Modular Mus(ik)ings

Building a DIY sturdy light stunning custom skiff for the road

I wanted all the following for my skiff

light so I can carry it when I carry my bass as well
solid so I’m not afraid of breaking expensive modules
fits in my bag so it is easy for me to carry around
contains my Expert Sleepers I/O (in the form of a ES-3 and ES-6) so I can use it live easily
supports clean power supply so I can use it with the temperamental René (as live interface)…

Useless to say that nothing on the market was satisfying, so I had to revert to DIY - I’m not very gifted with this, so I took my time, and found the solution for material with the US postal service: corrugated plastic Being a good eco-sensible chap, I was on the lookout for discarded corrugated plastic, and found it easily enough in a print shop garbage bin! It is an old construction site warning so it has some fancy colours and words on it!

For the power supply, I chose the Intelligel TPS30 MAX. I tried the power supply they sell, but it is renown to not work with the René, so I moved to a properly grounded one available at DigiKey under the code 62-1222-ND, and the René tracked much better. For the rails, I was supplied by the friendly Ross Lamond, and cut it myself to a 69u - which fitted my bag perfectly!

Here are a few pictures. If anyone is interested, I will post the making-of.

Results of the VCO and VCA blind tests

I’ve been asked which one is which many times, mostly by people who cannot access the MuffWiggler entries with that information. So here it is!

— BEWARE — RESULTS ARE SPOILING THE BLIND-TEST FUN ;-)

VCA film:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeNFrGcqyfM&feature=youtu.be

results:
A = Analogue System RS-180
B = intellijel uVCA2
C = intellijel Dubmix
D = WMD mmvca
E = Oakley Sound Classic VCA
F = Cwejman VCA-4MX

VCO film:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F829LxOzJH0&feature=youtu.be

results:
D = Analogue System RS-95e (-9.0dB)
G = Malekko Richter Oscillator II (-9.3dB)
B & 1 = Addac 701 (-4.3dB)
E & 2 = Livewire AFG (-8.2dB)
A & 4 = Intellijel Dixie 1 (-8.4dB)
C & 3 = Thomas Henry X-4046 (-10.0dB)
F & 5 = Bubblesound VCOb (-9.0dB)
6 = Makenoise ST0 (-8dB)

Comparing Filters - part 4a

This is a difficult choice to make - I have to sell some stuff after all…

Let’s try to rationalise…

Low-Pass Filters (including LPG)
- Analogue Systems RS500e ‘Synthi’
- Analogue Systems RS100s ‘ladder’
- Moog’s MF-101
- Pittsburgh Modular LPG
- Wiard Borg 1 (white and slow)
- Wiard Borg 2 (black and faster)

switchable mode
- Cwejman MMF-1
- Manhattan Analog MA35VCF/A
- Makenoise MMG

Multi-Mode Filters (i.e. have multiple outs):
- Analogue Systems RS110 Multimode
- Toppobrillo Multifilter
- Manhattan Analog MA35VCF/A
- Shelves + ext
- Koma svf-201
- Pittsburgh Modular Filter

Effect/Character Filters:
- Ken Stone Synthacon Filter
- Metasonix R-54 VCO-VCA
- Metasonix R-52 multimode
- Cwejman Res-4 quad resonator
- Synthrotec Dirt
- Doepfer wasp
- Uoki-Toki Polivoks vcf
- Plague Bearer (v4)

===
I presume I need to find a sort of reasoning for rationalisation…

I’m going to play with them now and see if I can try to love some a little less - or find redundancies to rationalise parting with some… any thoughts welcome!

after a year…

Back from sabbatical a year ago, I got back in the turmoil of teaching/admin so I used synth purchase as retail therapy… and synth noodling as creative output!

Now I certainly need to prune - and to edit these Filter videos, and to do my other comparisons, obvious - BBD and distortion are next, although I have only a few of each, so these posts will serve as triggers to discussions…

Looking back at the picture of when I started 2 years ago to put the synth together, I have a sense of awe of how far I’ve come, but also of shame of how much gear I’ve acquired… definitely time to prune!

