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Welcome to the Sound On Sound Electronic Music Podcast channel. My name's Julian Rogers. In this episode, I'm joined by James Richmond, who among many other skills, has experience and opinions on modular synthesisers.
Today we'll be discussing the good and the bad of these synthesist of synthesisers. James Richmond is a composer, producer and audio engineer working across electronic and guitar based music. He's a guitarist and producer for Liam Vincent and the Odd Foxes has released experimental electronic work under the name Euclidean circuits and has a solo project called The Deathbird. He also develops bespoke audio tools through event field audio and writes about music production, studio systems and monitoring from his hybrid, modular and analogue studio. Welcome, James. Good to see you. Hi folks. How are we all? So, being on the Electronic Music channel, we can probably assume a certain level of familiarity, but we should probably just say, so modular. What's a modular synth, James?
Yeah, I guess when we talk about, uh, a modular synthesizer, we are really talking about a system where a signal path isn't predefined. So in a conventional hardware synth, you have a fixed internal architecture for the most part, and, uh, you know. A, a classic example would be the oscillator goes to the filter, the filter goes to the amplifier, and then modulation is, uh, routed according to the designer's decisions.
But in a modular system, those relationships only exist when you patch them and that shifts the role of the musician from simply selecting and playing sounds to designing the instrument itself. And so it becomes less about choosing presets and more about designing behavior, relationships, and signal flow.
I feel schooled. I feel schooled already. I mean, it's, that's, that's how I think of it. Yeah, it, that's, uh, it sounds good to me. Uh, I mean, it's probably worth pointing out that modular synthesisers were the first synthesisers, in fact, just, just electronic test equipment cobbled together because it existed before synthesisers is probably it.
What about semi-modular? What's that?
Well, I guess semi modular is a mixture of a fixed architecture and an open environment. So if I think about something like I would say a, um, an arturia matrix brute is probably a good example of that, where you've got the ability to patch in with, um, you know, the cables to the eighth inch eurorack style cables.
But largely the, uh, the, uh, environment, the patching of the synthesizer is, is pretty fixed. Um, you know. It's a movable feast though. What you could define as a a, a semi modular could. Could go all the way up to being almost fully modular and, and, and, you know, all the way to, to simply being a fixed architecture synthesizer with a few patch points, which I think probably the matrix brute would be best described as the one I was thinking of was the mini brute, I think.
But yeah, Arturia. Love, love that. Another, another one certainly popularized it again. So tell us about how you got into modular synthesizers. 'cause you're very, I mean, your profile photo shows that you've spent, spent a bit of time. Yeah. Um, uh, shopping, shall we say, and, and using, I'm not, I'm not trying to suggest you don't, you don't use the tools.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. So how did you, how did you form your habit? So, I, I got into synthesis way back in the mid nineties when I was working in a music shop. And I was actually a guitarist at the time. But I, and I wanted to work in this guitar shop 'cause I wanted the, the, the staff discount. Um, but they didn't have any guitar roll, so this is completely true.
So I blanked my way into the, what was called the high tech department, and they had some max, some keyboards, a bit of mid gear, a little bit of sort of old stuff, but most of it was sort of the JV 10 80 Eliss QOR type, uh, synthesizer. In fact, they were my first two synthesizers, and it wasn't really until I.
Bought a June oh six 60 and 1 0 6, you know, until I really understood synthesis in a, in a tactile way. Mm-hmm. In terms of modular, well, I, I got into it really by max, by cycling 74 and reactor by native instruments. So just explain very briefly what those, what those softwares are. Okay, so Reactor, I guess, is an open object oriented coding language.
Well, it's not really a coding language, it's, it's a series of blocks that you connect by cables, and, and Max is very similar as well. So a, a friend of mine I used to play chess with and, and they got into go and they referred. To, uh, go as chess for grownups. And I think Max is sort of like reactor for grownups that you can do an awful lot more in Max than you can do in Reactor.
It has a whole audio visual component to it. It's, it's a, a really incredible environment, um, to, to be working in the. The way I got into it, I guess, was, I had a bit of a background in, um, corporate IT at, you know, 20 odd years ago, that's what I was doing for a living. And, um, so I'd had a bit of coding, a bit of scripting experience, although I don't really think of myself as, as a coder.
