10+ ways to use & abuse distortion in Eurorack // London, Twin & Mini Drive from Music Thing Modular

Here’s the new London Drive and Twin Drive Eurorack modules from Music Thing Modular alongside the original Mini Drive. They are simple, small, affordable and beginner friendly DIY kits that all provide a range of tones from more subtle to more aggressive distortion. The Mini Drive and Twin Drive are based on the external input stage of the classic Minimoog Model D where as the London Drive is based on the input stage of the EMS VCS3 and Synthi AKS.
This video goes through 10+ ways to get creative using and abusing distortion from adding weight and warmth, dynamic thickening to more aggressive fuzziness and feedback patching. There’s also CV tricks such as mixing AC and DC to make PWM like FX in the clipping itself - which sounds fantastic with these. Try out the patches and let me know which patch is your favourite.
Here’s the routing graphic from the final patch // bit.ly/DK-MTM-GRAPHIC
All 3 Drive modules can be found here from Thonk
Mini Drive // bit.ly/MTM-MiniDrive
London Drive // bit.ly/MTM-LondonDrive
Twin Drive // bit.ly/MTM-TwinDrive
If you’d like to gain access to an extended and EXCLUSIVE bonus video from the final creative FX routing patch in this demo head over to Patreon where you can support me to gain access. You’ll get access to exclusive videos, PDF patchbooks, the DivKid Discord community and more! bit.ly/DK-patreon
You can also support my channel by using these affiliate links to buy your gear. I get a small kickback at no extra cost to you.
Clockface Modular // bit.ly/DK-clockface
Patchwerks // bit.ly/DK-patchwerks
Perfect Circuit // bit.ly/DK-perfectcircuit
Thomann // bit.ly/DK-thomann
TIMING INDEX // CHAPTERS
(NT) denotes no talking quick musical examples
00:00 Hello & patch previews
01:48 Module features and what we’re doing here
02:44 Amp like crunch in dual mono & Stereo reverb smash!
04:31 Beat Warmer (NT)
04:50 Add PWM to anything with asymmetrical clipping
06:32 Distortion for keys (NT)
06:45 Drum Saturation - from warm crunch to ARGH!!!
08:11 Creepy Piano Distresser (NT)
08:39 Waveshaping, parallel distortion & feedback
11:09 Saturator for techno beats (NT)
11:28 Monster harmonic guitar fuzz (NT)
12:28 Feedback loop enhancers (in stereo and even wider stereo!)
14:52 Soft Pad Warmer (NT)
15:08 Dynamic London Drive - blending & modulating waves for a dynamic crunch
17:33 Full fat brushes beat (NT)
17:52 Warming & filthy-fying mono synth lines
19:15 Vinyl Crackle Smasher (NT)
19:31 Feedback! From brutal kick hits to harmonious chordal drones
22:02 Bass thumbs (NT)
22:31 Creative FX routing - sequenced stereo drives
** THIS VIDEO IS SPONSORED BY THONK ** any questions just ask.
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[@darylccc]

Excellent in depth video as always. Theres always get something I hadn't thought of and it leads me down a rabbit hole of modular madness.

[@wwaynec]

Thanks again ! Ordered all three. Love the feedback loops.

[@MakingSoundMachines]

Lovely video, both the drives look and sound great and I can't wait to add them to our sonic palette!

[@SCHLAPPIENGINEERING]

sounds great! feedback chord is siiiiiiiick!

[@vizion9680]

Wow! Those are some savage kicks! Sounds great!

[@DivKid]

Cheers! Yeah they work really well.

[@CatFish107]

Brutal kicks are delicious, my friend. Thank you very much.

[@DivKid]

thanks, appreciate that!

[@Beermastergeneral]

Brilliant Demo and overview !

[@DivKid]

Thanks Lester, appreciate that.

[@discobecky9179]

Wooo divkid upload, always happy to see that :)

[@DivKid]

thanks, appreciate that.

[@jaygregory8219]

Great great video, thanks!! That tuning of the mega feedback WTF!??!! Amazing

[@DivKid]

Hi Jay, yeah the feedback tuning was good fun and led to some great results between the modules.

[@waivestate3783]

Mini drive is so excellent. I use it to create huge beefy walls of distortion. It saturates so nicely. Especially physical modelling sounds. My fave signal chain with it rn is: BBD -> Mini Drive -> Clouds -> Desmodus Versio.

[@DivKid]

that sounds like a hell of a signal chain!

[@konstantine8054]

Just bought the twin to warm up my mix. Thanks for the lovely video Ben!

[@DivKid]

Hope it likes a nice pair of slippers for the system :)

[@novalogue]

Is there any disadvantage over the low/high mini?

[@michaelhoeft8121]

Sounds great! I appreciate the Spinal Tap reference - makes me want to turn these up to 11!

[@DivKid]

haha glad that was noticed, there's a new movie coming next year I think.

[@DmitriGrinberg]

Great distortion, wish it had a wet/dry blending pot... Thanks for a great video🤟

[@DivKid]

Yeah I like parallel blends on lots of things so I'm always into the idea of having that control.

[@snorrevonflake]

Quite happy to recently watch video like that and think "i don't want that" or "i already have more interesting in my rack".

[@DivKid]

The video has served it's purpose in that regard then, shown you what the module is enough to make the decision. So I'm glad to hear that. Hopefully there's patch ideas in there to try out with things you already have.

