i'm moving off into the whacky world of modular synthesis, and i need to spend alot of time getting to grips with it.
also i thought that as there arent many (any??) hardware modular guys on the forum, i'm going to be ranting on about stuff thats a bit irrelevant to most of you.
i'd like to leave you with the seed of a thread about where i'm headed for.
anyone who might be interested in modular might find the recent sound on sound article worth a read;
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/apr09/a ... ?print=yes
it explodes many of the myths of modular, and gives a hint of the exciting possibilities, however i only read it after doing alot of research myself, and found it a little safe, ( the guy who wrote it was a modular virgin although he was an experienced synth user, and i think he went for a very ordinary set-up.
there's never been a better time to go modular, its exploding at the moment, with new companies appearing almost monthly it seems, and i've always been puzzled why it isnt the first choice for minimal musicians, its the perfect platform for experimentation.
the main drawback and the reason why i havent delved into it till now is it can get expensive and addictive if you're not careful.
the first system i designed was completely unattainable financially, and i had to reluctantly remove modules from the planner one by one till it became sensible, and affordable.
if you have any synths already which have cv /gate capability, then you can get away with a very small Eurorack set-up costing well less than £1000, so its cheaper than buying say a good VA or something like a Prohet 08.
and the new MOTU Volta plugin makes it easy to integrate a hardware modular into your ITB set up
i'm making a patchbay so that all my analogue synth cv / gate / outputs come to one small surface for patching into the modular, and i'm going for a few of the esoteric buchla inspired modules to start with, to get some serious modulation happening, then when i can afford it, just add modules one by one, they range in price from £20 upward, with many of the doepfer modules costing around £35 - £120. more complex modules some of which are virtually minature synthesizers in themselves cost more.
the more interesting esoteric stuff is usually handbuilt and is up around the £120 - £200 mark, thats when it can get expensive.
musically i'm not finding alot of stuff that is in my bag on the modular forums, but i havent looked very hard, and that only inspires me me to do something different with it.
oblioblioblio gave me this link to a good modular forum which is technically excellent ; http://www.muffwiggler.com/forum/, i think maybe its aimed at the Noise scene, but i havent really surfed it properly yet.
ok, i will partake in this thread if anyone is interested in taking it anywhere, but other than that i'm going to have my hands in spagetti for the next few years, and wont be going on my usual 'analogue is the way' rants, which i'm sure you ITB guys are sick of hearing
peace
)