Um, and it just felt like a natural way of drifting into it. This was really before Euro Iraq and the, the modern modular explosion happened. Mm-hmm. Um, so, so I got into, um. Modular since really by, uh, by getting into the eurorack form format are probably around 20 16, 20 17, I think. Oh, so relatively recently.
Okay. Relatively recent, but, but I'd had, since, since the nineties. Mm, I, I was in the, uh, mid two thousands. So I was living in the US and amassed quite a collection because people were basically throwing them away, uh, and going soft since, and then when I moved back here to the uk, I, I did the same thing. I, I sold everything 'cause I didn't have the space and went soft since.
So. You know, the reason I mention it is. My interest in, in modular came out of the limitations that I felt with, um, the, the, the architectural limitation of soft
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sense. You know, I love hands-on control. Um, so getting some hardware synthesizers was what started that again, you know, sort of the, the third bite of the cherry really of getting hardware synthesizers.
But I wanted to go deeper with modulation and routing options and I just didn't feel that I was getting that. Inside soft sense or inside, um, fixed architecture hardware sense. So that's where I got into, uh, got into Eurorack. Um, and it was to leverage some composition ideas I had with Max. So I, I really bought my first few, few modules in order to use them with Max and with Reactor.
Mm-hmm. Um. So, you know, I, I just really like the open architecture of a, of a modulus. Synth. It feels like free expression. Mm. You know, you've got an output from something and you just patch it into the input of something else. There's no negotiation with menus. There's no limitations imposed upon you. It either works or it doesn't.
And if it doesn't, you figure out why. Yeah, yeah. And it's, you know, so some of my work is quite experimental in process, even if the results don't. Always sound that experimental. Well, sometimes they do. You know, I now write bespoke applications that use stochastic algorithms and probability based workflows.
So with a conventional mid synth, integrating this can sort of feel a bit bolted on where modular feels aligned with, with that way of working. There's something I, I feel modular has indeterminacy baked into it in a way that a, a scent that you go and buy in a shop doesn't. Mm. Fair. Yeah. Fair. Okay. Um, so I mean, we've, we've kind of already crept into what I was gonna ask you about next, which is, um, um, what's the appeal?
Why do you like modular? There are easier ways to get there than modular, but people who, who get into modular, it tends to be, it tends to be a bit of a, kind of a, a one-way ticket. They disappear into modular, sometimes never to be seen again. So, yeah. What happened? That's absolutely a trap as well. Um, which we can, I guess, talk about a bit as, uh, as well.
Um, so I guess what a modular system gives me is freedom from architectural assumptions that are built into the conventional fixed architecture synth. So even a, a very flexible hardware synth. You are working inside someone else's signal flow primarily. Um. The designer has decided what talks to what, what's normal and what you can modulate and, and, and has decided that you only want you, you're only going to need two envelopes.
Yeah, yeah. And, you know, cross modulation or, or using a, uh, using a modulator to modulate another modulator, you know, there's, that's often, you know, maybe not possible or not possible in the way that I would want, so. Modular is there's, there's no default signal path. And so nothing happens unless you patch it.
So you're not just choosing sounds, you're actually defining the relationship between the components. And that means you are largely unencumbered by those limitations of a fixed system. Or to put another way, you are building the sense Yeah, you're you're building your own. Yeah. Not just a synth, you are building a system.
Mm-hmm. And that, and for me, that's the, the important thing. So. And, and for me that's deeply appealing because I'm, I'm probably interested in systems as much as I am in sounds. I don't just want a tone. I want behavior, I want interaction, and I want to a degree architecture. And, you know, one thing I've really, uh, realized about myself is I, I dislike.
Patch browsing in plugins. And so I'll happily spend like a whole day building a modular patch, but I won't spend 10 minutes scrolling through presets in Omnisphere trying to find something I like. Well, not just Omnisphere any other, any other soft synth or, or really any other hardware synth. So this something deeply, uh, deadening creatively about auditioning, finished sounds that were designed by someone else.
