Ricky, I want you to know, that your lighting, production quality, your straightforward, friendly approach and all around your down-to-earth, amazing videos have been SUCH a highlight of my pandemic. I built my first modular because of you and even though I found dozens of channels after, I still never miss a single one of your vids (modular aside, you got me into MPCs too) and you're just my favorite content creator in the music realm right now.
Khash… thank you so much, this is such an amazing content and I appreciate you a ton. Keep it up and post me a link! I want to hear the tunes :) which MPC did you get?
@@RickyTinez I have to say that the same applies to me. Thanks to you and your videos I got the confidence and began branching out into the hardware world. A lot of my gear, from my modular stuff to everything else has been purchased by your recommendation. I sincerely appreciate what you do. You have a way of approaching things in a very friendly and relatable way. It almost feels like we’re all sort of hanging out and talking about music etc. Keep doing what you do and thank you!
Dude, we could spend hours talking about this subject. This is why I go through cycles between modular and my guitar stuff. Having effects pedals isn’t any better either. While setting up my ambient pedal board, I found myself going to overkill with pedals. I’ve finally settled on maybe five pedals to accomplish what I needed, whereas before, I had two whole boards to cover so many sounds, I couldn’t even use it. So yes, it’s absolutely so easy to miss the forest for the trees.
Mate, what a super valuable video! And I'm the idiot with 8 X 104hp of modular which has become so daunting to use, I now only turn it on to illuminate my Mother 32/DFAM combo... GAS boys n girls, don't do it!
I keep dodging the hardware modular bullet with software. Voltage Modular and VCV Rack have been satisfying my itch and letting me explore, learn and figure things out. It is easy to make things crazy, adding modules are free, cables are free. This is a great reminder for KISS!
I started with a MS-20m and went through the same thing. Now that I have a larger eurorack system the lessons I learned with my MS-20 have really helped with my focus on the larger system.
i always describe modular synths as not having an inherent "technique" or "theory" like other instruments, even keyboard based synthesizers, but the main musical muscle on display is "taste" what sounds good to you and what works for you are just as hard to Get Good as technical mastery on guitar for example. Learning and having a discerning ear isn't something that happens overnight but it's possible! lots of practice and lots of listening. great work!
Huh... that kinda reminds me of the function that record collections used to serve, back before we had instant online access to almost everything. I never thought about it, but I guess module selections/your case can be seen as statements of taste. Just like records used to be, unless you're wealthy and connected, you have to build it up thru quite a bit of time, finding limited editions and so on. You can't just buy whatever you want - it's out of stock. You have to hunt for it, and persist, just like crate digging used to be, to obtain the rare desirable gems. That's really an interesting perspective.
I really enjoy your videos man. You really have a gift for making your videos seem like you are talking to "me". Your humble style even though you are obviously very skilled comes off as friendly and approachable. Not everyone can do this. It's very genuine. I hope that you continue to share your work and thoughts with the world, because we need more people like you. Also, your videos are visually enjoyable to watch. Everything is on point.
its like in drawing or painting. the skill to see and decide when its enough is a long process. but the more you do the faster you get better in not overdraw a drawing. nice groove goin, especially the last part at the end ;D
If i wanted to make "music" i would stay with a DAW and plugins and sample packs, maybe add a particularly interesting hardware synth at some time. Modular for me was about fulfilling a childhood dream and exploring sounds and what all those crazy modules could do. Filled 500+ HP in no time, then was overwhelmed with the possibilities, bought more stuff before learning the modules i had, then thought "are you crazy to spend half a years income for making that noise", thought about reducing it to one 2x104 HP case and noticed that i would rather completely quit than do that, too much interesting stuff out there. Will probably end with selling it all. Also i find it especially difficult to keep it small for a beginner. Only now after owning and trying out more than 100 modules i would be able to configure a small case for a certain purpose (like Ricky does here and in other videos), that would have been impossible at the beginning. But i am also someone who went through owning 150 guitars (in 30 years) before i found one i really liked. (And still can't play decently). I am definitely more interested in exploring sounds than in making music.
