic Pro X* can be setup as a *Modular Software* as well.


Logic Pro X setup as a Modular Software


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## vallisoftware (May 18, 2022)

charlieclouser said:


> Why? In two words - tone chasing. That's all I'm in it for.
> 
> Yes, that ignores a massive slice of the spectrum of what hardware modular is capable of (generative, Buchla Bongos™, bug farts), but those wormholes are not of use to me, although I do have a couple of generative / euclidean modules, just so I can have a self-randomizing pulse once in a while.


Yes, randon sending doesn't make sense but I created 2 modules (scripts), to keep the music tonality (scale/key) and quantize, either to a known quantize patten (1/4,1/8, 1/16, 1/32t...) or a MIDI Region Pattern like a drum pattern in this video.


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## Marcus Millfield (May 19, 2022)

It's a bit hard to admit, but I find modular too complicated to really enjoy the experience. I'm having a hard enough time understanding and fully utilizing all options of my fixed routes/voiced synths as it is.


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## mat1 (May 23, 2022)

Marcus Millfield said:


> It's a bit hard to admit, but I find modular too complicated to really enjoy the experience. I'm having a hard enough time understanding and fully utilizing all options of my fixed routes/voiced synths as it is.


Get a percussion module and a Turing machine and you'll immediately be able to create useful rhythms.


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## mscp (May 23, 2022)

charlieclouser said:


> Why? In two words - tone chasing. That's all I'm in it for.
> 
> I'm a huge proponent of software synths and processing, and not just for the obvious convenience features, but there's a few areas of zoomed-in tone chasing in which software still leaves me wanting. Some types of saturated sounds that I can get from things like Erica Fusion tube-based VCOs, Trogotronic tube VCAs, and a few old Doepfer filters are somehow in a different league than what I can get from software. It's not fuzz like a guitar pedal, it's not saturation like a tape simulator, it's a grinding growl that I can fine-tune to be exactly what I'm hearing in my head.
> 
> In another direction, I have nifty performance patch set up where I use the touch strips on the Intellijel Tetrapad+Tete to control wavetable oscillators like the Cloud Terrarium or Piston Honda, routed into Clouds or a derivative, and that produces evil drone-scapes that I can perform live to picture with a couple of fingers. That usually goes beyond what I'm hearing in my head and leads to new sounds and textures that actually inspire new directions for cues.


This. ^^ No more, no less. I have around 600ish hp in modules and share the same feeling.


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## antret (May 24, 2022)

I agree with a lot of what was said here, both for and against.  I haven't dove into the hardware boxes, but have a few software ones. The latest one I just tried was a GREAT freebie call Cardinal. It somehow seems easier to use than some of the others I have tried (I have no idea why, but something about 'makes a bit more sense'). Oh... it runs as a vsti as well.

I too find myself straddling the line of musician and sound design/tinkerer.... usually I end up falling on the musician side and want to capture ideas quickly, so the modular things sit unused. I have been demoing Bitwig in earnest and I feel that with its internal modulation system you may be able to get the best of both worlds? You can load up your 'basic' soft synth and can scratch some of those 'what if I did this...?' itches by modulating pretty much any/every exposed parameter. There is Bitwig's own modular environment (THE GRID) as well, but haven't got that far yet.

The biggest thing that I do enjoy about the modular stuff is all the cool synthesis modules that are quite different to what I have. This freebie, Cardinal (which is based off the VCV Rack) has some absolutely wild modules for generating all sorts of craziness. Since I can run it as a VSTi, I find that I will only patch up a synth module or 2 with envelopes, filters and lfo's and use all my other vst FX in line after that. Kind of getting the best of both worlds without having to patch and re-patch if I feel like trying a different delay or something.

The one thing I need to take advantage of is the 'Save as...' feature to save simple set ups (filters, adsr's, mixers, lfo's) so I don't always have to start searching and patching from scratch. To me this becomes the 'joy killer'. Seems a pretty obvious thing, but do I ever do that..... no.


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## tressie5 (May 24, 2022)

I can imagine a lot of folks get into modular for the same reason others climb Mt. Everest - because it's there. Yes, I'm fascinated, awed and intrigued by the Frankensteinian aspect of it, but I'm getting closer to scaling that mountain. "Save" is my best friend.


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## pmountford (May 25, 2022)

I'm just about to dip my toe into modular having bought a humble 84hp rack case which I anticipate will be all I will fill. I'm doing so from both a learning perspective, to better understand synthesis, and for the intention of creating sounds and timbres that I would otherwise find difficult from my hw synths (mutable instruments clones such as plaits & clouds). Both of these issues I'm sure could have been satisfied by using vcv rack but in my case im just not interested in learning via mouse clicking...tactile is way more rewarding/instant.


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