It feels like shopping. Rather than composing, it's funny you use that word just 'cause I, I used to teach synthesis and um, I used to encourage them to build their own patches and I used to use exactly that kind of language. I used to say, building your sound is, is making something, it's synthesis. Whereas choosing a patch is online shopping.
Yeah. It, it, it absolutely is. And that's not to disrespect anyone that's, you could, you could refer to it as curation if you wanted to be kind of high-minded about it. And there's nothing wrong with that because making the right decision is the most difficult thing about music production. Completely. How get there is there.
So I'm, I want to give that caveat, uh, and, and I, and I completely agree. I, I care about outcomes. I don't really care about the, the, um. How you get there, how you get there is fine. Provided, you know, people are honest about how they're doing it and, uh, not just banging something into Suno and calling it their, their original work.
But that's a whole different podcast, can't they? We, we won't go there. Um, but yeah, no, and, and if pe particularly if people are earlier on in their journey with, with this sort of stuff, it's perfectly valid to, um, to start by opening a plugin, finding what you like, where I think people. Harm their own creative development is when that's the end of the conversation.
There's no, oh, okay. How many oscillators is that? Oh, what's happening here with this modulation? Okay, well, what's that? This patch is combining this with that and okay, well now I get it. If that bit doesn't happen, then people don't grow and they stay in that pet shopping. Um, place literally forever. So, I mean, if, if we're talking about modular synthesizers, I mean, um, I would suggest that they're, um, they're a destination and not a starting point.
That, um, that they're a solution for the limitations that you've found. Getting to know hardwired synthesizers, I suppose what I'm saying is if you dunno anything about synthesis. Possibly don't buy
modular first. Would you agree with that? Uh, I don't know. Um, I think it depends on what your goal is. Um, certainly in the early days, that's all people could do.
You know, you, you started with a modular synthesizer because nothing else existed and, um, people probably. Did Okay. I, I, I wasn't around then, so I don't really fully know. I was gonna say that is quite a while ago now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, but so I guess however you get there is however you get there. What, what I also like about modular is how it, um, excels, uh, how do I say this?
Um. It's great at permeability between domains. So audio rate modulation can go anywhere, feedback can exist between modulation sources. Logic can shape envelopes. So the boundaries between pitch rhythm, uh, timur start to blur. So, so at that point, are you building a preset or are you building an ecosystem?
I, I think it's an ecosystem and, and that's what's incredibly exciting about it for me. Okay. It's not nostalgia, uh, it's not really a nostalgia machine. It's, it's about agency. You're not inheriting someone else's assumptions about how synthesis should. Uh, behave. And you, you stop asking, what patch do I like?
And you start by, um, asking what behavior do I want to create? And that shift is the real appeal for me. Certainly what I tend to use modulus for when I, when I play, I should I cards on table. I don't own, um, a modular system for, for lots and lots of reasons. I don't think that's something that would be helpful in my life.
But, um, I do have, um. I, I do like playing software, modular systems. I get frustrated by the lack of hands-on tactile interaction because, you know, that is much of the appeal and I'm, I suspect that's probably part of what encourages you to, you know, invest in a hardware system. Ab Absolutely. And, and these days I don't touch reactor at all unless I'm teaching people synthesis.
I occasionally tutor people, um, particularly postgraduates, uh, who, who might be learning, uh, you know. Advanced synthesis techniques and, and I'll do that in Reactor, but I won't, uh, I don't use Reactor on a day-to-day basis anymore. I still use Max because it does other things. Certainly what I'm drawn to.
Um, it, it's, it's always fun, of course to make those conventional, you know, traditional synth sounds, you know, and how do I make a, you know, a squelchy Moog bass and how do I make a string sound or something? But once you've got that out of your system, it's making those kind of generative type patches.
Where do you stand on that when you are. Using your modular system, do you find you're using it to create playable patches very much? Or are you more interested in evolving soundscapes? Yeah. Um, so I occasionally dip into that sort of world. However, I think it's, it, it, it's certainly the most representative part of modular culture, but it's not really something I do a whole lot of, A lot of what I'm interested in is, um, so I use a, um, some bespoke tools now that I've, I've developed as.
