Previously I had a little moan about Analogue Systems non standard Eurorack hole placement, however @abstractjuz – Justin Owen from Abstract Data (some lovely coloured synth bits there) has come up with a practical solution. He hand filed the holes using a 3mm circular file. I was a bit skeptical but after seeing the photo I think I’m converted and will be “file shopping” this week…
Check it out, note the difference between the top and bottom holes:
Redrilled Analogue Systems modules
Just got received some modules today and have been plugging them in. I have an Analogue Systems RS-15 case, It has an excellent power supply and has a fusing system that will blow at the sign of trouble, if you overload or plug your modules in the wrong way. It has 8 Doepfer type sockets and 14 of the Analogue Systems proprietary format power sockets. It is nice and solid aluminium and fits perfectly into your standard 19″ gear rack. It’s a great case.
However, and I am blown away by the stupidity of this, Analogue Systems modules are drilled differently to the Doepfer style modules. In the case at the moment I have modules from Expert Sleepers, Make Noise, Din Sync and Bubblesound. all of these modules are happy to live right next to each other without the slightest gap…see:
But not your Analogue Systems modules, oh no, they are drilled differently and require a different setup. So when you put the two modules next to each other you get this tiny little gap. Like so:
This shouldn’t be too much of a hassle should it? Well no, until you get to the end of your rack and get a module that should fit in the available space but overlaps. Guess by how much? Thats right, just by the amount of the gap. What a total pain in the ass.
So my options are now to have a dedicated Analogue systems rack and buy some more space for other modules. This makes sense in a gear-slut sort of way, but don’t you think if you were manufacturing modular gear that you would make yours fit well with other manufacturers? Anyway what are my options now? Well I could go and get out the drill, or just come here and have a bit of a moan. Would you re-drill the screw holes on your modules to make them fit?
Just a quick post to give a little rave about Maths from Make Noise. This module does it all (well nearly). It is the king of function generators, you can use it as a basic attack/release envelope source, a slew generator with separate controls for rise and fall, a dc offset, an inverter, a CV mixer, an LFO, a funky oscillator or just an all round best buddy. This module is sitting at the centre of the setup for a lot of people. If you love the modular go and buy yourself one of these. I have one…I’d like another. You can have a little read of the manual here.
Check out a very nice run through below (thanks to mega mouse from muff wiggler)
or being used as an oscillator
or creating liquid farty noises
or by some guy that has laser beams instead of LED’s in his modular system (or maybe just a crappy camera) -- some crazy sounds in this one.
or sequencing its little heart out in a Make Noise mash up
All in all, this module can form the heart of a modular system, its very tweak-able and lots of fun to play with, the linear to logarithmic to exponential slope makes for all round envelope joy. There is a lot of things in life we don’t need, this is one of the things you do. Tell your friends…
The Moog Voyager has a couple of jacks that are really useful for dirtying up the sound of the filters and can be abused quite easily. The mixer section on the Voyager has five inputs. Four of these, oscillators 1-3 and the noise are hard wired internally, however the fifth is the external audio in. By making a (very simple) custom cable you can take the output of the mixer and feed it back in to the mixer section, effectively giving you a feedback loop that can make the filter very very crunchy indeed, as you can massively overload the signal going into it.
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This is the first addition you should make to a Voyager; well before going out and buying an external control processor or interfacing it with modular gear. A simple trip to your local electronics store and a $10 spend on a custom cable can make the filter have that extra edge. Lets have a look at the cable.
The Crunchifier Feedback Cable
The cable has a stereo jack at one end and a mono at the other. Basically it is a mono to stereo lead. The wiring of it connects the tip and centre of the stereo jack with the tip of the mono, the earth or ground is just a straight connection between the two jacks. I have taken a few photos of the wiring.
The Mono Jack
I am using a three wire standard stereo cable, soldered to the tip is the blue and white cables, and the ring is soldered to the earth.
The Stereo Jack
The stereo jack image is a little hard to see, but the cable is just a standard stereo to mono deal, so soldering up the connections is trivial. The white cable is soldered to the tip, the blue to the first ring and the earth to the final ring (or ground). Lets have a look (and listen) to it in action…
A word of warning, I don’t know what the maximum overload you can apply to the filter section is. I run it pretty hot but am unaware if there is a protection circuit to protect the internals. However I have had mine for nearly two years and have been overdriving it and have never had any hassles.
Was talking to a friend today about his upcoming purchase of Maschine. He’s had a bit of a fiddle in his local music store and watched the Jeremy Ellis videos on youtube. I was telling him about a couple of drum machines I have and their “jamability”. I have an MC-303, a MC-202 Dr. Groove and a Korg Electribe Er-1 (Mk 1). Now these machines are all getting long in the tooth to be sure, and they don’t get used much as I use ableton live for beat creation stuff these days. However out of these three the Korg Er-1 is the hands down winner in terms of beat creation because every function is done in real time. It has the classic 808/909 step sequence programming interface which gives you the ability to jam. There are plenty of knobs to twiddle and it is an excellent tool for sculpting sound as well as programming beats. If I was going to a old school techno jam (no ableton) that would be my first choice.
It is totally crazy to think that there have been a heap of beat creation tools made that require you to hit the stop button. On many of them programming a beat goes something like this. Hit record once, choose the length of bars needed, choose your tempo, choose your drum kit/sample sounds. Maybe choose your record mode (step vs real time) Hit play, when you have finished hit stop. Then play the beat in non record mode so you are not doing any recording while tweaking the knobs etc. How totally unmusical is this? who designed these machines? My vote is that computer programmers designed the user interface based on their requirements. I program computers for a living and have seen first hand how the programmer often does serious damage to the user experience because implementing the really cool features can take a lot more effort.
If you have to hit stop, you can’t jam. If you can’t jam you can’t be totally spontaneous. If you can’t be spontaneous, you miss out on a whole lot of good ideas that flow from the music being created.
These days I’m looking covetously at the Tempest by Dave Smith and Roger Linn, it looks hot as and sounds dreamy and fat. But what I really want to know is, do you have to hit stop? Because if you have to hit stop, it’s just a machine, not a musical instrument.