Modular Synth For Guitar Players: A Beginner's Guide

[@cicadasolberg1976]

About a minute in, literally my exact same situation of collecting strange pedals to get these ambient guitar sounds when I also stumbled upon the world of Modular, I have since sunk so much time and money into my rack and its been so fun, excited to see the rest of the video!

[@Limbic1000]

Oh Matt,these 44 minutes are so valuable!! thx

[@-KingOfKhaos]

Gen X’er here… playing metal guitar since 1982, and still going loud and proud… I recently have been getting deep into VCV Rack 2 and purchased an Arturia 66 key controller and the full Analog V software for like $400 … making the switch from Guitars, Amps and Pedals to modular and synthesis after like 40 years of playing 6 strings and stomp pedals is like trying to learn Russian without any text books, online classroom time or an instructor… in other words, to learn it is quite challenging (they are such different worlds lol). Hoping to see if you can help me to break through a few of the brick walls I keep running into while patching my mods… like why I should patch into a VCA instead of a VCO or VFO or Mixer lol… and when to pay more attention to CV instead of the Gate… I swear I know LOGICALLY what the differences are, and yet when I go to patch, I mess them up EVERY time!

[@adamplouff5532]

This was outstanding Matt. The approach to your videos is so valuable because it’s not a tech demo/tutorial and not a silent performance. Both have their place, but I really enjoy hearing your thought process as you build music.

[@mattlowerymusic]

Thanks for watching Adam. I’m glad you got something out of it!

[@markbooth]

What a great demo for the nutters with 6 strings! Coming from the modular world, I really hope guitar players realise the potential for pedal replacement and having everything in one box with one power cable.

[@roman2374]

Ohhhh I’m still going to run my modular synth through my pedal board hahahah

[@wintermute101]

Thanks for breaking this down into a digestible form! Very helpful to see how each of these modules work on their own and what kind of potential there is when it comes to stringing these things together! 🙏🙏🙏

[@mattlowerymusic]

Hey, thanks for watching!

[@Oilpanicmusic]

The Befaco inamp is a budget friendly way to amplify a passive pickup. Add a bastl timber for overtones and a happy nerding fx aid for fx, and some basic LFO, and you got a mini system for less. You can build a diy power supply from frequently central. Actually, both the bastl and Befaco are available as diy kits, so you can build a lot of basic modules yourself.

[@SpiralFyre]

Thank you for making the subject of guitar processing in modular slightly less confusing and niche. Even though I barely touch the instrument anymore (since getting into synths, oops) this is some serious food for thought.

[@mattlowerymusic]

thanks for watching and for the kind words!

[@Lomoholga2]

I have a Rainger FX Snare Trap and man this has got me looking at these wild modular synth things. So overwhelming

[@alexfletcher9915]

So much excellent information here! Thank you for taking the time to put this together!

[@mattlowerymusic]

My pleasure!

[@t1d3s]

I've been really wanting to delve into eurorack with my guitar but was unsure, this video has solidified my decision, I like the idea of funding by selling, it's a good way to clear space and refresh your system without breaking the bank too much! Thanks for this, take good care 👌🙏

[@mattlowerymusic]

I’m glad it was helpful. Good luck on your journey!

[@theliftedindex]

This was an insanely great video Matt. So well done. That patch at the end was really cool and your explanations throughout were helpful.

[@mattlowerymusic]

Thanks so much, I’m glad it was helpful! Cheers!

[@PandaPotPies]

excellent guide this deserves more views

[@mattlowerymusic]

Thank you!

[@MikkelGrumBovin]

Thankyou Matt - this is gold !

[@boriscat1999]

HP is horizontal pitch. There are 5 HP to an inch.

[@bartkuk1]

Beautiful sounds 🤗

[@mattlowerymusic]

Thank you!

[@calderbischoff9739]

Such a great video

[@Simeon_Harris]

nicely done! i got myself an arbhar last year with a few 2hp modules for control and absolutely loved it. i then realised how much it would probably cost me to have the system i really wanted and realised i was on the brink of a very deep and very large money sinkhole. lockdown happened and i chose to sell it all. i do miss it, but i know if i carried on, i'd probably be bankrupt now! watching this hasn't helped, i gotta be honest! :)

[@mattlowerymusic]

Totally understand! It has eaten most of my guitar pedals 🙈🙈. Luckily this stuff all holds value pretty well. It kind of turns into a day trading adventure, lol.

[@Simeon_Harris]

@@mattlowerymusic lol, yes! i have to say the arbhar is such a beautiful thing. i wanted to pair it with a morphagene and get some nonsense going on. maybe one day i'll sell all my guitars....

[@VirtualModular]

Nice! This is the best video I've seen on using guitar with hardware modular. What are you using for the guitar sound? Apologies if you mentioned that somewhere and I missed it, but I've seen a few videos where people have just DI'd straight into modular and it sounds awful. Guessing you're not doing that? Personally, I use software so I've got a few amp simulator plugins, which are good enough. I also use the free version of VCV Rack instead of hardware, so I'd totally recommend that if anyone wants to try modular without buying any hardware. It doesn't have direct equivalents for some of these modules, but you can make something fairly similar once you learn how to patch things together. The only sound I haven't been able to recreate is the Data Bender. I badly want a plugin version of that thing!

