What synth/modular gear do you have/use?

[Post Mortem Ejaculation]

Hardware synths and modular gear! who's got em? what do you make with them?? share your knowledge and power with us.

I use these synths everyday

Arturia Microfreak
Arturia Drumbrute
Make Noise Strega
Make Noise 0-COAST
Behringer CRAVE

I also have a modular rig but I don't use it to make tunes as much as I use it to make samples and loops to create with

Mutable Instruments Plaits
WMD Metron
WMD/SSF MMF Filter
WMD MSCL
WMD Overseer
Acid Rain Technology Maestro
Knobular Poly Cinematic
Alright Devices Chronoblob 2
Instruo Harmonaig
Make Noise Spectraphon
Make Noise Maths
Intellijel Dixie II
Intellijel Quad VCA
Intellijel 1u Steppy
DNIPRO Krait


I literally use the Arturia Microfreak every single day. shit is amazing and I highly suggest it if you are already into hardware synths or are interested in jumping in, the newest update added granular synthesis and you can load your own sounds its so next level



I made this entire EP using the Arturia Microfreak

[Hunter]

I made a conscious decision to avoid modular synths. Knowing mydelf, i'd get trapped in the "Just need one more module..." thing too easily. My current gear is:

Hydrasynth Explorer
Korg Minilogue XD
Korg OpSix
Korg Volca Beats
Korg Volca Drum
Korg SQ-64
Novation Circuit Tracks
Novation Circuit Rhythm
Waldorf Striechfett
Moog Werkstat
Behringer Model D
Arturia Microfreak
Arturia Drumbrute Impact
NI Maschine MK3

The Microfreak is my most recent pick up - I got it cheap because the program select encoder is screwy. The problem isn't what I thought it was, so I have to send it to Arturia for repair. I can still do some sound design with it, but haven't gotten too deep with it yet. But it's super expressive, easy to use, and the matrix feels pretty intuitive. Same characteristics that make me a big fan of the Hydrasynth.

This isn't typical of the stuff I make, but i don't know what is:

[Post Mortem Ejaculation]

looks like you know what's up. nice gear man. The Hydrasynth is looks awesome. The modular rabbit hole is fucked up and is so expensive you are a wise man for turning away from that path. it's the penultimate way to get Gear Acquisition Syndrome.

I like your tune, do you have a Soundcloud or Spotify?

[Hunter]

I got a chance to check out the Hordes stuff today and dig it! I'm not familiar with Boards of Canada tbh, which is probably weird considering how huge and influential they are. It's up my alley, but it's a massive blindspot for me. Dug the other tracks you've posted as well!

I put up random one offs on my Soundcloud page, primarily remixes and novelties: https://soundcloud.com/hunter_s

Lately, I've been posting some tracks on youtube and once I have a good amount on there, I'll collect them and put 'em on Bandcamp or something. I have a ton of material but it's mostly either not finished, feels too old, or I'm waiting for some reason or another.

What DAW are you using for recording? Do you do most of your composition in the DAW? I've been on a kick where I sequence everything externally, then record everything live. It's kind of a hassle, but I'm trying to cut down on the amount of time I sit in front of a monitor and it prevents me from fucking with things forever.

[Post Mortem Ejaculation]

I just followed you on SC, I use Ableton, I finally bought it last year after using it for over 20 years, decided they finally deserve my 700 bucks.

I have also been sequencing music on my hardware and syncing everything to my Drumbrute or if I don't use that I sync to my key step pro. it has 4 different sets of CV outs so I can control 3 synths and a drum machine from there too, the CV outs on the Keystep pro are super killer and with the Midi Control Center software you can set up the CV to do rad shit. I bought one of those shitty little behringer mixers and make and demo most ofd my music outside the computer first even if I replace the drums with better samples later

I also know how to draw drums and all my riffs and shit, I don't even use a my Push or a Keyboard to do anything if im making dubstep or drum and bass because Im literally drawing all the automatons and shit so its easier to just draw the riffs and drums


Billionaires Suck is psychedelic. Your tunes are pretty rad, Penis shaped picture of my mom. hahahahahah wtf dude. yes

[Warpsmasher]

