modular Archives - Page 6 of 6 - Martin Yam Møller

Frank Pedersen – EuroCrack Soundscaper

1. Favourite knob/fader/switch on a piece of gear and why?

From eurorack modules, I really like the white knobs on Vermona and the keys on the NerdSeq is just fantastic. Both Modules have a good build quality. Also the patch cables from Instruo and Vermona I really enjoy using because they are great quality.

NerdSeq tracker sequencer in the center of the picture

2. Do you have an ‘almost’ perfect bit of kit? What would you change?

Well yes, but mostly no 😉 I primarily use eurorack, so there is always coming and going modules in my system, but that’s a big part of the fun in eurorack, at least for me. Last year I bought around 140 -150 modules and sold maybe around 100. I cleaned out a lot and tried getting rid of the modules that didn’t fit my workflow and purpose. I’m currently down to 1750 HP which I feel is a good size for my home studio. [Editor: May I, on behalf of all the readers, say ‘Woa!’]

3. What setup do you bring on holiday/tour/commute etc.?

Holidays?? For Modular meet-ups I used to carry a medium and a large flightcase, plus a big backpack with cables, but it turned out I damaged my back by carrying this. So for the time being i’m down to a 60 HP case from 4MS. I think I will get the Intellijel Palette soon though. It seems to have a good size for a small backpack.

My first homemade flight cases. The small one was used for a Mother32 and a few modules

4. What software do you wish was hardware and vice versa?

Orca from Hundredrabbits. It can run on Monome Norns, but the display is small and it’s not eurorack. I would really like a dedicated hardware module with a large screen for that. I don’t wish for any modules to become software.

5. Is there anything you regret selling… or regret buying?

Yeah a lot of things.. Roland TR8s was surprisingly awesome, and I regret selling it. (Did you know that you can multitrack record the channels on the TR8’s directly to your DAW with usb. It’s quite awesome, most synth boxes just pop up as a Stereo Master). Hermod and Pyramid from Squarp, OTO BAM, Orthogonal Devices ER-301. And of course all my 12 Amiga’s I had through time. I really wish I still had them all. Regrets from buying, sure, lots. There will always be many regrets when buying eurorack modules no matter how well you research modules. Period!

6. What gear has inspired you to produce the most music?

It’s kinda of weird, but I was fascinated by RF noise since I where a kid. For space sound textures I like the CW-upper sideband and CW-lower sideband the most. Running it thought various filters never disappoints me. Lately I’ve been “resynthesizing“ it through Panharmonium, and it can create some crazy wicked sounds, as well as nice random melodies.

Panharmonium from Rossum (picture taken the day I got it)

7. If you had to start over, what would you get first?

From standalone synths I would most likely buy Syntrx from Erica Synth and Tracker from Polyend. On eurorack modules I would start with what I know is good for me. NerdSeq, Trident, Panharmonium, and various standard modules. I have a long list in my head 🙂

8. What’s the most annoying piece of gear you have, that you just can’t live without?

Besides the obvious; my computer. Then it is the Clouds and Rings. I currently don’t have either, but I have a Rings on the way again 🙂

9. Most surprising tip/trick/technique that you’ve discovered about a bit of kit?

I guess it is what I mentioned before. Any RF noise from an AM radio and the Panharmonium or just some nice filters. Wasp and Belgrad are great for this.

Artist or Band name?

Franksemi

Genre?

Interstellar soundscapes & ambient

Selfie?

Uffff.. but ok

Where are you from?

Denmark, Northern Jutland, Countryside. Raised by my Grandparents.

How did you get into music?

My uncle was teaching me how to play guitar every Sunday afternoon from when I was around 6 years old. But I lost interest in that after a while and somehow I also managed to break the guitar in half.. I don’t remember how and why, but I most certainly remember making up a cover story, so that my Grandparents would not get angry at me 😀 I can’t believe they fell for the story. I put the guitar back together as good as I could and placed it between some heavy wooden boxes so that it looked like the boxes had fallen and broken it… haha 🙂 Then I moved on to bass, and then tried drums for a bit. I also got tired from that pretty fast. Then when I was 13, the Amiga popped up and I was hooked on Protracker for some years. Later I got access to a 303 and borrowed a 606 for a while. Then it was mostly software for many years and next a 15 year break from making any music. Three years ago I split up with my x-girlfriend after many years together, and I needed to do something creative again, so I started building my first Eurorack flight case. And from there I started with Eurorack which was something I wanted to do for years.