Comparing Filters - part 3

So 10 days later, mostly out of the studio, I come back to my recording extravaganza…

I’ve recorded
- Analogue Systems RS500e (fast cv, pre-74 slope)
- Analogue Systems RS100s
- Analogue Systems RS110 (in low pass)
- Toppobrillo Multifilter (in low pass)
- Manhattan Analog MA35VCF/A (in low pass)
- Ken Stone Synthacon Filter (in low pass)
- Malekko Borg 2 (in low pass)
- Makenoise MMG (in low pass)
- Pittsburgh Modular LPG (in low pass)
- Moog’s MF-101 in 2-poles mode
- Moog’s MF-101 in 4-poles mode

I’ve also done Synthrotek’s DIRT, and Metasonix R-54 and R-52, but they are out of the competition - they have a (crazy) character of their own ;-)

Now, for each of them, I’ve done:

1) a series of 5 handmade sweeps on the same sawtooth bass line than last time.

1-1 - with no resonance, taming the input so it does not clip, with cv opening on time;
1-2 - like 1-1, with input cranked to full, to check the flavour of distortion;
1-3 - like 1-1, with the resonance set to get a sound as liquid as I can make it;
1-4 - a manual sweep with no CV, with the same resonance as 3
1-5 - like 1-4, with no resonance

2) a series of resonance sweeps

2-1 - on a fixed sawtooth as input, with a fixed cutoff, sweeping the resonance from none to maximum and back
2-2 - on the same sawtooth as input, with resonance set to full, sweeping the frequency from low to high and back.
2-3 - without any input, as 2-1
2-4 - without any input, as 2-2

3) a series using the filter as oscillator

3-1 - trying to tune a pure 880 Hz
3-2 - spiking the input where the resonance is set to almost self-oscillation
3-3 - with resonance to full, do a manual cutoff sweep
3-4 - using the same computer-controlled CV sequence than for my VCO, test the FM capacities.

I thought I was clever. This is in effect way too much information. It was very instructive though.

I will put some films with spectral analysis up, but for now, I will ask around to see what would be useful for people to hear… here is a link to the examples 1-1, in a random order, all loudness normalled to 0 LU.

https://soundcloud.com/pierre-alexandre-tremblay/vcf-compare-test-1

or a WAV file (24bit 48k)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2_1TrqqLItoc0dQcFgzVmFiUEE/

Comparing Filters - part 2

Playing the knobs is a skill. I’ve just done hours of recording to try to match sweeps by hand, and I find it (a posteriori) fantastic to develop new micro-motor skills, quite different to the bass!

Good stuff. Should post them online this week - I have also found a new workflow where I do the audio only first, then I will generate the trace/spectroanalysis. Less hard disk space, and easier to edit!

Comparing Filters

I’m designing the comparison of the filters at the moment… and I notice how much I love filters more than anything!

I also notice that I have not done any classic design in my live, i.e. I did my first pulsated filter groove ever yesterday. With and without distortion. So much fun! I will do the classic filter ping too, for fun, today.

Then I should film them both, with something a little more technical - a sweep, and a resonance comparison too. I won’t do 1v/o tracking comparison… or maybe I will to allow filters to follow the oscillator… who knows! I will certainly do a percussion type of thing.

Suggestions are welcome, as usual.

VCO comparison

I have to continue my assessment of the many modules I bought, so today is VCO-time! All analogue, obviously, as Max and Supercollider caters for my digital needs.

I wanted to see the character of each module… independent of the volume, the sound of their wave… I know many people say it is useless to listen to them like this, but I find it fascinating.

I wanted to check in a sequence, how the module reacted to frequency modulation… I also wanted to see how they react to audio rate modulation, exponential and linear.

I also wanted to check the pulse width, which is too similar to worth the bandwidth in the end… and the sync, which is very capricious on many modules so I decided not to bother anymore.

So here are the contenders:

Analogue System RS-95e
Malekko Richter Oscillator II
Addac 701
Livewire AFG
Intellijel Dixie 1
Thomas Henry X-4046
Bubblesound VCOb
Makenoise ST0

After careful tuning, I’ve done 5 seconds of each basic waves (saw, sine, tri, square), then a cliché synth bass line (with a saw, obviously), then a sequence of audio modulation in the 1v/oct input, triggered by my lovely assistant, Max.

This was done on the first seven as the ST0 does not allow the specific waveforms. Then I did the same routine audio rate frequency modulation with the bottom 6 as the others do not allow linear FM. None do through-zero. I changed the order of the contender to keep the blindness, so there will be two keys (letters and numbers).

