Patch from Scratch of an Ambient Stereo Modular Synth

[@goonfish]

Shooo, man we were sure rewarded for sticking through it once you got patching! Unbelievably intuitive rack for such complex layers & textures here.

[@lesstalkmoredisco9445]

If I can offer a suggestion: put the 2HP Shakmat HiPass before the compressor/limiter. I’m not super expert in compression but I’m pretty sure ideally you want unneeded frequencies gone before you hit a compressor so to not eat it’s headroom / trigger it’s threshold ceiling with inaudible bandwidth. Nice walkthrough of your case!

[@thismeanswarbasse]

Oh great callout! I’ve had the HiPass a lot longer and it’s just always been right before the Wav Recorder, so when I added the Librae I didn’t even think to place it in between. That logic makes sense though and I’ll give it a shot.

[@wariusgaius]

You built a great instrument, enjoyed the walk through very much.

[@thismeanswarbasse]

much appreciated!

[@AynenMakino]

You, sir, are genuinely good at modular.

[@thismeanswarbasse]

That’s very kind of you, thank you

[@maleficenthardware]

Interesting case and very thorough explanations! Thank you!

[@thismeanswarbasse]

Thanks!

[@goodforage]

Very inspiring. I have been swapping cases around a lot of late, and this is encouraging to keep trying to find a stable methodology. Thank you.

[@thismeanswarbasse]

Yeah one of the decisions I’ve been really happy with has been to just lock my total HP size and get comfortable with selling off things that aren’t right for me. It’s taken a while to get my second case (which started as just extra space for modules that got the boot from this one) into a similar level of purpose and direction, but there’s still a ways to go. I’ve got a video on a test for that case coming out soon.

[@tracyharms3548]

Exceptionally helpful. Thank you.

[@artofambient3]

I really appreciate your recording/output setup. I feel similar - not wanting to spend all my time thinking about producing music, but actually playing music, generating new ideas, and seeing where they lead. I have a similar setup with a Disting MK4 instead of the Wav recorder but have been back and forth on whether I should be using a DAW or not. You gave me a lot of freedom to stick with what I have and enjoy it. Thanks for the creative boost!

[@thismeanswarbasse]

Right on. I recently learned that about the disting, what a great feature. I say whatever is going to get you to get into the habit of recording and enjoying the process is the way

[@HanjoSynth]

This is super inspiring, thanks for sharing in such detail! Subbed. :D

[@thismeanswarbasse]

Glad it was useful!

[@HanjoSynth]

@@thismeanswarbasse totally, I just shared with my modular peers here in tokyo, they are gonna love it.

[@JayPrev]

Such a cool case! I stumbled onto your account a while back and looking through your case design really helped me put mine together. Glad to get a breakdown video!

[@thismeanswarbasse]

Happy to help. I’m hoping to make more videos like this mixed into the performances so it’s great to hear that it’s useful

[@iqqmut79]

Thank you for this excellent video! This was exactly what I needed! 😊😊😊

[@thismeanswarbasse]

Glad it was helpful

[@rayderrich]

Such a great patch from scratch, as soon as you engaged Drezno it became very hard for me to listen but I still loved what you did here, thanks.

[@thismeanswarbasse]

drezno has such an interesting bite to it, totally get that. thanks for listenin'

[@snoopyoverthehills]

so inspiring! thank you for sharing

[@calderbischoff9739]

Best channel! Thanks for all the help

[@thismeanswarbasse]

I appreciate the kind words thank you, more than happy to help

[@petersirca223]

Wow, just wow. Four notes of input leads to a whole world of possibilties.

[@G1SUNPLANT]

Cool setup! Big sound! Great choice!

[@thismeanswarbasse]

much appreciated

[@strawmanhat]

"I don't want to do any Eq, I don't want to do any mastering, I just want to make the music I like." Love it. I have always been into recording as well as music, but the the steps and time required in multitrack recording and mixing just aren't that fun. Making the music this way is much more enjoyable, so I just want to do that. It's not a job, it's something I do for fun. Thanks Warbase.

[@thismeanswarbasse]

100% agree. Back in my days of being in a band and working with professional mixing and mastering engineers, I was always extremely impressed. But when I’m by myself and doing this for fun and for self-expression, I personally don’t want to take up all that time trying to become a professional in something that I’m just not going to ever be. This case helps get my audio to what I consider “good enough” and that’s alright with me.

[@dreamlogic1563]

Some kind of epic!

[@PandaPotPies]

this is great

[@Jake-Balibari]

Nice demo! When I look at that, I say to myself that I must NEVER start to build modular setup.... because I would spend ALL my time in front of it

[@Qiscakes]

thank you for sharing ！inspiring！

[@thismeanswarbasse]

glad you found it useful!