What still drives you to make music?

I don’t know if what I make is considered music, at least not in a traditional way. I would just categorize it as making space soundscapes & textures for my own personal meditative pleasure, and that is really what drives me. That and making something creative, which I have always done one way or another. I always imagine myself how I would enjoy these sounds while leaving this solarsystem in a spaceship. Plainly put; sounds for space travel. But I also think of it as kind of alien communication that I am still trying to learn. Sometimes I would call it ‘Sound Design’ but that’s probably a stretch 🙂

How do you most often start a new track?

I just start a new patch and see what happens.

How do you know when a track is finished?

I never finished a ‘real track’, at least not for many years. I often just make patches and let it run for a couple of nights, sometimes a week or more. I like falling asleep to that, instead of just putting on some random DI stream etc. Most of time I don’t even bother to record it, cuz it is too much of a hassle and I often have problems with getting the levels right etc. But sometimes I put a small video clip on Instagram, but not so much anymore.

Show us your current studio.

Best creative advice that you’ve ever heard?

When I was in Art academy in Kolding 25 years ago, I had a teacher that told me that the best art is always something you made 20 years ago. That was funny back then, cuz I asked if he meant, that I made art like a 5 year old. But no, seriously, depending on how you will interpret it, I think this can apply to music as well. I will let you think upon that for yourself.. 🙂

Promote your latest thing… Go ahead, throw us a link.

You are very welcome to follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/franksemi/

[Editor: Eurorack modules: Too much or Never Enough? Leave a comment below. ]

Tom Whitwell – Mr MusicThingModular

[Editor: I gotta preface this interview with the fact that I’m very pleased that Mr. Whitwell has agreed to be interviewed. His blog, MusicThing, was a wonderful resource and a great inspiration to me back in the heady days of the late ’00’s… and one of the original reasons I wanted to start a blog for nerding music gear. So without further ado…]

1. Favourite knob/fader/switch on a piece of gear and why?

So many: the start button on a Technics 1200, the Intensity knob on a Princeton Reverb, the rotary mode switches on a Makenoise QMMG, the aluminium mod wheel on a Nord G2.

Princeton amp and Telecaster with a deadly tremolo

Of things I’ve designed myself, I’m still proud of the random/lock knob on a Turing Machine, the way it steers between randomness and repetition. And the Station knob on a Music Thing Radio Music is always pleasing, you never know quite what you’re going to get.

2. Do you have an ‘almost’ perfect bit of kit? What would you change?

A Wurlitzer 200A. I’d known about them forever – that sound on Supertramp and Beck and Joni Mitchell’s ‘Woodstock’ and so many other records. I first met one for real in a second hand shop in New York. I stared at it, then finally asked the woman in the shop if I could try it. They came over and turned it on, I played a chord and that incredible sound came out, the feel of the wooden keys, the two speakers, it’s like a hug. I bought one a few years later from a guy in London and have gradually upgraded it with a new amp board from RetroLinear, replacement legs and pedal. It’s the only vintage thing I own – about the same age as me. It would be improved if I was a better piano player.

Wurlitzer 200A with friends at the beach

3. What setup do you bring on holiday/tour/commute etc.?

My favourite place to research and design circuits is on a laptop in a beach bar, watching my family playing, completely relaxed with no pressure, a cold beer, and the ability to spend hours trying to work something out. Those ideas often lead nowhere, but turn into things years later.

4. What software do you wish was hardware and vice versa?

The Moog Model D app is great. I’d love a hardware version of that. I’ve just built a version of the external input section for my modular, because it’s such a cool effect.

5. Is there anything you regret selling… or regret buying?

When I was about 14 I bought a Korg MS10 for £75, then sold it to a friend for £50. [Editor: Ouch!]

