I want to make a demo rack for Audulus that will give me a lot of stuff to work with to make demos. I want to be able to show the power of ES-8 + Audulus. I’m going to ditch the small rack that I have and get a bigger one - possibly the Arturia 2x88hp rack.
I know I can make a ton of videos with Maths + Audulus, and do some cool stuff with polyphony with 3xDoepfer uPVCOs, but I need some input. I’m willing to get some stuff that I might not necessarily need/want to do my own music, but stuff that can show off the breadth of what you can do with Audulus + ES-8 that will convince people to get both and integrate it with their Eurorack systems.
This is an extension of the announcement I made here, but thought it deserved its own thread:
Idea #1 - demo of the sequencing and modulation of a powerful oscillator + powerful filter combo, maybe plus a VCA with a mixing capability.
I have Primary osc from Pittsburgh and Belgrad from XAOC, and there’s a lot of CV destinations on these modules, perhaps modulating all of them would make an impression (the goal is to get as much colours as possible)
Idea #2 - demo of Karplus - Strong synthesis with an analog filter. If you manage to find a formula for Karplus - Strong pitch tracking, and have the delay line and sequencing in Audulus - that also should be powerful. But the roundtrip latency of ES-8 will probably make this harder.
Idea #3 - demo of a live-set with different songs with no re-patching or anything (its your idea actually)
I also think simpler patches and ideas would serve better here,rather than something complicated and hard to understand.
This! I think a lot of demos would be just ES-8, Audulus, and one other module. People may not have all the modules or equivalents I have in their rack, but everyone’s got an oscillator, or an envelope, or an LFO, etc.
The way I think about the ES-8 with Audulus is that it can add or extend the use of individual modules to make them more powerful.
Here are all the categories on Modular Grid - I can see maybe how getting a sequencer would be useful (to show how you can make a sequencer more powerful + Audulus) but what about stuff like S&H and LFOs? Should I get one module from each?
I think getting each type of module would be an over-over-overkill.
Regarding LFOs and S&H - usually they are simpler than a seq, so I guess they are simpler to expand and make more powerful with Audulus. For example, wavefolding one lfo with 3 different (and perhaps with modulation on the amount, shape, symmetry and so on of each one) wavefolders, delaying them with 3 separate delaylines, sending them from Audulus to 3 different CV inputs on the hardware - BAM! Pimp my LFO
LOL, now that @futureaztec has completed his custom purpose case it’s your turn XD.
The Rackbrute us actually a surprisingly affordable option for how much power it gives. I would also encourage you to look at the Pittsburgh cases, which have great power supplies and travel well.
Honestly, the Doepfer VCOs are a mistake to me as they have no features which can’t be emulated within Audulus apart from their analog timbre, and that dense grid of jacks is going to be hard show what’s going on. But I guess if you want three saw waves going into a mixer it’s fine. Then again, three distings would work just as well and do a million other things. Or one Plaits module can do anything those three combines can do as well as other interesting/useful sounds which are otherwise inconvenient to patch.
Why no mutable modules? They really are some of the most interesting modules on the market and popular for good reason. Plaits and Marbles are high on my list of modules to acquire. Also Ears would be a great module to include since so many people have it and it’s a great way to physically interact with the modular and Audulus.
Mordax Data or some other oscilloscope is going to be needed as visualizing what’s going on with the demo is so much easier when you can see the waveform. How else are people really going to understand what is going on with a module like the AWM-3?
Sequencers are also nice to have in your rack. I see the Muxlixer, but that is practically a replica of what you have in Audulus. Take a look at Variegate 8+/voltage block or Mimetic Digitalis. I’d also throw Turing Machine type sequencers in there (obviously the original) such as TINRS Tuesday.
Anywho, this is all very exciting. Let me know if I can help in any way. Here is my current set up:
Makenoise Case
Pittsburgh case and Moog skiff that work together.
What I like about the Rackbrute is the potential for expansion and just in general the finish looks better. I love Pittsburgh’s sound but not in love with the look of their modules or their cases.
Yeah mostly what I was thinking with them is I already have one, then if I have two more, I can do polyphony as a demonstration and also pipe them into Audulus, have them modulate one another with VCAs and whatnot, push them back out etc. Plaits looks awesome but I feel like for beginner demonstration purposes, it’s best to have at least one just pure analog oscillator so people can wrap their heads around the concept and translate it to their own rigs for their own modules.
I love their stuff but part of me thinks I want more gear that is harder to replicate in Audulus (4) than most of the Mutable stuff is. That’s why the rack in general tends towards more analog stuff - showing how using a hybrid approach can get you more out of your modules. I’m not sure how Audulus could make Marbles or a lot of their modules “better” you know? That said, Ears, or something like it, wouldn’t be a bad choice!