[@ErikBoyko]

Thanks for this. I've been watching the evolution of your main case because it was clear to me when I first saw it that we have similar intent, both in terms of the instruments we are "building" and our approaches to making music with them. Most of my pieces extend from a single sample as well, either from my field recordings or the St. Modular Radio module (I remember when you had that in your case as well). I love Morphagene through Beads as the trunk of my routing. I use 0-CTRL like you use Pressure Points to scrub, modify the loop length, pitch shift, etc. the sample on Morphagene. However, Beads then gives me a lot of sample mangling possibilities before I route it through my other effects in parallel. I also rely heavily on the W/D parameter on Beads (and all my effects modules, really) to evolve/progress the music. When I want to do something more rhythmic/melodic, my favorite technique is to seed Beads with some multiplication of the End of Splice Gate (clock) from Morphagene so Beads' grains live slice the loop. I'll also sometimes pass the clock through Steppy before it hits Beads so I can turn slices on/off and change the rhythm. It can also be fun to mix the static control voltages I send from 0-CTRL to the Slide parameter (playhead position) on Morphagene with a clocked LFO or sequence at a small grain length so each "scene" I select within the sample is already mangled.

[@thismeanswarbasse]

I've still got that ST Radio module! Just not in this case at the moment as I've caught the field recording and microphone bug. It might make it back into this one at some point but for now it's in my B case. I really like the thought process you describe with the rhythmic/melodic scenes. I think I under utilize beads and frankly should purposely blow up this "init" patch more often and try other techniques. I thought I'd use pressure points to control the pitch of beads & panharmonium more often than I do, but its worth revisiting.

[@AndrewHoeveler]

You should call the overflow case "Ineedem". That way "they're in case I need em"

[@ambientsession]

interesting suitcase with a lot of potential🎼👌

[@thismeanswarbasse]

the best kind of suitcases indeed

[@ScottofOakland]

Extremely meticulous and thought-out presentation.

[@mattlas9205]

Would love to see an in-depth video on how you use the panharmonium

[@thismeanswarbasse]

On my video to-do list, the one thats been on there longest (even before I started posting these talking videos) was a long-form deep dive into the panharmonium and what it does for me. It'll happen eventually for sure

[@iamsushi1056]

You probably don’t have room for it, but watching this video I think you’d find the Endless Processor by Blukač Instruments intriguing. Whether you’re willing to eat 16hp for it is another matter, but it’s built on the DaisyDSP and could easily be reworked into a Versio module.

[@thismeanswarbasse]

Never heard of it, but just in my 2 minutes of googling oh boy oh boy. its like panharmonium got a little integrated looper? That's immediately going on the list of things to buy & try over the next few months. I might be willing to bail on beads for it - which I was really only planning on doing if I could find a Miso Cornflakes...

[@JDTrottier]

Hi I was wondering if you could talk about your end of chain, in particular your use of compression. I recently acquired a Librae Legio (thanks to this video!) and it is fun. But to be honest I am not sure if I am helping or hindering my final mix. It looks like you pretty much set it and forget it, which is what I hope to do. But how do you know how to set it? There are few videos on this module. I'm sure if you were to do a short vid, quite a few people would check it out.

[@thismeanswarbasse]

Good idea This makes me want to do a detailed comparison of each module's role in a final mix vs straight through to ableton or something...

[@JDTrottier]

I would be interested to see that.

[@GeorgeLocke]

Have you played with Kammerl's "spectral clouds" mode for clouds? It seems like it's somewhere between panharmonium and the original "spectral madness" mode. I'm just wondering about whether this comparison is close or not?

[@thismeanswarbasse]

Nope, never owned a clouds either. I’ll check it out though

[@FastRCToys]

Only one case ? Starting in modular ? 😊😊😊😊

[@EnvelopeFollower]

How do you spell the manufacturer name of the wireless headphone transmitter?

[@thismeanswarbasse]

“AIAIAI” The transmitter only works with their headbands and the modular approach to headphones but it’s super low latency and doesn’t have the same level of lag that Bluetooth does (which is also supported by the headphones in case I want to use them as just regular BT headphones)

[@ChiaraLuzzana]

Really nice path! What is the model of the last output unit?

[@thismeanswarbasse]

Thanks! Befaco Output v3 is that final module

[@ChiaraLuzzana]

@@thismeanswarbasse thank you. Do you have some suggestion for an alternative Beads unit? It’s impossible to find it. 😭

[@thismeanswarbasse]

@@ChiaraLuzzana I’ve always thought of maybe replacing it with Arbhar from instruo but I haven’t ever used one. I lucked out with a beads from the initial stock back at launch

[@M_orcan]

@@ChiaraLuzzana depending on what you want from it then any of the MI Clouds clones, the Expert Sleepers Disting EX in granulator mode, the Miso Modular Cornflakes or even the Qu Bit Data Bender are all solid choices for stereo audio mangling

[@dangala6915]

Why not use a Zoom device for your remote recordings instead of lugging all the expensive mods to do so?

[@thismeanswarbasse]

Saw your comment on the other vid, I still want a zoom h6 or something for super portable field recording - but this case to me is all about a single “instrument” that can travel and do it all. Albeit with a bit more setup

[@bobbcorr]

Do you have a modular grid version of this case?

[@thismeanswarbasse]

Yep yep: www.modulargrid.net/e/racks/view/2021598 It's been updated a bit since this vid, most notably by a new mixer which I covered here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/qmrdpoiAnbJ8jtk

[@eyeprod3101]

I liked the walkthrough of the init patch and your in/out config. The sound that came out was not to my liking. Seems overly complicated for such basic ambient stuff that sounded very digital, but to each their own. Have fun.

[@SomeOne-pd6vm]

womp womp