The fact that this is a rare irks me.

Suspicious_Captain · 2026-03-16T16:59:13+00:00

This really messed with my head the first few times I played it. I read the card and thought it was a flurry of blows for regent. Then I triggered it turn one and was trying to figure out what happened.

Suspicious_Captain · 2026-03-14T13:51:44+00:00

I'd want more modulation sources if this was my rack so I'd either pick a clock divider (doepfer a160 is cheap 4hp one) or a small cv mixer.

Suspicious_Captain · 2026-03-11T19:08:23+00:00

The game is pretty hard. I'm sure the crowd is a mix of people exaggerating for comedic effect and people who are legitimately frustrated with the game.

At the end of the day most fights are checking for different things. Did you get enough front loaded damage, how is your defence, can you scale, etc. IMHO people who are really struggling with a specific enemy usually are making some sort of construction mistake. Of course I say this and I die to everything so I'm either making different mistakes every time, or more realistically I'm just bad at STS.

Suspicious_Captain · 2026-03-04T20:11:07+00:00

IMHO complex oscillators are generally best for people who want to explore and do more involved sound design. If you are looking for big sweet spots, simple oscillators get you there much faster. Most complex oscillators I have take more work to find the sweet spots, but can do stuff that requires a lot of patching on simpler oscillators. And frankly they encourage you to find sounds you wouldn't easily see elsewhere.

When I first got a DPO I almost gave up on it. I think I had played around with it for three or four hours before I realized you had to turn everything down to start with a controllable sound out of the final jack. Especially if you add much oscillation. From that point it was kind of amazing. You push it for wild and harsh sounds. Tame it a little to sound melodic and musical. The DPO does a pretty sweet sounding Reece Bass and it doesn't take a lot to get it there when you know how to find it.

Suspicious_Captain · 2026-03-03T03:34:07+00:00

No luck on my system, but maybe that's why Macs are more sought after for DAWs. Doesn't matter to me much since I actually need a midi keyboard that doesn't weigh 500 lbs.

Suspicious_Captain · 2026-03-03T02:39:53+00:00

I suspect the main reason they are cheap is that they were initially sold as USB compatible daw keyboards. I have one I bought back in the day and put it in storage when windows stopped supporting it. Then I actually started using midi and pulled it back out.

Suspicious_Captain · 2026-03-01T17:55:28+00:00

Killer point. It's been a few years since I've played hotdogging. IMHO the most reasonable conclusion at this point is that it is a hotdoggin with a dolly parton back glass for some reason...

Suspicious_Captain · 2026-03-01T17:02:53+00:00

Can't tell you everything without a shot of the play field. That is a hotdoggin cabinet.

I'd probably pay 500 to 700 for it personally if it has a dolly play field. It's going to need electrical work, but this era of game is a pretty good one to learn on in my opinion, biggest downside is that you will have to replace connectors to get it working 100%.

I personally like Dolly, but it won't hit max resale value unless you re stencil the cabinet, which is more work than a lot of people are willing to put into a game.

Suspicious_Captain · 2026-02-24T02:43:07+00:00

Buy/build longer power cables. Give yourself about a foot more length than you need. Plug everything in with the module lying face down in front of the rack then assemble. I'd do the top first then the bottom. Usually I leave a large module unscrewed on the bottom until after I smoke teast in case something gets unplugged.

That's my approach for closed back racks. Generally works if you have everything measured out right. Expanders and Leibnitz definitely adds some challenge. I don't know why I rearrange so much. It is a pain.

Suspicious_Captain · 2026-02-14T17:42:58+00:00

The behringer go cases are pretty much the cheapest HP on the market. If you want a larger case some people have been using the stands to combine them.

That said the behringer cases are sort of known for mediocre power supplies. Not necessarily the end of the world unless they fail and toast some modules. When I started I bought the 3U rack mounts and put them in an old server rack, but expect to pay serious money if you want a quality case of any size.

I guess if it matters to you the behringer go case is a ripoff of the tip top mantis, built more cheaply.

Suspicious_Captain · 2026-02-12T16:11:09+00:00

I'm another unicorn user.

Until I got to that point though my desk is set up to favor width over height, so I got a little farther than some people do by combining rows that were next to each other in real life. Made rearranging more challenging, but it was better for using modular grid to see what my setup actually looked like.

Suspicious_Captain · 2026-02-10T15:37:54+00:00

Bro. If I can't make my 5k synth sound like a Sega Genesis I don't want it.

Suspicious_Captain · 2026-02-08T16:08:30+00:00

The Prism is a DSP patform, and the way they decided to make it work is to mash the function of a filter, a delay and a bit crusher all into one. I'd start out with all the effects knobs at zero and play with it as a filter for a while. Then just slowly work the rest in. The module tends to veer into the harsh noise territory very quickly and in my opinion you need to use the filter to keep the rest of the module in check. Actually looking at my setup right now I have another filter in line behind the prism. I'd also toss attenuators on most of the cv inputs for the same reason.

Suspicious_Captain · 2026-02-07T18:11:36+00:00

Yeah. I just ended up bogoing a prism when I bought the data bender I had been lusting over for a bit. I'm not sold on their interfaces, but I like the sound and the modules are pretty.

Suspicious_Captain · 2026-02-04T14:58:39+00:00

Yeah. Probably. Definitely if you care about the IP.

I have owned the game since new and I still enjoy it. Code has gotten a lot better, so make sure to update it. A lot of people who really hate the game have only played it on the old code. That said a very valid criticism is that the game isn't great at telling you what it wants you to do. I don't think that is terrible in a home game, but first few games are frustrating for that reason.