[@mattlowerymusic]

If I remember correctly, I had a Strymon iridium somewhere in the chain just to get some cabinet IR in the mix. Doing that in the daw is also a great approach though! So many wonderful options these days. Thanks for watching!

[@VirtualModular]

@@mattlowerymusic cheers, sounds pretty good. I'm not a tone junkie, but you do need some kind of cab sim!

[@sph33_]

This was excellent, thank you!

[@mattlowerymusic]

Thanks for tuning in!

[@ghostandtapeDoesVideo]

Nice work! Keep them coming :))

[@mattlowerymusic]

Thanks so much!

[@famitory]

you can do eurorack cheaper by making a lot of the simpler modules yourself. a level shifter for getting in and out of eurorack is just an op amp, some resistors, and some jacks, for example. transistor VCAs, buffered mults, attenuverters, LFOs, mixers... all very analog stuff you can make with some cheap chips and stripboard. most of the expense comes from jacks, knobs, and front panels, just like making your own pedals.

[@dngrhndz]

this is it!

[@mikegeary8056]

OG Kermit is a bonkers sound source.

[@noartifacts1983]

Great tutorial! I just bought my pallete case. I'm thinking of getting beads as my first module. Maybe pam and the morphogene next? But also i don't know what I'm doing hahaha

[@mattlowerymusic]

have fuuuuuuunnnnn!

[@giorgiofesta3928]

Hi. Great video. A question…do you plug the guitar directly into the modular or do you use a kind of amp emulator in between? Thanks

[@mattlowerymusic]

You can do either! Just depends on your goals. These days I typically do an amp sim before the eurorack

[@marcuslowrymusic]

Hey matt! Quick question: Say you're planning to use this live, but then want to change the patch for the following song, like you would using guitar pedals, is there a simple way of by-passing certain circuits and switching them on and off? Beautiful video, learned a lot! Thank you! Cheers,

[@mattlowerymusic]

There are ways of doing this, but I don’t know of any that are simple. So it goes with modular 😅

[@devilschadvocate]

Anyone got any ideas on how you might set up a path that is Guitar>Pedal Board>Modular Synth>Amplifier while still being able to bypass the modular synth for playing live? Most of my songs don't require modular synth, but I want to insert it strategically/also make weird noises between songs...

[@traverschmidt1101]

Is there a way to get a de tuned double oscillator effect on a guitar? Like two signal paths in sync one tuned flat?

[@jerrycharles66]

Matt, I'm just getting started and noticed in this video that you recommend the Injectr. Are you still using this for guitar, or if you're using something else? I noticed that Intellijel offers the pedal I/O which is less expensive but not as feature rich so I'm just trying to weigh options. Thanks!

[@mattlowerymusic]

I do still use it, yes. I think it’s the best option for going straight into a modular synth. But, as with everything in eurorack, there are a lot of ways to get there, and no wrong answer if you’re happy with the results!

[@nonospezial]

...and here you are - voilà!

[@mattlowerymusic]

I am here!

[@RonaldBarron]

🙌✌️

[@traverschmidt1101]

Also does anyone know a good way to learn more about this if you don’t have a synth shop?

[@connectadhdcoaching3658]

great vid - for a cheap way im could try miRack on ipad or mac - $22 total to have a play

[@KunchangLeeMusic]

Noobie question ; is there any difference in sound quality between guitar pedals and modular ? Is one higher fidelity/ better than the other ? Or are they just the same

[@WhatWeTalkAbout]

It varies greatly from pedal to pedal and module to module, manufacturer to manuracturer, etc. On the whole, I think that eurorack offers very "hifi" capabilities just like you can find "hifi" in pedals (Strymon, for example). These are my observations through use, and others who are more knowledgeable about the engineering could probably give a more technically informed answer.

[@mattlowerymusic]

There’s probably a super deep, highly technical answer to this question based around the voltage differences and DSP platforms most common to each class of device (and I’d imagine much blood has been spilt in the dark corners of the internet over this question), but I’m going to give you the pragmatist’s answer: “no”. The big difference between eurorack and pedals is that modules are designed to influence and depend on each other, whereas pedals are designed to be self-reliant. In my opinion anyway! For example, you wouldn’t choose the euro version of EQD’s Afterneath because it sounds better; you’d choose it because its parameters are exposed to cv influence, which lets you throw a bunch of LFOs at it to see what happens.

[@joeymc5272]

hey man do you a list of everything you have in this rig including case and modules? i am about to start my first rack and a lot of those modules i have been looking at including morph, mime, pams, injector, data bend, synapse etc... amazing stuff man subscribed

[@mattlowerymusic]

I don’t. Thanks for watching, and best of luck!