Uh, as Mac apps, but initially was doing in, in Mac where I would take, uh, text or I'll take live audio, convert it to text, and then convert that text to Morse code and then convert that Morse code, you know, either to media or to cv, and then do interesting things with it. Uh, so my use of modular could be sort of some fairly, uh, I guess I don't wanna say research, music.
Um, uh, approach, but something in that, in that sort of realm, trying to do things that have never been done before with, um, or, or at least not, not, I haven't done before in, um, in the modular world. So, you know, this idea of structured indeterminacy, you know, so. Uh, that, that for me is what I, what I try and do, but also I will use it as an ideas, uh, generating system.
So I might just sit down and see what I can come up with. I'm often always in, well, I'm almost always in record, so you actually can, I've, I've got a, a record of me building patches as well as them playing, and then I go through a, a lengthy review process of, okay. What worked here? What was great? What, where are the ideas?
What is the finished piece? Well, what is, um, what are the elements that I can then collage together in a DAW or in, you know, Ableton Live or Pro Tools or whatever. Into something that, that feels like a finished piece of music. What I'm hearing here is that it sounds like with a modular synthesizer comes a certain amount of, uh, unpredictability, a certain amount of difficulty around, around recreating exactly what you had.
And it sounds like that's the thing that you like. Am I being fair there? Yeah. So, um, modulars, modular syn are, I guess, famously described as being unpredictable, but, but actually modern modular systems, particularly eurorack systems are pretty stable. You know, this isn't 1970s, um, hardware anymore. The power supply's really solid and the tuning's far more reliable.
You know, the digital modules are super precise and the clocking can be sample accurate if you want it to be. Um, so if you want to patch in a deterministic way, it will behave in a de deterministic way usually. Um, so unpredictability isn't necessarily so inherent to the format as maybe it once was. Um, however, um, if you introduce.
Stochastic modulation cross mod. Can, can you explain the word stochastic? It's the second time you've used it. I think we should define. Okay. Sure. So, sure. So, uh, when I say stochastic, essentially what I mean is, um, something based around probability. So you can think of weighted probability as a type of, uh, a stochastic function, a type of math, mathematical function.
It's not the only one, but say you have a six-sided dice, you've got a one in six chance of rolling a six. Well, what if you waited so that you are more likely to get a six? And if you think musically, you, you kind of want, well, I want weighted probability. I don't want, um, all of the notes of the chromatic scale or any frequency po
that's possible to particularly occur.
I usually want things to be close-ish to a major scale or a minor scale or, um, a half hole diminished or whole tone or whatever. And so using a form of weighted probability in. The, the note creation process is a way of having it sound musical but not necessarily predictable. So, so that's what a stochastic function is?
It's, it's saying it's based around profitability. I think. I think people who've used enough or, um, certainly, uh, um, software instruments would probably recognize that behavior. Now you've, now you've defined the term, we've certainly seen these probability controls which nudge things in a particular direction.
Sure, yeah, absolutely. And, and a lot of my. E Exactly. And a lot of, a lot of what I'm interested in come it, it comes from the work of people like, um, uh, John Cage, Steve Wright, um, you know, Brian Eno, the, this is the, the sound world that the people in the fifties, sixties and seventies create, these people created.
No, they were not the only ones, of course. And, um, so, so some of the. Uh, apps that I'm writing, plugins, I'm writing use, uh, probability use stochastic processes, uh, sort of centrally to them, um, as a wave of. It's, it's not a way of having the, um, the system or the, or the computer or the modular do the composition.
It just shifts really where, um, the, the, what I would call the locus of authorship, sorry. Um, it shifts it up a level. So you, you, you, you move slightly away from being a crafts person to being an architect. Mm. If you know what I mean. Yeah, and for me that's really interesting. I'm, I'm not necessarily defining every note, event or every bit of behavior.
What I'm doing is setting up an environment where interesting things that are unpredictable. Okay, but not random. Okay. Can happen. What you're saying is making sense, and I can see how you in your use, and there are lots of ways to use a modular synthesizer, but in the particular way that you, uh, are explaining you use them, um, you are not.
