Analog modular synthesizer

supercluster · Post by **supercluster** » Fri Mar 28, 2008 11:27 pm

I'm thinking about investing in an analog modular system. I want to get something that is compact and somewhat portable - i saw that doepfer has briefcase enclosures. i also want something reliable and reasonably affordable.

Does anyone have any suggestions for solutions?

Doepfer?

Shanesaw · Post by **Shanesaw** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 12:38 am

I would recommend the Doepfer suitcase. I once owned a A-100G6 system and had no problems with it and it sounded great. Lots of options for modules from Doepfer, Cwejman, Livewire, Plan B, MFB, etc.

Post by **tunedLow** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 1:34 am

Yup, I finish filling my 2 racker next week - mix of doepfer, plan b and livewire. Small and lots of cool modules from various manufactures. The other one to look at is frac rack stuff, but I don't really know much about them.

seamonkey · Post by **seamonkey** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 3:51 pm

The stuff from synthesizers.com sounds quite impressive to me and the prices are very reasonable.
Here's a link:
http://www.synthesizers.com/index.html

Carey M · Post by **Carey M** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 5:28 pm

Mattson Mini Modular is very portable.

- CM

Shleed · Post by **Shleed** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 7:34 pm

I'd recommend a doepfer basic system. It's a good system to start with, and is quite reliable and well built. Once you get familiar to it, you can pretty much use any other modular without much hassle.

Post by **tunedLow** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 7:44 pm

seamonkey wrote:The stuff from synthesizers.com sounds quite impressive to me and the prices are very reasonable.
Here's a link:
http://www.synthesizers.com/index.html

True, nice modular, I even had a 22 spacer for a while. But after getting eurorack stuff I sold it. I thought that working with the big jacks and modules was cool for a while, but it ended up being a lot of work and took up too much space. Plus you get such a wider variety of modules with the other forms (eurorack or frack). Yeah, I know you can fit some other types into a dot com case, but you need spaces or modifications - it's usually not just plug and play.

I was afraid the small size of the eurorack stuff would be difficult to work with, but that hasn't been the case at all. It's nice having the small cables and not having to stretch to make patches.

seamonkey · Post by **seamonkey** » Sun Mar 30, 2008 2:52 pm

tunedLow wrote:
seamonkey wrote:The stuff from synthesizers.com sounds quite impressive to me and the prices are very reasonable.
Here's a link:
http://www.synthesizers.com/index.html
True, nice modular, I even had a 22 spacer for a while. But after getting eurorack stuff I sold it. I thought that working with the big jacks and modules was cool for a while, but it ended up being a lot of work and took up too much space. Plus you get such a wider variety of modules with the other forms (eurorack or frack). Yeah, I know you can fit some other types into a dot com case, but you need spaces or modifications - it's usually not just plug and play.

I was afraid the small size of the eurorack stuff would be difficult to work with, but that hasn't been the case at all. It's nice having the small cables and not having to stretch to make patches.

Very interesting, I hadn't given the eurorack design much thought. I'm curious what system you went with? I know you can mix and match but what basic system did you start with?
The Doepfer A-100 looks good, how does it soundwise stack up against your memory of the dot.com stuff?
I would love to have a small analogue modular system in my studio some day (note small)lol maybe start off with something like the Doepfer mini system.

Post by **shaft9000** » Sun Mar 30, 2008 3:03 pm

Carey M wrote:Mattson Mini Modular is very portable.

- CM

...and it sounds freaking awesome; a lot better than typical doepfer systems imho.
only troubles are the 1/8" jacks and limited limited range of modules available in this format atm. unless you plan on going hogwild with like 5 different filters this is a very tempting entry.

Post by **tunedLow** » Mon Mar 31, 2008 6:18 am

seamonkey wrote:
Very interesting, I hadn't given the eurorack design much thought. I'm curious what system you went with? I know you can mix and match but what basic system did you start with?
The Doepfer A-100 looks good, how does it soundwise stack up against your memory of the dot.com stuff?
I would love to have a small analogue modular system in my studio some day (note small)lol maybe start off with something like the Doepfer mini system.

I started out with a 2 rack case and only a few sound processing modules. I only just recently bought a vco for it. I still have a few modules to go to make it a stand-alone synth.

These are the modules I currently have:
Plan B VCO,
Plan B voltage processor
Live Wire Dalek Madulator
Doepfer complex envelope generator
Doepfer SSM style filter
Doepfer wave multiplier
Doepfer bucket brigade delay.

I'm going to finish filling the case with an amp, quad envelope, and a slew limiter. The next case I get I'm going to build myself with their DIY kit. For that one I want for that is another VCO or two, a new filter, a more traditional LFO, another amp, more multiples.

So until I get an amp and more traditional evelopes, I'm running the last out into a Minimoog Voyager's input in, there I use its amp and envelopes (where it also goes through the Voyager's filters). As far as the sound it's kind of hard to say, since it depends on what you get. For VCO's there are choices from Plan B, Doepfer, Cwejman, and Analogue Solutions, and filters by all of the above as well. So you'll get a different sound depending on which of those you get (there may be more than that from other makers, I don't remember names). Then as far as cv, most of those makers have their own envelopes, and so they'll have different snappy-ness to them as well, etc. Anyway, it seems like the eurorack stuff is pretty flexible as far as sound goes.