6. What gear has inspired you to produce the most music electronics?

Eagle is the software I use to design circuit boards. You start by drawing the schematic and end up routing all the traces on the circuit board. There’s a long learning curve, but it now feels like a superpower. I can have an idea like “what if I had the Minimoog drive circuit in a 4hp euro module?” and have the thing my hand a few weeks later.

Big knobs and Motu UltraLite mk4 soundcard

7. If you had to start over, what would you get first?

A laptop or an iPad and some headphones.

8. What’s the most annoying piece of gear you have, that you just can’t live without?

I have a love/hate relationship with coding. At the moment I’m enjoying the Monome Norns (I have the DIY Fates version). It’s clever and powerful, but also it’s coding, so a bit annoying.

9. Most surprising tip/trick/technique that you’ve discovered about a bit of kit?

Always feedback everything. Whether it’s feeding back the reverb sends into themselves in Ableton, or self-switching feedback loops using the Turing Machine Vactrol Mix Expander, it’s always always interesting & unexpected.

Artist or Band name?

Tom Whitwell / Music Thing Modular

Genre?

Solder

Where are you from?

South East London

How did you get into music electronics?

I’d always been interested in music gear. In 2005-8 I wrote a blog called Music Thing, which was a celebration of gear for the sake of gear. In 2009 I got an arduino kit and started making guitar pedals, then in 2011 I bought a small Eurorack system and started making modules for myself.

What still drives you to make music electronics?

I keep having ideas for things that I want.

How do you most often start a new circuit?

I normally start with a sketch, sometimes a part of a circuit, or a panel. It’s a very round-and-round process, so there will be sketches, bits of circuits in Eagle, maybe bits of circuit on a breadboard, articles or papers to read.

How do you know when a ‘thing’ is finished?

When there’s nothing else to remove. [Editor: Sounds like a Dieter Rams fan]

Go on… show us your current studio!

Best creative advice that you’ve ever heard?

If in doubt, leave it out.

Promote your thing…. Throw us a link

[Editor: Mr. Whitwell has a severe case of British modesty and won’t self-promote. So I’ll be cheeky and do it for him. Find his eurorack modules here musicthing.co.uk.]

[Editor: There are affiliate links to the relevant gear throughout the articles. It helps to support this blog. In fact, should you be needing some patch cables or guitar strings. Then clicking on one of the above links and buying any product that you prefer, will help the blog… doesn’t even have to be the ones in the link. Thx]

A773 – Melodic Modular Maestro

1. Favourite knob/fader/switch on a piece of gear and why?
I just love my Horstronic joystick! I’ve been trying out a few different touch/grab/turn modules and somehow didn’t gel with most. But the joystick is great. I removed the spring from it, to keep it from returning to center position, it makes much more sense to me, that it stays where it’s left. It feels really good and the gestural nature of if makes it such a joy to “play”.
To cater for the muscle memory I mostly have it patched up the same way: X controls “skipping of something” (left is no skip, right is more skip) and Y is “brightness of something” (up is bright, down is mellow, middle is neutral).

2. Do you have an ‘almost’ perfect bit of kit? What would you change?
I recently got a 2nd hand MicroFreak, that I’ve fallen in love with. It has a quite simple synth engine, but the modulation matrix opens it up and makes it easy to get organic and dynamic sounds. I was a bit skeptical about the Buchla-style keyboard, but it feels great and the polyphonic aftertouch is very nice. It has a few quirks, for instance although the engine is polyphonic, everything runs through a monophonic filter, but for me it just adds to it’s charm.
There are, however, two things that annoy me. Most importantly: it always powers on on preset 1, something I hate so much that I sold modules, I otherwise liked because of them not remembering their state between powercycles. I’m hoping they’ll change that in a new firmware soon! Secondly, it’s quite a shame that it doesn’t have CV in, but I’m not sure they can fix that with a firmware update 🙂

3. What setup do you bring on holiday/tour/commute etc.?
I actually stopped bringing stuff on holiday and trips. I prefer to take time off, do nothing, maybe read a book. Currently I’m reading Schoenbergs “Theory of Harmony”, which contrary to what many people believe, is not at all about 12-tone technique, but rather sums up and marks his departure from tonal music. Last time I was on an exceptionally long and boring train trip, I brought the computer and took the opportunity to work with csound. I mostly use it to generate batches of samples with slight or drastic variations for later use in the ER-301.