I had a nice rack full of modules for a good while, and recorded some cool stuff while it was around, but eventually it became more of a decoration and an OCD jenga project than an instrument, and then my usage just dropped off to nothing for over a year...and I've always gotten all my real work done on the computer anyway, so I sold it all off early this year and have pretty much replaced all the best pedals I sold when jumping in (Pitchfactor, Space, Multiwave Distortion, etc) and mostly gone back to pedals as a more modest and maintainable, and occasional, gear fetish.
I recently got a Volca Sample; the Pico drums modules got me on the kick of wanting hardware gear to play with my own samples. My main synth now is a beat up Arturia Keylab 49 from 2012 or so with some bent up keys, but they all work and the preset package is fucking amazing, probably the best thing on the market. I will most likely upgrade to a Keylab 88 at some point in the future...or grab an Alesis QS8 off craigslist for a stealy nice price and just keep using the Arturia software. For modular I'm mainly just chopping out pieces of old rack recordings now, but I'll still mess with VCV Rack once in a while, and have a small collection of saved patches from it (being able to save all those hours of patchwork is the main edge it has over a hardware rack).
I don't even have a proper interface at the moment, I'm using multi-fx like Digitech RP360 and Boss GT-001 as external soundcards to connect my monitors when needed. The sweetest thing about that is that with the GT-001, you can run the keylab synth audio from the computer through all the Boss effects I had an Allen & Heath mixer with some cool fx that was my interface, but the usb connection flaked out, so I'm in the market for something new and looking at DJ mixers.

[Warpsmasher]

For modules I really enjoyed the Moffenzeef stuff, Trogotronic, WMD, X1L3, noizy kvlt shit like that. Roland Scooper was lots of fun too. Never got to try any of the Erica Synths tube modules but they all look very luxurious. I feel like I did it well while I was in it, and maybe I'll do it again sometime, but for now I just don't have enough space or need to justify it.

[Post Mortem Ejaculation]

I had a nice rack full of modules for a good while, and recorded some cool stuff while it was around, but eventually it became more of a decoration and an OCD jenga project than an instrument, and then my usage just dropped off to nothing for over a year...and I've always gotten all my real work done on the computer anyway, so I sold it all off early this year and have pretty much replaced all the best pedals I sold when jumping in (Pitchfactor, Space, Multiwave Distortion, etc) and mostly gone back to pedals as a more modest and maintainable, and occasional, gear fetish.
I recently got a Volca Sample; the Pico drums modules got me on the kick of wanting hardware gear to play with my own samples. My main synth now is a beat up Arturia Keylab 49 from 2012 or so with some bent up keys, but they all work and the preset package is fucking amazing, probably the best thing on the market. I will most likely upgrade to a Keylab 88 at some point in the future...or grab an Alesis QS8 off craigslist for a stealy nice price and just keep using the Arturia software. For modular I'm mainly just chopping out pieces of old rack recordings now, but I'll still mess with VCV Rack once in a while, and have a small collection of saved patches from it (being able to save all those hours of patchwork is the main edge it has over a hardware rack).
I don't even have a proper interface at the moment, I'm using multi-fx like Digitech RP360 and Boss GT-001 as external soundcards to connect my monitors when needed. The sweetest thing about that is that with the GT-001, you can run the keylab synth audio from the computer through all the Boss effects I had an Allen & Heath mixer with some cool fx that was my interface, but the usb connection flaked out, so I'm in the market for something new and looking at DJ mixers.

Im at pedal acquisition is the stage of the sickness too man, I really want to get one of the Neon Egg Planetarium pedals but there is a huge waiting list.

Arturia is truly killing it in the soft synth / vst world, Everyone is all about Serum but Pigments is so fucking sick, it's my goto synth most of the time, that and phaseplant is so amazing too. I make most of own subs in Operator but I recently bought SublabXL and it does all the harmonics baked into the sub hits even on cell phone speakers type shit and im really into it so far.

I use a Komplete Audio 6 sound card and its a real workhorse and built for traveling around its heavy as shit, One of friends I produce with here just got that UA Volt interface for his portable rig and if I was in the market for one id Sweetwater one of those for 15 bucks a month or whatever they do. its really fucking nice.

[Hunter]

I just followed you on SC, I use Ableton, I finally bought it last year after using it for over 20 years, decided they finally deserve my 700 bucks.

I have also been sequencing music on my hardware and syncing everything to my Drumbrute or if I don't use that I sync to my key step pro. it has 4 different sets of CV outs so I can control 3 synths and a drum machine from there too, the CV outs on the Keystep pro are super killer and with the Midi Control Center software you can set up the CV to do rad shit. I bought one of those shitty little behringer mixers and make and demo most ofd my music outside the computer first even if I replace the drums with better samples later

I also know how to draw drums and all my riffs and shit, I don't even use a my Push or a Keyboard to do anything if im making dubstep or drum and bass because Im literally drawing all the automatons and shit so its easier to just draw the riffs and drums

Billionaires Suck is psychedelic. Your tunes are pretty rad, Penis shaped picture of my mom. hahahahahah wtf dude. yes

Thanks for checking it out - I don't post my tracks often and don't know many people who are into beats or electronic music, so I keep it to myself for the most part.