I was planning on doing demos with a scope on screen in an inset - hopefully in an Audulus 4 scope. Would seem redundant/overkill to have Mordax, though I do miss mine.
Like I mentioned here, I wanted to show how people can use the modules they already have with Audulus to make them “better.” The Variegate 8 et al are great modules, but they’re a little menu-divey for video demos where I’m envisioning mostly stuff like “Hey take your normal X step sequencer, then pipe it into Audulus, combine it with another sequencer digitally, then pipe it back out - you can expand its abilities while keeping it performance-oriented” - that kinda thing.
Lots of questions feel free to answer as many or as little as you want:
How do you like Bermuda? I was looking at that, especially since it’s so affordable, simple, and has that cool selfmod function, but was wondering how well it tracked.
Part of me wants to make some videos on the side on my own account where I can possibly monitize it, and having a really common module like Rings and showing tips and tricks with it appeals to me. That said, I feel torn cause again I mentioned a lot of Mutable stuff could be replicated in Audulus 4 with great fidelity.
Should I have more analog VCAs? I feel like part of what I want to show is how Audulus + ES-8 is the infinite VCA, so not sure if it would be useful to have more analog ones, especially ones that aren’t explicitly there to add character like the TubeVCA.
I’ve been intrigued by Atlantis, but also heard it had problems with tuning? What’s your experience?
How you like that TG module? I think the whole line is amazing!
What do you think about what @fedor said of Chronoblob vs Doepfer BBD?
I’m open to getting a complex oscillator instead of 3xuPVCOs, but what do you think Audulus could do with it that will expand its abilities?
Turing Machine - again, what do you think Audulus can add to it, since we have our own version?
I think another argument in favor of one or two mutable modules is familiarity. A lot of people will have Plaits in their rack and if you show how Audulus can augment it, then you can persuade people to use Audulus. For example, the model for Plaits is CV addressable but most cases aren’t going to have a sequencer that can easily recall the voltage for a particular model. This is a simple task in Audulus.
One of the best thing about Audulus is it actually frees me from obsessing over having enough oscillators since they are as infinite as the VCAs when you stay within the iPad. Making a poly patch on a modular is something I have done a couple of times in the past and it gets to a point where I realize why fixed architecture synths took over the poly market. Similarly, very rarely do I feel the need to bring in an external modulation source. Audulus excels at almost everything modulation related. Where I find the need for external gear is recalling specific sequences or having a knob to turn in a performance context.
I love it! the new uBermuda looks just as good if not better since it has a deeper maximum FM depth and hard sync. The self modulation shifts the center frequency a little, but the range of timbre is worth having to slightly retune. Tracking is only an issue if you don’t recalibrate the oscillator for your rack since it uses the power rails as a reference and every case is minutely different. Fun fact, I used the Audulus zerocross node to calibrate the Bermuda and it worked perfectly. That’s another video you could probably make.
It can and it presumably will at some point, but as I said earlier the reason to feature Mutable stuff is exactly because it’s a point of entry for a lot of new modular users and showing how Audulus works hand in glove with your existing modules will doubtlessly appeal to viewers.
I only have a few stand alone VCAs, which are there for coloration (Doepfer stuff is actually pretty dirty) The Intellijel Quad VCA is a mixer most of the time with CV there if I want to bring theings in and out of the mix with an LFO. The Moddemix is a CV mixer/ring mod half the time, a VCA for the AJH and Bermuda the other half before they are fed into the Polaris. I tend not to want to use Audulus as a VCA because it uses up inputs and at this point I basically use input 1 for clock, 2&3 for CV and gate, and 4 for external audio processing. But obviously there are no real limitations.
Tuning? Nope, you Just need to be careful not to bump the master volume knob and allow it to warm up for 20 min. Other than that, it’s a great sh-101 style synth voice that can be deconstructed into 2 oscillators, ADSR, noise, S&H, and a filter.
Absolutely filthy distortion, and having a flashing red lightning bolt makes me happy. I love running filters with excessive resonance through it as it compressed the dynamics while giving you something sonically more interesting than a loud sine wave.
I run the send and receive of the feedback loop through various filters for the BBD sound. It’s more flexible than BBD because it can take on more characters. It also has the advantage of being clock sync-able and can freeze the buffer for stutter effects. If I want BBD, I have a minifooger delay pedal, which is seeing less and less use.