4. What software do you wish was hardware and vice versa?
The ORCΛ “sequencer” would be great to have in modular format, just a screen, connections for USB keyboard and a bunch of trigger and CV I/O. A friend of mine has made
a module for himself from a raspberry pi, that kind of is that, but it’s too much DIY for my skills and it’s also a bit rough around the edges. The only software I use on a daily basis is Reaper, I’m not sure I’d like to have that in hardware. I think software and hardware have their strengths and weaknesses, and the power of Reaper to me is the extreme flexibility, which I don’t think would carry over to hardware.

5. Is there anything you regret selling… or regret buying?
I had a Yamaha SY77 some years back, it was an amazing synth, not really sure why I sold it.

6. What gear has inspired you to produce the most music?

I’ve become much more productive since I got into modular, maybe it is because you can’t make anything new before you pull the cables. When using software I often had a hard time finishing anything, there was always this feeling of unrealized potential in every track.
With modular there’s no way around it, just finish the patch, record it, pull the cables and then move on.

7. If you had to start over, what would you get first?
I’d get a modular and an acoustic piano!

8. What’s the most annoying piece of gear you have, that you just can’t live without?
I have a very brutal attitude towards annoying gear, to the point that I’d rather change my workflow, than live with something that annoys me. So I can’t really think of any piece of gear I have that annoys me.

9. Most surprising tip/trick/technique that you’ve discovered about a bit of kit?
I recently found that the mystic circuits vert can make sound without any input, which surprised me, since it’s basically an AD converter. I had to switch it off/on to convince myself it wasn’t due to some old input still stuck in there. When sending it random voltages it makes some wonderful, glitchy bursts, all with a bit different flavour, depending on what output you use.

Artist or Band name?
a773

Genre?
Melodic electronic music.

Selfie?
Please no!

Where are you from?
Copenhagen, Denmark

How did you get into music?
I taught myself to play the piano as a teenager, then eventually ended up studying jazz piano at the conservatory in The Hague. Around the same time as I started playing the piano, I got interested in electronic music, and read all books (which weren’t many) available in the public library on synthesizers, and soon after I bought my first synth, a Roland JX-8P.

What still drives you to make music?
Music in general is the most satisfying activity I have ever been involved in. And when it comes to making music, the whole process of making something out of nothing is so fulfilling. I love all the small and large decisions that it takes, to make a piece of music. I also immensely enjoy improvising, that whole interacting with the music in the moment and making split minute decisions represents something very special, something that keeps the mind alert and the music fresh.

How do you most often start a new track?
That’s deliberately very different. Sometimes I have a rhythmic idea, sometimes I have a chord progression or a modulation in mind, sometimes it’s just an experiment on the modular that develops into something.

How do you know when a track is finished?
When my teletype is full (not entirely untrue). On a serious note, I make all my music on the modular, and perform it live in one take. So it’s a process, where I patch something up, then play it, then patch some more. At some point I’ll explore what I have, try out different forms, find ways to take it down dynamically, or ways to go wild. I might find there’s a tricky part I need to practice, or feel something needs to be added, a variation in the bass or more texture, so I might work a bit more on the patch. When I can play the patch confidently and don’t feel like anything is misssing, I multitrack to reaper, and at this point I consider it finished. More often than not, I do a quick mix right after the recording, to check if the performance was ok. If not I do another take, I very rarely do any overdubs or edits.

Show us your current studio

Best creative advice that you’ve ever heard?
“Don’t be afraid to imitate, the closer you get to your heroes, the closer you get to yourself”

Promote your latest thing…
latestyoutube.a773.dk

[Editor: Have you gone modular or have you deliberately stayed away?? Leave a comment]