Definitely merit to the “modular as sonic exploration” aspect. Part of the reason I was drawn to the modular world is for the exploratory and meditative benefits. Where I generally get tripped up is when I try to blend the worlds of exploration with songwriting. Nine out ten times those are the moments where I feel most frustrated with modular and fight with gear, sync and software. I’m gravitating more toward a world where modular is just a playground for inspiration. Nothing more, nothing less.
Hey exploring sounds and making music are two different things! Some might find it difficult to see that. Hearing you say it helps a lot so thanks for sharing! I make soooo much more music with my modular now that it's in a tiny case with a purpose! My old 2x104 6U was fun but i found it so difficult to use it if the song writing process started without it. My small case that is "weird/funky bass/lead lines only" is so much easier to manage within a track. I apprecaite you Snorrevonflake!
Just got through to the sponsor shout out, but philosophically, I think you're touching on a VERY important point here of knowing when it's enough. Keeping it simple is often, I personally feel, more important because ultimately it helps you express effectively while servicing the song. The ego service is an important thing to be aware of in today's amazing world of options. I see this often with newer mixing engineers who go crazy on their plugin use or in some cases their analog GAS, but keep running around in circles never truly understanding the basics.
Ricky, your methodology has me seriously looking at maximizing what Plaits can do (including the internal VCF & VCA) while controlled by the Digitone via MIDI & Polyend Poly 2.
The bass patch is so slick man! Wicked! Great Channel my brother. I’m a complete beginner when it comes to modular. I have gained much knowledge and confidents from watching your videos Ricky and have just about settled on my shopping list for my first euro rack set up. Thanks so much for sharing your skills
regarding sounds that have been pushed "beyond" useable i remember hearing a quote from one of the noisia members about having sounds with wild modulation and complex harmonic content and using filter sweeps right at the end of the chain in order to make the sound less wild
I did the same thing with modular, and eventually realized I was doing it basically to justify having a modular. Like, if I wasn’t going to make something complex with wild patching, why not just own a cheaper non-modular synth? My solution was to get rid of my Eurorack gear… not for everyone, but I realized I just wasn’t going to get over it…
My first attempt at modular ended that way about 10 years ago, now I have a better perspective of how I may be able to integrate, but’s it’s a slippery slope.. that’s why these discussions are valuable
I just sold 20k worth of modular. Ive been using modular since the 90's off and on. So recently i decided to ditch it all and go back to bare bones . And do not regret it at all
wow! Good on you to make the realization. It comes and goes for me, and i've seen myself do this with enough other gear that i let it sit in a closet for months maybe a year then i bring it back out with fresh eyes. otherwise i sell then buy again haha. Always buy used if you can that way its like "renting" it with a security deposit and you'll get your deposit back when done hahah
@@RickyTinez great advice, I am trying to keep things a little longer just to make sure I understand why I do/don’t like them for my setup, which also changes..
@@RickyTinez haha been in that direction too… I now own a MatrixBrute after buying one for the third time… I almost never buy new now because I know myself…
I really like that you touch on some of the philosophy and emotion behind music-making, which I've hardly seen anyone else cover. The approach and mindset one takes is almost as important if not more important than the gear one uses. And you're right - the ego or the 'not enough' shadow can sometimes get in the way of letting true creativity shine through, or can distort music-making into a flex rather than just letting expression flow. Learning to accept when something is enough and let go is a huge skill in any artistic creative endeavour. Thank you for addressing this important side to music 🙏
having owned a modular, this song existing makes total sense haha. that quantized tracking lead lmao. love it. just patching it is so fun that it happens.
Thank you for this! Great words to hear that help me to remember to take my time with my current 86 HP case and not get carried away with GAS - gotta spend the time figuring out what I want and how to make my system a good band member
I've been noodling around with modular for about 5 years now, and this is one of the key things and hard to articulate. I think it comes down to the basic advice that experienced users give new users who are eager to build a system and get gear that they never want to hear because it sounds so wishy washy: "Well, what are you trying to do with modular?" It's such a flexible platform and there are so many cool ways to build your own setup that you can get lost in all those details. It's all about what is functionally needed to produce the sounds you want to produce. Yes you could use all the modules in this set up to produce a busier version of what you produced that has cool sound design things and little surprises, but is that what the music needs? Nope. My system now, although it is quite large, is built around a bunch of 3-4 module voices / things I can do that gives me a bunch of variety and options. But I never patch everything all at once. Longer shows / gigs, I'll patch multiple separate things that I switch between and vary.