Embracing the, the unpredictability and just going with it, see what happens, and then spotting the good stuff. You are designing a system that means that you can engineer the amount of unpredictability, so you're getting something close to what you intended, but not exactly what you said. So, yeah, sometimes, so a, a, again, there are times where I'll sit down and just, let's see what happens, and I will patch really quickly.
I'm not really looking at what I'm doing other than. You know, I, I'm making sure that I'm, I'm, um, patching correctly, but I'm not thinking so carefully about what I'm doing. And then there are other, uh, scenarios where I have an, um, a structural idea for a composition, and it might, uh, it might have a particular point to, at that point, might be political or, you know, it might be a, you know, have a degree of social awareness around it, you know, um, cultural awareness around it.
And then I, I. Uh, deploy a very, uh, specific patching process in order to support the compositional idea. This is what's great about modular, is that it supports both of those ways of working equally. Um, again, if you can ideate the thing and you know how to deploy the thing, then the thing will happen, and that's.
You know, for me what's brilliant about it. That's, that's what I, that's why I keep doing it, I guess. Um, I, I wanna get to the practical rather than the kind of, uh, ideological with this and just kind of, okay, you set something up that's awesome, you want to do it again. How do you handle recall, right? So, um, that, that can be tricky.
It really can. Um, the. He, you know, we, we both worked as mixed engineers, I think, and, you know, the, the hassle of trying to recall analog hardware that isn't detent versus say, um, um, say a massive passive that has the mastering version where every, um, where every pot is detent. Yeah. And it's, it's, it's possible to get close, but it's not possible to, uh, replicate this entirely.
Well, just because. A modular, particularly the larger systems have so many more controls and e so, so, and the, and the way that you cross patch things, it, it, it can be really tricky to, to replicate things. So I, I tend to assume anything that I've patched that I think is really brilliant or really, really amazing sounding, I have to document it enough, but then record.
Well enough so that if I can't recreate it later, ah, ah, so using a combination of recall sheets and audio examples, you can match as closely as you can. I see. Okay. So I mean, you, you mentioned that, um, you take a modular on stage with like, basically like a sort of like guitar band. How, how does that work?
Um, yeah, so I joined a group called Liam Vincent in the Odd Foxes about three years ago. It's a folk rock band, and so not another folk rock band with the modular on stage. I mean, come on. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So. The, the idea of using modular was more pragmatic than conceptual. It's a five piece band with a virtuoso violinist, another guitarist, bass player, uh, drummer myself.
And, um, three, three of the other, um, players, uh, uh, vocalists. So there's a lot of three part harmonies going on, and so the violin and the three part harmonies are the focal point of the band. So my role in this group. Wasn't really to compete with that. My job was to be a, a more textualist, uh, uh, player and to think, I guess compositionally.
So we, I produced the most recent, um, ep, which is called Breath, blood, and Bone. I layered a lot of guitar parts in there and brought in some drones, you know, harmonium and, and what have you to widen. The, the harmonic space. I do also do a lot of live looping on the album and live, but it's not the typical build a call progression and solo over it way.
Um, a lot of the loops will change over time. It's, it's, um, built to have, um, you know, lots of filters and things, so, so even a static loop that. Won't
necessarily, um, be the same as a, you know, a bar length in the, um, in the composition. It doesn't, it doesn't evolve structurally like that. So I'm building up layers and I'm trying to shift the emotional weight.
The, the reason that the modular comes in is because sometimes I'm, uh, augmenting what I'm doing. Uh, on guitar. I'm, I'm playing guitar or mandolin. Or manola. Um, I'm also using a module at the same time, sometimes triggering, um, guitar parts that I had, uh, recorded on the album that I would like to sort of hear as sort of background layers.
And when I say guitar parts, it's, you, you would hear it and think it was probably a synthesizer. Um. The, the, the idea with this is, and so some of it's sample based process through filters and modulation and the, and the other parts of it, it's live synth voices shaped in real time, but it's, it's background textural stuff.
