Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Molten Modular 01 – Introduction to Eurorack Modular synthesis series”.
Hello, I’m Robin Vincent and welcome to this new thing, a journey if you will into the exciting, enticing and often impenetrable world of modular synthesis, welcome to molten modular. So, what’s this about well, molten modular is a new series of videos that charts my journey into modular synthesis. Now I know what you’re thinking you’re the software guy you’re, the guy who’s into computer music and all that jiggery-pokery. And yes, that would be true. But I’ve been seduced by all the the beeps and noises, the flashing lights and the magical musicality of modular synthesis, and I just really like to have a go. I’M finding that I’m increasingly working outside of the box. I mean all my interest in touch and the surface is all about sort of freeing creativity and unhonest in it from that tiny little narrow focal point of the mouse and modular is all about that. I also suffer massively from preset surfing or just clicking clicking clicking preset after preset. My computer is this seemingly limitless, sonic palette of sounds, and yet I can find nothing that I want to use.
It’S like having a thousand TV channels and never finding anything to watch modular is kind of a remedy, for that modular seems to be both freeing and restrictive. It’S very physical and yet ethereal. There’S no presets, usually there’s no recall, but you have no choice but to create in the moment you have to embrace the temporary nature of that performance in the here and now and for someone coming from a computer-based background. Well, that’s both awesome and terrifying.
So how did I get here? Well, inspiration has come from all sorts of different places and when you see people like Richard Devine standing in front of these enormous banks of flashing beeping, squeaking noise, making lights tangles of patch cables going from here there and everywhere in some kind of organized chaos. But it’s also totally unobtainable, there’s no way, there’s no planet or universe that I can imagine where I would have access to that sort of gear. But then I found sort of smaller examples. There’S a great video on YouTube called modular on the roof where this guy sits down on the roof, overlooking New York City and just fiddles with this tiny lunchbox sized modular setup.
I think he’s just got a single voice and a sequencer, and yet is able to create this amazing soundscape. I came across a fascinating collaboration between Suzanne, kyani and Caitlin, already a Smith where these two women sat there, just jamming on their modular gear ideas flowing from one to the other, a wash of sound and noise, and this sort of environmental music used out of everything That they did, it was just sublime. I’Ve been inspired by Facebook groups and forums where you have this daily dose of someone’s latest patch or some bubbly sequence that someone’s uploaded. You know all of it saying that you can do this. You can do this, it’s fascinating. It is interesting, look look at what I’ve done. Look at what I’ve created with my own self built, sound, generating machine. You know I meet people at modular meets enthusiasts and the makers of the stuff themselves, and I love the attitude. I love the passion with which they approach it, because it’s very much owned by the user you’re, not just using somebody’s smart bit of hardware on their presets you’ve put together your own machine and it’s just something I have to try. So what’s the plan? Well, at the moment I don’t have anything and I don’t know anything I mean I have a Amogh mother 32, which is awesome. I’Ve got look a bunch of patch cables here, but I’m really at the start of this journey and that’s the point I want to learn. I want to discover, when I get into the skin of modular and make videos about that journey as I so as I learn then. Hopefully that could be helpful to you as well, and when I stumble and fall over stuff and blow myself up trying to solder together a module, then you can avoid those sorts of issues. There seemed to be some enormous barriers to entry where you have to have a degree in engineering or at least be experienced and have a level of expertise.
That’S probably most of us don’t possess. I don’t think it has to be like that. I’M pretty sure that, even though the language can sometimes be impenetrable, that there has to be ways to approach it that make it less hard and that’s what I’m about I’m about making things less hard. So hopefully over time I’m going to be able to unravel stuff and demonstrate it, so it becomes less hard and less mysterious and bring those barriers to entry down so that more of us can get in there.
So I’m going to be making videos on me making videos about buying my first case and what the heck I do with that and how all that works out. With the help of my friends at Red Dog music, I’m gon na be able to try out, compare and review different modules work out how they work. What’S going on what you can use them for how you can plug them all in and patch them in, to make extraordinary noises so come with me, I mean it. It should be fun, or at least it’s going to be a bit beefy so subscribe to the YouTube channel or follow the Red Dog blog, and you can join me on this journey into modular and, in the meantime, go make some tunes.
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