I'd like to get a Polyend Play or Deluge as the centerpiece for sequencing, but have also had eyes on an Arturia ___Step Pro for a while. The Korg SQ-64 is cool, but it's glitchy. I also used a Circuit Tracks to sequence gear for a while, but that has it's own limitations. Sequencing in Ableton seems like a breeze, especially to get ideas out quick. I've been meaning to give Ableton a shot, but I've been using Logic for so long that it's the path of least resistance.

I had a nice rack full of modules for a good while, and recorded some cool stuff while it was around, but eventually it became more of a decoration and an OCD jenga project than an instrument, and then my usage just dropped off to nothing for over a year...and I've always gotten all my real work done on the computer anyway, so I sold it all off early this year and have pretty much replaced all the best pedals I sold when jumping in (Pitchfactor, Space, Multiwave Distortion, etc) and mostly gone back to pedals as a more modest and maintainable, and occasional, gear fetish.

I recently got a Volca Sample; the Pico drums modules got me on the kick of wanting hardware gear to play with my own samples. My main synth now is a beat up Arturia Keylab 49 from 2012 or so with some bent up keys, but they all work and the preset package is fucking amazing, probably the best thing on the market. I will most likely upgrade to a Keylab 88 at some point in the future...or grab an Alesis QS8 off craigslist for a stealy nice price and just keep using the Arturia software. For modular I'm mainly just chopping out pieces of old rack recordings now, but I'll still mess with VCV Rack once in a while, and have a small collection of saved patches from it (being able to save all those hours of patchwork is the main edge it has over a hardware rack).
I don't even have a proper interface at the moment, I'm using multi-fx like Digitech RP360 and Boss GT-001 as external soundcards to connect my monitors when needed. The sweetest thing about that is that with the GT-001, you can run the keylab synth audio from the computer through all the Boss effects I had an Allen & Heath mixer with some cool fx that was my interface, but the usb connection flaked out, so I'm in the market for something new and looking at DJ mixers.

I sold my Volca Sample because it was the version without the USB port, so swapping samples was a pain in the ass. The newer version seems pretty ideal, although could use some more storage space. For the price, it's great.

My biggest problem with modular gear (as well as vintage analog or clone synths) is the lack of presets. Dialing in new sounds when I sit down to make music eats up time I don't necessarily have these days. I should start messing around with VCV rack though - as that is pretty damn ideal, but I do miss turning a filter knob with softsynths.

I'm confused about how you're running synth audio through the a multi-fx pedal - I'm assuming it's over the usb connection, but is it the DAW that is routing the audio to it? Could you run stuff you've already recorded in the DAW out of GT-001 through other pedals and record the results? How's the latency? I don't use my pedals enough, mostly because it's inconvenient - but that sounds pretty rad. I need to look into audio routing more, as I bet I could use the Maschine in a similar way.

Im at pedal acquisition is the stage of the sickness too man, I really want to get one of the Neon Egg Planetarium pedals but there is a huge waiting list.

Yeah, that thing is bonkers. It's tough for me to justify dropping so much $ on boutique pedals, but the GAS is real.

[Warpsmasher]

I'm confused about how you're running synth audio through the a multi-fx pedal - I'm assuming it's over the usb connection, but is it the DAW that is routing the audio to it? Could you run stuff you've already recorded in the DAW out of GT-001 through other pedals and record the results? How's the latency? I don't use my pedals enough, mostly because it's inconvenient - but that sounds pretty rad. I need to look into audio routing more, as I bet I could use the Maschine in a similar way.

The GT-001 has 2 stereo in and out usb interfaces, and USB 2 is placed at the front of the fx chain in the editing software, with the main in and output of the unit being set to USB 1. USB 2 can be assigned to a single app like the Arturia standalone software, or the main computer output, so you can also process and record things like youtube, itunes, basically all desktop audio playback as input to the unit, and the USB 1 output gets recorded by your choice of recording app (soundforge in my case) and monitored on the monitors, which are connected directly to it. Sometimes I'll leave it connected and just have a clean studio compressor on for movies and videos. You can go nuts with it on some home theater bi-amping and subwoofery, and it has a phantom power xlr input, which is nice since it makes a great vocal fx unit too.