It could be like, if we had a, a sixth member, it might be someone playing keyboard pads, but, you know, uh, that, that sort of thing. So that's, you know, that's kind of the idea with it. Um. And because I'm doing this at the same time as playing mandolin or manola or guitar, there's, you know, there's quite a lot going on.
Um, so even though I'm a singer, I don't sing in this band. It's the, the role is that I'm carving out a, a space for other people to sit on rather than occupying the center of it, I guess. Okay. And so, I mean, this is, this is a cut down stage rig, is it, presumably it's not your wall of modules? Oh yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, the, the studio system is nine cases of the, the Intelli, you know, um, six U and nine new cases. It's like, it's a monster. It's, um, so the, so what I generally do is come out with either a little pallet case or, um, you. A, uh, one of the intelli, um, performance cases, that sort of thing. Um, it depends on how large the stage is really, uh, how much space I've got on, on, on stage.
I've got a couple of different systems and I, you know, I swap out modules sort of on a whim, really just to, okay, in this gig we're going to do these shows. I'm going to build this system. So, so that's sort of how I do it. Do you have a, a patch? Ready, patched. And, and you adapt it from, I mean, do you, I'm assuming you use it more than once during the set.
So how, how does it work? Mm. So it's pre patched in the sense that I, I arrive with a functional system on, on stage. I'm not trying to rebuild on, on the stage. Um, and I can, I can change the patching if need be, but largely it is, it is fixed. Um, and. Different songs require different elements to come in. I have a little mixer in the, in the, in the system.
Oh, okay. And I can bring in different elements as I, as I need to. Um, yeah. And it's just a matter of, okay, well that's that sound. Let's turn that sound up. Um, and then I can do some live capture as well, which I'm starting to get into. So whatever the stage sound, whatever's coming off the stage sound, I can use that
as a way, maybe as a modulation source.
Um, to effect. And is this, is, is this played live in the sense of played via a keyboard? No, no, no. I don't use a keyboard. Um, I sort of sit, I think more in the West Coast tradition, um, rather than the, the East Coast tradition. The, so, so, no, I don't, I don't use a keyboard. Um, one of the modules, um, which is a bit box module, has a little touch screen so I can trigger particular, um, samples and audio files if I need to.
But again, they go through like a filtering modulation. Process. We should probably briefly define the East coast, west coast thing. Absolutely. Yeah. So the East Coast tradition would be, um, the work of, uh, Bob Mogue and the initial modular instruments that he, he built. And then, uh, you know, we ended up with the, the mini Mogue a bit later.
Um, the West Coast tradition, uh, would be the work of the. Don Booker under the influence of the experimental composer, Morton Nik decided not to go with a piano keyboard style input. And it's, I think largely where we get the more. Um, well, it's, it's, it's maybe more creative from my perspective. It has a reputation for being a bit more out there, doesn't it?
Yeah. It's a bit more out there. Um, so there, you, you might have a, rather than a piano keyboard, you might have a touch plate for, for note input. But, but actually a lot of it's sequence driven. The idea being why should new music use old methods for, for creative. Precisely, yeah. And that was, and that was, as I understand it, you know, maybe someone who knows a bit more about this, might, might correct me, but I believe it was Morton Subotnick's influence upon dog booklet that that made.
Uh, made that decision, um, um, for, for booklet. Yeah. But of course, who was the most, who was the most commercially successful? Um, Bob Mogue because the tradition of a piano keyboard, it's something people know and like, yeah. Mm. And something that we see playing out all the time with, uh, someone's just brought out a new entirely original MIDI controller, which I'm sure works brilliantly, but it can't compete with familiarity.
It's, yeah. Precisely. Yeah. Biggest practical challenge for taking a modular on stage. So it's not, it's not reliability and it's not repeatability. That's, that's the issue I said for, you know, from the outset. For, for me, I've, if I wanted to have a system that. Uh, was sort of sample accurate and it was beat, synced to the drummer, or the drummer was beatsy to it.
It would be a different conversation really. So it's a free running system that's not supposed to lock into the wider rhythm. It, it, it's a free running system that I have on a volume pedal so I can blend it in when I want more of whatever it is. So I, I'll be playing guitar, I'll reach over, I've got my foot on the volume pedal, I've got my hand on whatever.
