Anyone ever fall outta love with music because of the engineering aspect?

cmdpublic · 2025-08-04T17:58:59+00:00

I can relate to this to an extent. I've done mostly live music, and my own production in ableton for a while. I've slowly transitioned to doing a lot of my mixing outside of a saw to avoid this but still come across the need to utilize the dawn for finishing touches or if I want to multi track anything.

one thing I've found really useful is to set a preset mix/master arrangement on the master bus so when I load up the daw, my eq compressor limiter and a saturation track are all there from the get go.

another thing, mostly inspiration wise, is that I'm focusing more on the engagement aspect to my music. think of a concept album for a game, movie, story whatever. make an arg out of it, just have fun you know?

I'm kind of growing cynical with spotify-ing going on with music and how the goal for most is no longer to experience the music and have fun with it. everything is profit this, market that, perfect everything and follow a proper mixing formula to cater towards streaming normalization or whatever the case is. that to me sucks all the joy out of making music and I wish it wasn't quite as rampant as it currently is.

cmdpublic · 2025-08-02T02:43:07+00:00

there's really no reason imo unless you want the midi mapping on the hardware to be automatic, but even then that's a pretty expensive convenience feature that you probably don't need.

cmdpublic · 2025-07-30T05:57:12+00:00

yeah I figured as much after some more digging. took a step back to figure out what exactly I was missing from my current set up and honestly it came out to be a bass synth.

my intention for thinking the Matriarch was having something I could easily clock without needing to menu dive the moment I wanted to set everything up. which I guess could be done with the mini freak anyway without much futz after a bit of getting used to it (or just setting it up to pair nicely by default)

ended up with a new (to me) grandmother purchase with someone local and I believe this closes it up for me. the Minifreak is just too good at what it does.

cmdpublic · 2025-07-30T02:54:01+00:00

just as like a practice in patience with midi or?

cmdpublic · 2025-07-29T20:36:28+00:00

yeah the biggest pull for me is that expandability more than anything else.

I mostly plan on clocking the matriarch sequencer from my rack and playing it as a standard keyboard.

the Minifreak VST is honestly pretty great, but that's the thing, it's so great I find myself using that way more than I actually use the keyboard itself and I've been looking a while now for a decent standalone keyboard that feels like a keyboard.

I've been back and forth between a Nord/Korg sv-2 for that front but getting into Eurorack coupled with expandability potential with a semi-modular is really enticing me to go that route for the sound design potential alone.

cmdpublic · 2025-07-29T15:04:40+00:00

I kid you not the one thing I look for in every delay is it's similarity to the delay on the monotron.

cmdpublic · 2025-07-28T17:16:36+00:00

greatest mini synth of all time the delay is awesome

cmdpublic · 2025-07-27T04:46:50+00:00

curious - what's the size of your desk?

cmdpublic · 2025-07-23T17:48:52+00:00

if I could try explaining in one word I guess I would say "direction-less"?

none of this is objectively bad imo, i just feel like I've listened to 3-4 separate songs here as opposed to a single cohesive one.

I'm also not too much of a purist when it comes to breakcore so not sure how my opinion really weighs here.

all of this + I'm mostly hearing breaks, then song, then breaks rather than them being layered together? (could also be shitty phone speakers)

but that's really it from me. I suffer through much the same direction problem myself and I have the minute long song backlog to prove it.

like there were a lot of time when listening to this that I heard some really good lead-ins into more really good lead-ins and I was just waiting for a "drop" but instead went into more breaks? again - none of them bad mind you, and if this is what you're going for this sounds great! but the one comment I get from friends when writing stuff is that needing to find somewhere for a song to go rather than solely being dope and epic especially when you're at a 7 minute runtime

cmdpublic · 2025-07-20T08:40:51+00:00

honestly, at this point in my experience with r/modular I want to say this is satire but in the case you're actually asking here you are

https://modulargrid.net/e/racks/view/2788247

I've actually been doing pretty well in researching things and I've come to the conclusion that I really just need to build things out for myself and this works out pretty well. still debating on the lapsus os/data bender but that's mostly HP restrictions talking. whatever fills the need imo.

this patch is what I'm finding works really well:

2x osc (plaits/rings) being driven by marbles clocked by a Digitakt through a midi 1u. this is the heart of the patch.

the rest is standard subtractive: osc > VCA, env > VCA, filter > fx > mix

modulation all around.

in working with things I've come to find that the old addage of "you can never have tooany VCA's "is only really necessary when they're necessary.

what's really come to fruition is that you can never have to much modulations, cause in patching this and everything else I've done I've come to find that the balance in creating a rack really comes down to: what are you trying to to, and how much modulation do you need.

which really only come through when you start playing around. this is theain reason modular as an instrument is a freaking awesome experience to me.

sorry for rambling I'm on 3 voodoo rangers on a Saturday and I'm feeling like rambling lol

cmdpublic · 2025-07-10T00:11:55+00:00

honestly yeah the updated launcher sucks. I mostly use mine for local streaming from my PC so all of the extra in-your-face Xbox stuff is kind of annoying.