For comparison purpose, I have then match the gains at 0 LU in reference to EBU+18, as we all know that loudness influences quality judgement ;-) If that sounds bizarre, please read this amazingly accessible reference on the new standard and the end of the loudness war: http://www.tcelectronic.com/loudness/

So, my comparison film is here: https://youtu.be/F829LxOzJH0

Again, I feel it is the audio rate modulation that gives most of the character out. I will give all the answers in a spoiler thread soon. I need to do my filter and envelop comparison first.

VCA and Mixer comparison

The commissions and tours have kept me away from any critical comparison of modules. I am now in pruning mode, and in order to be fair I need to voice what I am looking for.

Today is VCA comparisons, be it in mixers or stand alone. What I’m looking for is:

- speed - it has to be fast if needs be yet I’m open to character;
- AM - related to the previous one but not necessarily convergent - it might break elegantly…
- distortion - flavoursome, within my taste range which is very personal;
- curve - is it clear as advertised and/or variable and/or fun;
- DC-coupled could be useful;
- noise is undesirable yet could be traded against flavour/distortion
- bleed - is silence silencing.

In this comparison, I am trying to devise some tests and blind-test it, for fun more than for science. And for ear training. The above criteria are coming from my practical, compositional use so I presume others would have different ones and I’m happy with this.

So I’ve design some tests, filmed the results, and found out that some were not relevant.

I’ve compared those I own for the moment:
- Analogue System RS-180;
- intellijel uVCA2;
- Cwejman VCA-4MX (channel in to channel out, not sum)
- WMD mmvca;
- Oakley Sound Classic VCA
- intellijel Dubmix (channel in to sum out, muting everything else, as I don’t have the direct out expansion)

I’ve filmed the source (computer generated cosine for maximum purity, doing a return trip through the ES-3 and ES-6). I’ve sent it at +/- 0.5 full scale, which was the cleanest.

Then I’ve filmed through the VCA.

- full on;
- slow alternating on/off (12v and 0v, immediate change from computer source) to test the speed and the bleed;
- an AM ‘melody’ always the same (again computer generated)
- cranking the gain to full to see the boost (though I distort the input on some of them so it is quite useless)

and edited a film you can see here:

https://youtu.be/LeNFrGcqyfM

I’ve also filmed the on/off at full gain, and the same AM melody at full gain, but it feels redundant now. I’ve also measure the background noise.

A- 38.5 dB
B- 39.5 dB
C- 53.3 dB
D- 40.5 dB
E- 38.5 dB
F- 38.5 dB

All was very time consuming… but very instructive I find, both in trying to understand what I look for in modular synth, and how to assess redundancy on a sonic level - interface design is another very valid problem!

I will hold on to my conclusions for a couple of days, in order to see what people say (as well as the answers ;-) I find the diversity is quite striking, and explains why I love modular so much!

A rich man’s problem

I’ve got a couple of pieces to finish for mid-March, so until then, I’ve decided that pruning is on the back burner. I want to make good decisions, so I’ll keep using the stuff I have, maybe buy a little more, and then select what needs to be sold back. I might sell before then, but that will be because I don’t like the module’s behaviour, sound, and/or ergonomic design.

I wanted to share the state of affairs though, so you could send me your opinion on redundant and/or missing modules - food for thought, you know…

so here we go. First are the two pictures of the ‘rack’ as they stand, though I only have 18u of 84hp - I’ve put more just to fit everything in… the last 2 pictures will show why I need another case… I meant, to sell some modules…

carvalhais

(…) the ambivalence of the German word for play—Spiel—is beneficial to the interdisciplinary view. Whereas the English language uses the word “game” to describe a special kind of rule-based play, in German the word Spiel is used to denote free and purposeless play, play in the sense of performing or role playing, and also rule-based strategic play (i.e., games). As Wittgenstein explains, the concept of Spiel is not founded on a single, clear-cut definition; rather, it refers to “a complicated network of similarities, overlapping and criss-crossing.”

Kwastek, Katja. Aesthetics of Interaction in Digital Art. Trans. Warde, Niamh. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2013.

Modular Mus(ik)ings

See, that’s what the app is perfect for.