[@MoltenMusicTech]

I am definitely appreciating the use of the Molten Motion Meter :D

[@DivKid]

I appreciate that idea brought to life, a simple essential utility for a modular system (mixing, attenuating, inverting, offset voltages ... not sure why I'm telling you this!) with a nice visual added. If it's not in the cases in the future then I'm pushing the cases up to their power limits and needed to claw back some current somewhere.

[@fosferus]

my recent obsession is playing with gain staging to get a more nuanced timbral variety in patches where there are only a few voices going on. right now i'm working on a nice swirly crunchy drone using ruina versio. using distortion to process the reverb/delay fx is something that i don't think i've tried yet, and fits right into my current area of interest. will have to rack up my trshmster to get some more juicy sounds happening. thanks for sharing your knowledge as always ben. happy new years.

[@DivKid]

thanks, always a pleasure to share this stuff and then discuss it further. Distorting FX is fantastic, I love the separation that can create to a dry sound, or just general oomph and weight. Distortions in feedback loops (as I seem to have done a lot recently) is also a personal favourite.

[@fosferus]

@@DivKid I have a good amount of mixers in my system (one of which I won from you years ago during the divmas giveaways) and they're always occupied. A matrix mixer has been at the top of my list as a next purchase for dedicated feedback explorations.

[@UNDERMIND_AUDIO]

Brilliant

[@DivKid]

thanks

[@nophonecamera]

19:24 I'd buy it just to get that sound... love it.

[@boydw1]

Great sounding drive modules, and that last patch was funky as! CV control for the drive amount might have been a nice feature perhaps?

[@DivKid]

it would have been but as it's just input level I'm happy with a VCA before the module to get CV-Drive behaviour. You can also try mixing CV signals into the second inputs which can lead to some interesting results.

[@Si_G]

Looking forwards to this. I’ve a few drive modules, but I don’t know if they’re supposed to be doing the clipping themselves or driving a VCA/filter for best effect.

[@DivKid]

I definitely get into some VCA uses here for using a VCA as the driver for CV controlled distortion behaviours. So I hope that's helpful.

[@Si_G]

Didn’t disappoint, especially as I already have the Mini Drive 🎉 Really appreciate your content, thanks for sharing.

[@AdamDaughterson]

11:23 oh yes!

[@alexandermontagnet3361]

Hey, did you happen to find one more to your liking between the mini drive and the twin drive? IT kind of seemed like London Drive was your favorite, but between the other mini and twin did you find something that stood out to you?

[@DivKid]

The Twin for stereo things gets a fair bit of use. Between the others I'll try both and use which I prefer, or make stereo images out of the two different distortions (nice panned a bit of as mid/side signals). Long answer to say, no I don't really have a favourite.

[@andykandolf1948]

Any idea about the following: I played around with London Drive this sooperbooth and reeeally liked it, so I got myself one, soldered it together and put it in my eurorack. So far so good. What im wondering is: the output is redonkulusly hot. Even around 1, my clipping LED on my mixer flashes brightly red and the meters on my interface are screaming 😅 Its to the extend that i put an attenuator before and after the module to keep the levels somewhat acceptable. Is that supposed to be like that? Sure, its a drive module, probably the cranking of the voltage is part of what it does... But its to an extend that i almost feel uneasy to feed back the signal into my system and fry it 😅

[@DivKid]

doesn't sound right to me at all. It can kick out hot signals (as you say, it drives things) but not beyond what you'd expect really. Maybe a wrong resistor value or something?

[@RedCloudServices]

Have you ever reviewed the 100GRIT?

[@DivKid]

Schlappi Engineerings 100 Grit? Yeah, got some amazing results from it - kzbin.info/www/bejne/fmTNXqusit-ch68

[@deaftone]

Can anyone tell me how clean is a Twin drive when set to 0? I want to use it as a master saturator and wonder how it will color the sound when set to minimum. Is Drive param work as a blend control? And what is suited better for the Master - London or Twin? which is more subtle?Tnx :)

[@DivKid]

Mini/Twin drives turn off to silence with the knob at 0. London drive is clean at 0 and drive added beyond. Both are suitable for full mixes or on the output stage as they can be cleaner, warming thickening type devices before they get into what I'd consider distortion characters.

[@deaftone]

@@DivKid Thank you Ben!! I've ordered both kits ))

[@MelonSprout]

Any feedback issues when putting guitar in ?

[@DivKid]

I haven't had any

[@mikesegarra869]

Do you have plasma drive?

[@DivKid]

Hi Mike, I don't but would love to try one.

[@oricatmos6453]

Hello, are you the composer of Commander Impulse ?

[@DivKid]

Hello, yes I am. I composed that the Google audio service that is the KZbin Audio Library. It's called that as I just used the synth 'Impulse Command' from Analogue Solutions.

[@andrewjackson5798]

why do none of them have CV over the drive amount?

[@konstantine8054]

Use a VCA before the drive. Same thing.

[@tombola2004]

My thinking is always that I don’t need to reproduce things that can be done elsewhere in a modular - that’s why Turing doesn’t have internal clock for example

[@DivKid]

keeps these affordable and friendly less intensive DIY builds too. @andrew - a filter before is nice too, so tone changes before it's driven. Or try putting CV into the second input on them for some interesting results too.

[@andrewjackson5798]

@@tombola2004 thanks for the answer! Love the modules!

[@888cromartie]

@@tombola2004 Can you please make silver-alum front panel options for the latest drive modules?

[@els1f]

5:50 🤤

[@DivKid]

ooooh yeah