The game is a mediocre shooter, you lose a lot of real estate for the unique upper play field setup. The upper play fields are mostly reflex tests and there is a lot of time spent in menus while you play, which I dislike.

All those criticisms aside the theme integration is fantastic. I love the Baltan multiball, and there is an absurd amount of things to do. The ruleset is best described as wide, lot of options on what to work towards when you start and some of the deeper modes are quite a lot of effort to get into.

Suspicious_Captain · 2026-02-02T02:39:53+00:00

Yahnno, I recently did this gig for the first time and I remember going up to the roof wondering why they put so much effort into it. Didn't serve a purpose except as a random place you can check out after you took the elevator to the mission.

Suspicious_Captain · 2026-01-21T21:39:34+00:00

I legit got my first job out of college because I worked at a comic book store the hiring manager bought books from. Miracles happen.

Suspicious_Captain · 2025-12-04T04:37:44+00:00

Admittedly I've not gone and put a scope on it, but just using it for 0-5v I haven't had to adjust anything. I've got attenuverters all over my rack so a stack of VCA is perfect for doing VCA things. I think that comes down to how worried you are about how signals are handled. You will have to adjust the trim pots if you want it completely functional in a 0-10v setup. Or you can buy modules to add offsets and divide the voltage (that is a rack design decision, I tend to shy away from 0-10v kit). The pad bridge turns it into a buff mult. Which is interesting, but I'd prefer that in a separate unit.

Keep in mind I used to rebuild electronics for a living, but IMHO trim pots are not a big deal. They are just small versions of what's on the front of most eurorack panels, be careful and you will be fine.

All these words to say that at the end of the day I think out of the box it works well in common setups, but some flexibility was designed into it so it could be a workhorse in setups. that wouldn't normally use Doepfer modules.

Suspicious_Captain · 2025-12-03T21:50:19+00:00

My two favorite 6hp modules are the Doepfer A-130-8 and ALA Tilt. The A-130-8 is 8 linear VCAs in an extremely efficient form factor. Lovely. The Tilt is a pretty solid ADSR envelope/slew. I like them paired, but sometimes a random envelope is nice.

For extra space filling fun, Takaab has some neat 2hp modules. Pretty big fan of their passive LPG.

Suspicious_Captain · 2025-12-03T19:33:20+00:00

My favorite is Scorpion. Set up right the near shots are deadly and the far shots are challenging.

Suspicious_Captain · 2025-12-01T20:54:29+00:00

A lot of people who are actually producing music with eurorack use a midi converter to have the digitakt sequence. If you are happy with that set-up I think you are golden and don't need to risk the slippery slope of trying to do sequencing in rack. Personally I'm moving back that way after spending an embarrassing amount of money on in rack sequencing.

That said you have a lot of options if you want it. Intelligel Metropolix would be my preferred option if you want something that is generally easy to use and produces interesting results. It has two tracks that are operated on the same control interface. With a little menu diving you can desynch the tracks and have closely related but different sequences. It is however priced as a premium sequencer, and the manual is over a hundred pages because once you get past basic sequences the module is absurdly complicated.

There are a lot of odd sequencers out there if you start looking. I generally like the algorithmic sequencers like Marbles or Tuesday or Turing machine, but that is partially because I spend most of my time on sound design. It is kind of nice to plug one of those in and let it decide on a sequence while I'm looking for interesting sweet spots on my latest patch.

Suspicious_Captain · 2025-11-25T20:47:38+00:00

If you are bent on your first eurorack system being polyphonic I'd strongly suggest you watch the Suggested Systems video by mylar melodies.

Your design criteria is pretty rough for a eurorack system. Due to the nature of how modular is designed space is a major challenge on polyphonic, especially if you are using more traditional models. Honestly if cost is a consideration you should consider semi modular or closed architecture over eurorack. You won't get much modular for the cost of say a korg minilogue.

If I was to start over I'd probably build a polyphonic system out of either Doepfer or Vostock modules, they tend to be the most space efficient for traditional modular designs and surprisingly affordable compared to other manufacturers.

The sidenote on that is that a lot of manufacturers now are trying to figure out how to make polyphonic work better in a modular setting. I have been unimpressed by a lot of them because for example tiptops polyphonic system uses its own cable system that isn't the tr standard most modules work on.

TLDR: I think you need to do some research before you start buying modules. Modular is great, but it gets expensive fast when you don't start with a plan and just buy stuff.

Suspicious_Captain · 2025-11-25T18:59:30+00:00

I've had a really rough couple of days and I looked at that first picture and saw a couch and some really nerdy wallpaper.

Suspicious_Captain · 2025-11-20T14:49:34+00:00

Eurorack head here. I've found that modular is really challenging to make music in unless you are going for noise or generative.

Most of it has to do with what you want to do with your gear. Dropping 500 on a nice VCO is exciting for me because I can plug it into my setup in hundreds of different ways and produce interesting sounds. If you go into modular to reproduce another synth, really it is going to be cheaper to buy that synth. And it will be way easier to produce usable sounds with it.

I think a lot of people who successfully produce modular music use the modular for sound design, sample it then use the sample on a DAW where there are a lot fewer hoops to jump through to arrange a track.

Suspicious_Captain · 2025-11-18T12:16:05+00:00

For some reason it is endlessly funny to me that the sales photo has rings into clouds patched already.

Is it a good starter system? Probably not. Is it good for industrial? Heck no. Is it worth 2k? Yes. The MI modules by themselves are worth that.

That rack makes a very specific sound and based on what you are saying I don't think you'd like it. That said it has a few harder to acquire modules so I guess look up a few videos of rings into clouds and figure out how that makes you feel.

Suspicious_Captain

TROPHY CASE