I think complex oscillators have the advantage or normalized pathways, so in the middle of a patch, you can insert a patch cord into the DPO and it immediately changes the sound. Also, you gave that analog chaos of cross modulation without any digital latency or aliasing. It’s definitely possible to replicate some of the timbres in Audulus, but what can I say I love my DPO.
Mostly the tactility of live performance. This is a case where the emulation is pretty much as good as the real thing but I always want it available in my case since I know how useful it is. I have a file called “quick patch” that is basically a uTuring with attenuation and offset run through a quantizer with a pulse output, and it’s been a pleasure to have the hardware version of that as a starting point to patch with.
I will get back to these responses when I’m done cooking dinner, but I just pulled the trigger on the Arturia case and also got a Roland 505 filter with it!
It’s got an integrated VCA and lots of other bells and whistles (not to mention it sounds great) so I think it will be awesome to demo with.
This will be the initial first step of the rack - plenty of CV outs to tweak the oscillator as well as filter envelope and VCA. The mixer will be used to mix the waveforms and add a suboscillator sound using its feedback configuration.
Yeah, that was kind of an epic post, huh? Hard to go wrong with a Roland filter. I think the 500 series is made in Japan now and they have better calibration than the units that were hitting the market a few years back.
There is of course the old Modular proverb, “Buy slowly and you will not need advice on what to buy, because you will discover through practice what it is.”
I don’t typically go for the Mutable Instruments stuff as well just because they appear in almost every rack you see on YouTube and ModularGrid. However, it’s for that very same reason that I would agree with @robertsyrett that you should definitely get some Mutable in your rack. Seeing a familiar module in a passing youtube video image I think would be enough to get a lot more eyes clicking onto your video.
Maybe some more effects-driven modules or pedal interface modules (for those guit-fiddle players and such) to use with stompboxes like the Geiger Counter Pro or other CV-ready foot pedals? (the Geiger Counter Pro has 2 CV inputs controllable over any parameter btw) I know Dwarfcraft has some new CV-ready ones as well and my good friend Nick at DFX here in Salt Lake City will be implementing CV in many of his stompboxes coming out (I know the F.M. Fuzz has a CV/expression in). My stompbox effects interface is a GPI by Retro Mechanical Labs. Some CV-ready stompbox eye candy for your viewing pleasure:
Even an expression pedal interface like the Bastl Clutch can be useful with Audulus. I’ve used a Moog EP-3 expression pedal with this module before with the ES-8 and Audulus to turn my foot into the knob twiddler in Audulus while playing my bass through different Audulus effects or even as just a mixer control.
The Alter 1 and Alter 2 by Folktek would also offer some tasty CV-controllable DSP effects (glitchy delays, tunable short delays, infinite reverb, etc.)
I think it would definitely be useful to see some drum voice modules being fully controlled by Audulus. The Tea Kick by Bastl comes to mind for a fully analog. Digital drum voices like the Noise Engineering Basimilus Iteritas Alter or Manis Iteritas would also probably turn a few heads. And because I’m basically obsessed with Folktek, I’ll leave a pretty image of the Matter ii module here as well.
I don’t see any sampler-heavy modules in the rack. I think a big one that could be missing and one that I personally use quite a bit with Audulus and the ES-8 is the Make Noise Morphagene. Updates to the firmware allow for 1 volt per octave modulation through the Varispeed input and many other pretty useful features like phase modulation using the input from the Right channel when nothing is plugged into the Left input. A lot of possible Audulus control can be utilized with this sampler/digital tape delay/granular effects monster.
I probably gave you a lot of gear suggests that won’t be for the masses and your main focus of this new rack, but I think the take away should be the Morphagene suggestion. That thing is shared in eurorack gear videos all the time and has a lot of great control points to be tapped into with Audulus.
Yeah I kind of overlooked samplers since I picked up an Octatrack, but the morphogene would be a good fit as it is widely known and a strong complement to what Audulus provides.
also man, that matter II module looks so beautiful
What do you think Audulus has to offer to the Morphagene? Part of me wants to stay away from more complex modules like this one because people might get more lost in the module itself rather than what Audulus is doing for it in the demo. Open to suggestions though!
That’s a fair rebuttal! The Morphagene is super easy to get lost in. Basically just CV controlling any part of it, clocking it, and gate-triggering the start/stop of the sample or shifting to the next splice. I will try and get a video recorded of some more focused Audulus/Morphagene control to upload as an example.
I have a few of these - TipTop audio ones. I might sell them and get different ones, but I’m not sure which ones yet. I like the TT ones they’re just a little limited sonically. I figured I’d build up the heart of the synth first and have drums be further down the list. Good thing is with my Arturia case it’s easy to add on an extra one and have them lock in together!
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