I am building a Shared System (in the 7u rack from MN) and I am pretty damn happy so far. All the modules you see above, I already own.
But I find that I am hesitant about filling the bottom row, especially regarding René, Pressure Points and Tempi, since I am sequencing from Ableton and the OT and find that pretty cool to do and very versatile.
Was planning to buy a Mimeophon for fx, but wondering if that is enough and maybe should skip some sequencing modules for more sound design options (Echophon/Erbe-Verb/Q-Pas and maybe even an extra Maths).
Opinions? My main goal is sound exploration/drones/ambients and gnarly basslines and leads/pads to work with in the Tracker.
erbe-verb is nice as a reverb but really opens up as a sizzly fizzy cracky voice on it’s own, as does Echophon in a different way. an additional Maths would always find a way to be used, but space-wise you could augment with a Function and get that nice ‘Hang’ functionality. alot of ways to go but i do think a kind of significant aspect of the system would be altered without the timing/sequencing paradigm of rene/tempi/wogg
I’m a big fan of Rene but I’m not sure I would have pursued buying it if it didn’t come as part of the Shared System, just because it’s a big decision and there are a lot of interesting alternatives.
But I do love using Rene — the Mod and CV inputs are great for incorporating other signals from your system, it’s very hands-on and quick to get ideas going, very easy to mix things up and get unexpected results. It’s not the sequencer for realizing ideas in your head, but it’s a wonderful for improvisation/exploration.
For effects, I tend to leave Mimeophon in my rack more often than Echophon and Erbe Verb, it’s just more flexible and playable. But DPO sounds particularly good through Echophon and has lots of playable tricks of its own, so its worth considering if you like delay.
To be honest I’ve always found Pressure Points a bit fiddly and inconsistent. I like the idea in theory but in practice the touchplates don’t have the sensitivity or reliability that I want to really make use of it. (Maybe my module just needs a little repair/cleanup work done.)
I have Acid Rain Maestro in place of Pressure Points in my rack and I absolutely love it. Obviously a different idea than Pressure Points / touchplates, but it’s got the same hands-on appeal and serves a similar role as a central modulation source. (And it’s the same size, 20hp.)
Personally I think sequencing is modulars strong suit. I have a Shared System-inspired… eh, system and I use Tip Top Trigger Riot in tandem with René V2 and it’s more intresting to me than the Tempi (in theory, that is. Haven’t owned one, I bet it’s awesome in it’s own right).
Tempi kicks ass! Such a great and versatile clock module, very playable and jammable. If you have another 4hp to spare, I like pairing Tempi with Instruo Eas so you can process those gate signals through logic and get even more interesting patterns.
Rene: I had a Shared System with v2 and always thought it was overkill; never used more than the basic features. if you’re on the fence about having it at all, maybe try v1 for a lot cheaper.
Pressure Points: always wanted to ditch it and use that space for something else (another Maths!) but then I’d patch up something that absolutely needed it and went all kinds of cool places with the interaction I’d get with it. if anything, add a Brains to one so you can have a basic sequencer as well.
Tempi: I owned it for two years and always felt like I needed a browser tab open to the manual, which is very off-putting.
Mimeophon is cool too but the Erbeverb has so many cool tricks up it’s sleeve and the sound is soooo lush. As a reverb there is no competition.
CV control for reverse reverb and tempo sync makes it completely unique.
Also the env follower output is a stroke of genius in a module that is likely at the end of the signal chain. Very usable.
Rene is not a simple pitch sequencer, most of time I use one or two channels to generate complex LFOs, because SS is lacking of traditional modulators.
Most of Make Noise modules have CV ouputs, that you can feed back to you system. ErbeVerb and QPas are not just audio processors.
I can recommend to get mimeophon+tempi first, If you want to stay MN over you rack.
On the other side, get more powerful midi to cv, to utilise all OT lfos) All this stuff shines mostly with enough modulation sources
Very glad that I’ve sticked to one brand. As a eurorack-first timer I figured that it is much easier to work with modules that have more or less the same design philosophy. Also the reason I went for older modules to start with, since the newer ones have much more shift/hidden functions.