Um. Mixer channel I want to raise or lower, the systems are running at all times and I can basically fade in whatever it is I want. And, um, for me it's the, the most, the reason the volume pedals there is so I can stomp on it at the end of a song. So it doesn't The reason Yeah. Yeah. Out. Yeah. You know what I mean?
Like, that's, that's a, so a lot of, it's a lot of it's practical. Then for me, the, the biggest problem is space. Um, at some of the stages we play aren't necessarily huge. A, a modular system can be enormous if you want it to be. So I'm, I just have to think a little bit more about that. The, the other thing is one of cognitive load, so the modular does demand a degree of focus from me and I'm already playing guitar, sometimes quite an athletic way.
Like some of the, some of the pieces have like jewel solos between me and the, and the violinist sort of trading parts back and forth. And so I'm doing that at the same time as trying to control this in. Um, what can be sometimes unpredictable, uh, beast of a, a machine. Uh, it's, it's like having Ozzy Osborne on the stage with you.
What the hell is he gonna do? Um, okay. I mean, so, so I mean, on, on a purely practical level, it does, it put demands on, on monitoring. I mean, you need to be able to hear exactly what it's doing in a way that perhaps you don't. If you. Playing a guitar and you don't hear yourself very well, but you know, you're playing the right note, you're probably good.
Uh, yeah. Yeah. So I talk to sound engineers in advance. Um, if I dunno them, the folk scene is a little small, so actually I think people are largely used to me now. Uh, I, I work often with the same engineers, uh, over and over and, uh, sometimes the first time it can be a little car crashy, but you know what?
I've always got. The volume pedal there. If I, if I really think it's not working, and if, if for some reason I bump a, uh, an oscillator out of tune, I, I've made it so that we are not so reliant on these parts that we can't get by without them. Ah, so it's not a show. It's, it's, it's an added extra, but that, but the show doesn't stop if you do.
Yeah. Got you. Ab absolutely not. It's, it's a way of filling out the, the texture of the band and making it, make it thicker and, yeah. Got, okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. More. A little, a little more finished in some places, but also a little more raw. In others, it's, it's a bit like, you know, if your pedalboard goes down, can you pick up an acoustic guitar and play your song through, and people are okay with it if you can't.
You've got a problem. So I've got quite a few stories on specifically that subject. And I wasn't the guitarist, I was the engineer, so Yeah, yeah, yeah. Some people can, some people will really, they really don't want to carry on. Anyway, um, I digress. So, I mean, that, that's been really interesting stuff. We're gonna wind things up, but we should talk sort of modules.
We, we've been oddly non-specific actually, so, I mean, I know plenty of people. Listen to this. We'll, we'll probably be, let's call it modular curious. They may have been
trying some software modular systems. They know what a modular system is and what it does, but it's kind of different having the hardware.
It's, it's a different experience. Um, but unfortunately the, the drawback of any hardware is that unlike software, you only get one of each thing and you have to pay for it, pay for it every time. So, um, um, sure modular systems can grow. That's their strength, but they usually start relatively small. What's the sensible way into modular?
If you wanna want to try your hand with hardware modular. Yeah. So I, I feel a little bit like a drug dealer at this point. A lot. Um, lots of people including me, have likened it to that kind of, because it is a bit of a habit forming Yeah. Kind of avenue of synthesis. But yeah. You know, like if you look at the photo that I've given, like yeah, it's, it got ridiculous for a while, but I, I sold a motorcycle once and uh, like quite an expensive one and put all of that into, into modular.
I'm much happier 'cause I, you know, still living well there is that I suppose had an accident, but. Yeah. Yeah. But anyway, so I guess if you are modular, curious, but already synthesis literate. So I'd recommend getting the fundamentals right. Um, so it can be in, uh, it can be a helpful thing to just build a basic subtractive voice, an oscillator, a filter, you know, a VCA envelope, some, some modulation.
You need, of course a case to put it in or something to put it in. Um, and some patch cables and, you know, away you go, really? Um. The, you don't, you don't need 10,000 pounds worth of modules to begin. And in fact, I'd say that makes it harder. And you know, I started with, um, make Noise Maths, um, which is, uh, sort of like a logic module.