Great little video and totally agree on complications. And Yes the track is too fast for swing here. I would get a Clep Diaz in there on the filter modulation lol
Great observations, Ricky. For me personally I came to realise that trying to arrange, mix and complete tracks made me frustrated. At times I felt like giving up and selling all the gear I had acquired. Thankful I eventually I came to the conclusion that it was the process of finding that beat, synth sound or baseline and tweaking and playing with it that I enjoyed about music creation. I stopped worrying about finishing a track and just enjoyed creating sounds and music. It's all about the journey for me so I don't think about the destination anymore, I never record anything now. So now I'm happy making a massive jungle of cables because I'm doing it for me as it's only me I'm trying to impress.🙂
It's also way too easy to overcomplicate a modular patch for the same reason you shouldn't try "mixing" tracks while they're soloed. You might end up with something that sounds crazy and tickles all the right neurons when you're listening to it on its own, but you're probably just cluttering up the mix and stepping on other parts. I try to just unpatch my whole case as soon as I'm done recording a part, and try not to spend hours plugging in patch cables and tweaking knobs *while nothing else is playing* because it's way too easy to end up with too much.
Hey Ricky! Thanks for this video! I've been going through the "use every patch cord you have" stuff over here on my end. I already worked through this problem in my classical composition years ago, but seem to be wrapped up in it all over again with modular. Taking this video to heart!
Thanks for stopping by Jamie! a weird thing i've tried before too was to "use only white patch cables" and see what i could do. or only 10 or 15. Some arbitrary number and see what you could do. I would come across moments where i would want to modulate something but i'd have to unplug another modulation source. This forced me to choose which modulation sounded better and fit better when compared? Fun times :)
this is exactly how vcv and phaseplant make me feel, grid sometimes too I think it happens mostly when I'm starting a patch I'm not particularly happy with sometimes, especially in our early days of synthesis, we keep adding stuff and eventually it works out maybe one more modulation unlocks some hidden soundscape in the patch but often I'll just keep adding stuff like piling bandaids on a broken bone other times though, "too much" can be great, it's a matter of knowing when you're adding something that you actually want or adding something just to add it
I just LOVE how you pulled a Howard Stern in your video!!! Hope you don't have to put up with a pig vomit like he did! Don't forget... Double U N B C !!!
When you're completely lost in the rabbit hole, you're usually not aware of it. Keeping it simple is a great tip. It also works to patch from scratch and just pick something to start with at random.
Weird? Maybe, but I like it! I get the point you're trying to make, however I find myself in a different boat recently. I'm the proud new owner of a pulsar 23 and it's totally opened me up to a more primitive way of thinking. I'm always so intentful with my modular system and maybe it's the alligator clips system or maybe it's the weird utility modules of the pulsar but I find myself experimenting more. It brings me back to my early days of recording music and I've been rethinking my modular patches in a really fun positive way, like I don't want to understand signal flow anymore. It's even changed my workflow, instead of carefully composing songs I've become more intuitive and improvisational, I feel reborn out of chaos and a lack of comprehensive understanding, which really is the foundation of so many music genres but that's a whole other topic. But like always Ricky great video see you soon!
I really like these videos on minimalism. Lady Star Light says to max out everything you can do on one piece of gear before getting another. I’m in the beginning of my electronic music journey so I sometimes get allured by the bells and whistles and knobs and pads, but it’s good knowing I can get a lot accomplished with so little.
I love that, when you can work gear with your eyes closed you're in a good spot haha. Fun tip i do sometimes is read a random part of the manual and try to apply that feature to a song im working on to help solidify the use and muscle memory of that feature so i can easily recall it in my brain later!
@@RickyTinez nice! I’ll have to try that out. Embracing not being attached to a track and creating solely for exercise purposes/experimentation is important and something I’m still working on also. I used to be a ceramics artist and people would freak out when you cut a pot in half to see what the walls look, and they think you’ve wasting your time by killing a nice pot, but you get the knowledge of what’s actually going on which is invaluable. Thanks for the tip and the videos brother!
Great discussion, thanks. Sometimes we overthink things and that’s normal. But pouring our experiences and emotions into the instrument is the most important patches.