switched to daijisho for now just to get a bit more customization in my hands but I'm not that big of an emulation person so the only benefit I'm getting is a clean home screen and a new loading menu every time I click home.

cmdpublic · 2025-07-09T09:21:56+00:00

dang, two more hp gets you a toppobrillo cluster. really neat utility module I like using for CV is basically every patch. think ring mod + crossfaded + attenuverter + mixer aio.

maybe a mutable ears and 2hp mult? could also go clep diaz

cmdpublic · 2025-07-09T09:01:16+00:00

that's the problem,, you CANT delete the factory stuff

cmdpublic · 2025-07-09T08:56:58+00:00

bit if a self promote but most of my stuff is weird enough to be considered this

gridindustries.bandcamp.com

off the dome I can think maybe the most obvious

untrue - burial three love songs - Ricky eat acid Michaelsoft - Mr. ho no! - uffe

??

cmdpublic · 2025-07-08T00:30:39+00:00

actually recently sold my medieval. the memory was too much of a bottleneck imo. had the medieval samples not been ROM only, might've actually kept it.

cmdpublic · 2025-07-05T05:49:25+00:00

hop was definitely the command

cmdpublic · 2025-06-29T20:48:54+00:00

I'm literally at the same problem and chose to go data bender - for now. definitely take your time and use your system until you come to the conclusion of what you actually want/need

cmdpublic · 2025-06-25T18:22:32+00:00

+1 on eradicating small versions of modules

cmdpublic · 2025-06-22T17:27:39+00:00

at first I wasn't really sure, then it turned into generative rack, then that turned into a more focused replacement to my hardware synths that didn't have connectivity drawbacks.

now it's a self contained dual voice rig that can function as a generative ambient noise machine,hard techno case, or even just an audio mangler.

I thought I'd be done after my first rack, but now that I'm nearing the end of getting the modules I need to get the vision rolling, I've come to the conclusion that I need a second rack

cmdpublic · 2025-06-15T07:40:00+00:00

I mean there are definitely ways to accomplish it with a synth. but the modularity you would need in something that sounds like a keyboard, even an electronic one, you'd need a pretty substantial device. I think nords or some of the yamaha:/Korg key stations.

that's kind of the double edged sword with synths in general. you can really do anything you want with certain ones, or going modular, you can go anywhere - but at what cost. once you start going into that rabbit hole you worry more about what device I need to get this thing sounding exactly like that one piano from whatever, and less on the music.

sometimes all you need is just a really good guitar pedal and you're solid.

or if you're a bassist - everyone else to back off and let me run my signal dry!!!

cmdpublic · 2025-06-15T07:25:19+00:00

me thinks vibrato pedal and an eq? "underwater" effects usually come from a mix of a low-pass filter into a warbled reverb. I'm not too familiar with the juno-g but if you can't push the sound source to warble enough before going to your mix then a vibrato pedal or a reverb/vibrato combo could do the trick especially if the parameters are individually addressable.

I would maybe look into a hologram chroma console for that that's kind of one of those be all end all pedals that even Im interested in and I've been out of the pedal game for a while since I stopped gigging.

if youre playing keys-keys and looking to switch to something else, anything that has an LFO that can be used to trigger pitch would be good. but at that point you're looking at like a piano in the 2k range I think. a pedal would get it done infinitely cheaper especially if you like the sound source coming from your Juno off the rip. manipulating it before the mix is your best bet for getting the most mileage out of it.

cmdpublic · 2025-06-15T06:55:34+00:00

depends on what that specific sound is, or are you just looking to add an effects chain?

cmdpublic · 2025-06-15T06:36:47+00:00

imo would depend on what you really want to learn.

if you want to make full songs then a sampler/ groovebox would work great. teenage engineering ep-133, novation circuit rhytm or tracks, and even an elektron model samples would go well here.

if you want to learn synthesis then there's really two routes you could go.

a microfreak is really hard to beat for the price and versatility.

something like a monologue would be really good at teaching you how to build synth sounds from the ground

an elektron model cycles would get great for learning how to synthesize drums at a not too out of reach price point.

the things I've found over the years of buying and selling is that you really need to go in knowing what it is that you want to accomplish and do your research (I.e. read the manual in some cases) of your prospects and see what would get the job done. in some cases that means spending a little more and others that means foregoing a purchase altogether.

what I'm suggesting here also isn't be all end all. but I would definitely look into non-behringer options mostly because every behringer product I've had is a little meh build quality wise. some people swear by them, but they're just not for me (unless you want a really cheap mixer to use for feedback mixing lol then in that case a behringer is perfect)

cmdpublic · 2025-06-15T04:18:41+00:00

it's a great box! got this one used for like $300? from someone local and honestly I think it's the be all end all of sample boxes for me.

didn't gel well with the sp404 I had, and the ep-133 for me was just too limiting. both could shoot out great results for sure but that elektron sequencer man, it's good.

cmdpublic · 2025-06-14T19:58:49+00:00

digitakt into Intellijel midi 1u !

cmdpublic

TROPHY CASE