The, they refer to it as an analog computer. Um, mutable instruments rings, which is just one of my favorite. What does that one do? Um, uh, modules. It can be an oscillator or it can be, uh. Uh, like a, an sort of like an effects processor. I use it largely as an oscillator and then clouds, um, again, from mutable instruments.
They were the first three modules that I had, and I built myself a MiniMogue voice from a JH. Um. And, and that was a, you know, a three, three oscillator minimoog, um, and the Make Noise, Rene Sequencer, that's really all I started with. And if you can master that in three months, you can pretty much go out and perform.
And so knowing those modules inside out. Is better than having, you know, five cases full of modules that you barely know how to use. Not un not unlike plugins. If you know how to work an 1176, you, you know, that's, uh, that's much more powerful than having 15 different types of compressor. So, so, so know a few things really well.
Absolutely. There's fewer, fewer, fewer avenues for ending up with silence, I would imagine. And I, I, I think so. And then. Having a degree of, I guess, process to what you're doing? I think it's great to just sort of sit down and randomly patch and see what happens.
And, you know, sometimes you'll get lucky, but it's sort of like trying to fall off a mountain and land on your feet.
I think there's, there's value in it, but, but it doesn't always go as you intend. And this doesn't have to be academically studied in a really stiff way. It's meant to be play, it's meant to be fun, and it really is, but just having a grasp of signal flow makes the play. Have a bit more direction to it and, you know, and, and you know, really then just don't try and buy your way into it and have fun, have fun with it.
Start with software by all means. But honestly, I think software's great. And if it's the only way you can engage with this, then fantastic. But getting your hands on it, the, the way in which the creative process is mediated completely changes when you've got things physically in your hands. Okay. With all of this choice, it's, I, I see it as very light with guitarists and pedals.
And the way the pedal scene has just exploded because they're, the, the, the price point is kind of fairly sweet. It's not like a real, I've gotta think about this kind of level. They're not cheap, but, uh, some of them, but then none of them are like that expensive in the same way with. With modules, expensive impulse purchases is probably how to put it.
So, yeah, so again, it depends on what you're talking about. Like a complex oscillator from Make Noise or endorphins, you know, they can be six or 700 quid, but dope for like the, I I, I have a lot of the dope for modules 'cause they're, they're, they're not fancy, they don't have fancy graphics. They're, they're super cheap.
Um, you know, usually under 200 pounds, some of them under a hundred pounds, or even under, you know, 80 pounds. And building a few, uh, voices with them. Uh, fantastic way of, of starting. And if you wanna get into, you know, some of the more esoteric stuff from, you know, make noise, um, a LM Qubit, noise Engineering, or, or one of my favorite ones is a company called VERBOs who would, who just, you know, are so, like, make noise, are so steeped in that West Coast aesthetic and they, it just sounds fantastic, but, but they're expensive.
Like the Verbos system's seven grand and I do have it. Not, I didn't buy it as system, I bought it as modules and it's in its own case, but if you buy it as a complete system from Verbos it's, you know, something like five, six, 7,000 pounds depending on the configuration. Like they're expensive, but a Doepfer system bought secondhand piece by piece. No, you could get away with, you know, under three or 400 quid for something quite profoundly powerful. They, they just look a little plain. It's just you, either a silver or a black face plate. They don't have the, you know, the cool factor of, you know, that Make Noise stuff or is utilitarian choice.
Absolutely. Why not? I mean, you are selling it. They're great. You are selling it, but I'm still, I'm still not going to buy it. Excellent. So I mean, I think we're, I think we're pretty much there. That's been a really helpful insight into your use of modulars and MO modular use more generally, I would say.
So thank-you so much for coming on. You're welcome. Thank you for listening. And be sure to check out the show notes page for this episode where you'll find further information along with web links and details of all the other episodes. And before you go, let me point you to the soundonsound.com/podcast page where you can explore what's been playing on our other channels.
This has been a Julian Rogers production for Sound On Sound Magazine.