Internet comment of the year.
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Motherfucker can nearly scratch his knees without bending.
Arms like a fucking orang utan.
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There’s an awful lot of flexibility and potential just within a DAW like Reaper to create something very custom and experimental, if you combine it with some MIDI controllers and Realearn for the mapping. With a cheap grid controller you can make a powerful matrix mixer quite easily, and I think if you treat the DAW project itself as an instrument or a collection of instruments if you’re using multiple controllers you can have a lot of ‘out of the box’ fun similar to using modular hardware.
There’s many advantages to ‘real’ hardware of course, and I think I would ultimately prefer a system that uses analogue signal processing for what I want to do. It’s just too incredibly expensive and somewhat inflexible to just experiment with, perhaps once I really nail down what I’m looking for I could start researching a comparable modular setup.
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A friend of mine did an hour long dance set on her 2x104 the other night to a good sized crowd. She had a locked Marbles sequence which she transposed and varied steps and allowed quantized notes. A couple of voices with filters and fx. Pam’s New Workout in Euclidean was triggering drum samples in the DistingEX. While I focused on the nuances, everyone else danced their asses off.
Certainly, while the DJs that preceded and succeeded her proved there’s something to varied timbres, samples, mixing and so forth, her set was successful and it was distinctly hers. When she was coming up Caterina Barbieris rig wasn’t huge; Blawans live rack isn’t massive. It can be done.
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I‘d like to go back into modular to try the stochastic inspiration generator.
And maybe the ryk sequencer
This and a few voice modules. I don’t want to patch simple voices with single modules…
I like the thought to combine a few nice voices together in a case. Just one power supply, no midi cables/ no audio cables. Patch cables don’t clutter the room 
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Ape arms?
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This was my last module purchase (in June!) and it is a real gem. I don’t know that it alone merits a journey back in, but it is a good example of something I don’t know how to do in other formats (short of writing my own code in some scripting language, which is what I’m trying to get away from…!).
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I got into modular just recently to build my perfect analog drum machine.
None of the available analog drum machines were doing it for me in terms of sound and use-ability so I found that the best way forward, for me, was a modular rack with analog drum modules, and a midi -> cv module.
I hit the absolute sweet spot, cost was less than an analog rytm mkII, and I was able to get the exact sound I was looking for. (Man when u find a kick that has the perfect knock…).
I didn’t need a ton of modulation modules, as midi -> cv lets me modulate everything from Ableton, and the audio outs go right into my interface. It’s the perfect solution, and I’ve been able to be super productive with it, it fits right into my usual hybrid DAW/external gear workflow.
I will say, large modular systems never really appealed to me, seemed like a place to get lost in, but when I needed a custom analog drum machine, modular was there for me.
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That. Caterina Barbieri hasn’t changed her setup for years and any modular aficionado would scoff at such minimalist approach.
It’s fine that people hoard modules, that drives the niche economy that eurorack is. All is good.
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100% true. however modular draws you in precisely because it caters to exploration so well. you may not know what you want, but you figure such an open-ended environment is the best place to find it. maybe you’re tired of grooveboxes and fixed signal path synths with limited options. you’re sick of thinking “if only I could do this one thing with this synth…” and now you can do whatever you want, or you can pick up a module that will allow you to. and therein lies the problem: your reason was exploration, but now you’re lost in endless amounts of it, and finishing nothing.
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Which one?
Yeah I’ve said this before, but large rigs - Devine’s, for example - stress me out just looking at it. But he lives and works to do a lot with it
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It is also valid to be a tourist.
I got into modular to explore. I got out of modular after some deeply enjoyable explorations with the knowledge that plenty of exploration (for me) is available in standalone synths.
A one way first class ticket to Japan could have bought a substantial euro system. A coach round trip + railpass + midrange hotels could buy a case and a few basic modules.
It could be argued that a modular synth is more similar to travel or meditation than music making. You can sample a modular, you can also sample a Buddha Machine or make field recordings of your travels.
I personally find that my quality of life improves if I have sufficient sound exploration devices. At the moment, that seems to include a 61-key keyboard, grid controller, drum machine, polysynth and some more esoteric noisemakers, like the Lyra-8. I’ve uploaded material to Soundcloud, Youtube and Instagram in the past. I have folders of material that could be an album or two. However, I feel like I’m doing a self-study degree in electronic music. Perhaps at some point I’ll produce a thesis-album and then focus more on production than exploration.
Modular can be totally valid for exploration or music making. From a time, space and money budget perspective, now is not the time for modular, for me. Perhaps some day I’ll seek out some Serge panels or maybe a moderate Buchla system. Or DIY. Or dive back into Euro.
TL;DR: It’s valid to be a tourist, but try to be honest with yourself if possible. (self-discovery is something you may get from your modular system)
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I plan to integrate and record more modular this year with my other synths now that I have them together in one spot. I love modular drums and the weird fx I can get on modular compared to my other synths.
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Show me a fixed synth with as pretty a light show. Ill wait.
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Novation controllers do this well. Technically not synths though.
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Novation AFX Station in AFX mode/overlay running the sequencer or arpeggiator. It was a big factor in my exodus from modular… knowing that I can still make questionable beats and produce “Der Blinkenlightz” for a tiny fraction of the cost of my modular synth.
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Only red?? Mid. Show me those Mutable cyans and Joranalogue blinding blues.
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You get what you pay for.
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Semi-colorful
Matrixbrute?