Well said! I've become a stark believer in, the more time you put into something the more you get out of it. When it comes to practice and understanding. If its a song that you've been tweaking the kick for a month then maybe not so much haha
15:20 - Finally!!! Thank the lord of the dance!!! A modular demo that actually sounds like it could be used in a set. [EDIT] - when Ricky started pulling out those patch leads that was cathartic as f*ck - [EDIT]
Ricky, I met you at Knobcon just before you started showing your minimal system on RU-vid. This resonates with me so much. For the third time, I’ve let my Eurorack system get out of hand. I have like 8 rows of 84hp, and I just get frustrated. I had started with the stereotypical Morphagene into Clouds. I should have stopped there and I would have been eminently happy. I’m at an age that this will be the last studio setup I will most likely have. I use my modular just like you do but for a different genre. Do you think breaking up my rig into little self-contained instruments my help psychologically?
I believe the (valid) point you're making is not only true for modular synthesizers, but for synths in general (and music gear in general, and maybe life, the universe and everything): why do people still use Minimoogs (or MS20s, as another author here mentioned) or clones, or a combo of a Tubescreamer and AC30, even though they have all the Montage/Kontakt/FM8/Reaktor/HALion or Kemper/AxeFX monsters available? Because you can't go too crazy with them.
Interestingly enough, the place I’m thinking this will help me the most is in creating guitar solos. Really easy to get caught up in “well, I can play all the notes really fast and I want people to know how awesome I am so….I mean, what’s a few more riffs of tripleted 64th notes?” Lately I’ve been having to push myself really hard to just play the solo the song requires rather than playing the solo my hands want me to play.
I can see where this is going- my vain hope is that I can force myself to exhaust the many possibilities of a small 6-8 module system. At what point would I be able to max that out completely and say with honesty that I know everything it can do? There must be many good patches to be made even with something small if I'm picking the right modules, that have several functions each....This would be a substantial body of knowledge about sound design I would think.
Sounds like you ran into some of the same issues which motivated me to get out of the (semi)modular analog world. I'd make a good sound and then just ... leave it. For months. It really got in the way of exploring and creating. So I solved it by switching to gear which has patch recall functions. I don't feel reluctant to explore when I know I can easily get my old patches back.
There is this book on The Laws of Simplicity by John Maeda and it's 10 steps for simplifying products while increasing their meaning. Number 10 is realizing the parts as one thing because 10 is just 1 and 0. I think you just exemplified step 10 in designing your synth and making music.
Reasons bean modular from the start, I had all I needed with vertion 4 and when I am not on plus then 4 is egnugh for Me to make what ever I want. I have Abalten 11 but Reason is still the main source of sound. Ofcourse the old Reason cant be used as a plungin but I can just export stems as audio into abelton for using VSTs.
I'm thinking of starting a eurorack groovebox with Keystep Pro at the sequencing end and Acid Rain Tech's Maestro at the performance end. Which VCO is better for dubsteppy growls and wubs: Qu-bit Scanned? Or ModBap Osiris?
Hi Ricky, a little question about the distance from the camera to you. I think it's great that the sigma lens with 16mm still has a decent bokeh. But please tell me, how far away is the camera from you in this video? I only ask because my room is quite small and I also need a wide-angle lens but have a maximum of 125cm space to put the camera away from me. Maybe here: 0:24 seems quite small distance?
you couldnt have done that last patch with a digitone or an analog four? isolate just that sound and i bet you could make it on a microkorg/microfreak/minibrute, literally any synth
Well old cliche less is more but less, less than less equals silence😄😄I won’t do that But nice ideas Ricky to incite the creative innovations, Loike it 👍🆒🎶🎶🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🔱🔱🌟🌟👁👁😎😇
Hey man random question: are those AIAIAIs comfortable with glasses? I have the smaller ones and they are not! Thinking about getting the bigger cans. Thanks for all the content: I've learned so much from your videos
I wear glasses and the Alcantara over-ear pads, pretty comfortable for me and I’d say I’m fairly sensitive to anything uncomfortable. I’m still waiting for my wireless+ headband to arrive. I do find the top of my head after a long session gets “sore” so I often wear a hat. 🤷♂️
