Modular synths for pads and leads

[slowcentury]

I went to a pretty amazing recording/synth/keyboard museum a few months ago in Calgary. If any of you ever get the chance to see this I highly recommend it. Apparently they have also just acquired the mobile recording truck that Exile on Main Street were recorded on, they plan on making this something you can rent from them. This gear list makes me want to cry...http://www.cantos.ca/explore/collection-checklist

[ofajen]

I fully heard you. Thats why the very first sentence actually illustrates how ridiculous it is to have polyphony with a modular setup, meaning: why bother.
I have 5 oscillators and a couple of filters that will track 1V/octave at oscillaton, so I will do multipart stuff sometimes with a MIDI/CV module handling some of the duties.... anyway...
it is not the most convenient package or system for making sounds, but you can also get insanely far beyond what a minimoog or a juno can/wants to do, even with tweaking.
The patchable combo thingies are cool, but the fully modular setup is a beast unto itself.
It just depends greatly on what you are hoping to achieve. The question is "pads" and that leads to JUNO-type answers. Amazing synth sounds and audio manipulation that makes an EQ look like a plastic fork? Modular.
Cool pad sounds that are unobtrusive and work in many styles and arrangements? not modular.

Yeah, I have the same Juno-6 that got me started into electronic music mayhem back in 1982. It is wonderful for pads, arpeggios, basses and is a great carrier sound for vocoder. OTOH, it has fairly basic synthesis capacity and no audio processing capability. My SH-09 can do the basic mono synth stuff including some very fun audio processing, but I have long been tempted to add a modular rig, probably more for general audio mayhem than for more typical modular "synth" sound action. Just never put the money together to do it. I always found the Serge Modular systems to be fascinating.

Cheers,

Otto

[dsw]

Then there was my friend John, who went absolutely head over heels full on into it with a Serge Modular system. It was nicknamed the Fist of God. He was into ambient and did one or two albums with it. He has since sold every single piece of it. He's a devoted family man and every bit the tortured artist soul, bless him.

Here's a link to an article about his set up in the 2000's.

http://www.serge-fans.com/fistogod.html

[slowcentury]

Then there was my friend John, who went absolutely head over heels full on into it with a Serge Modular system. It was nicknamed the Fist of God. He was into ambient and did one or two albums with it. He has since sold every single piece of it. He's a devoted family man and every bit the tortured artist soul, bless him.

Here's a link to an article about his set up in the 2000's.

http://www.serge-fans.com/fistogod.html

Good god! That's insane! I'm pretty sure if i owned this I would never see the light of day again! I once has the pleasure of messing about on a EMS Synthi 100. The university here has one in their electronic music dept., after about 3 hours of patching we finally made a sound...

[joel hamilton]

I printed some of my favorite guitar stuff EVER the other day on the dub trio record through a harvestman tyme sefari module being moved by a zorlon cannon and a metalbox psycho LFO, along with the WIARD noise ring "source of uncertainty" module.
Seriously what came out was like our own little private boards of canada meets squarepusher pad based on an ebow/looper pedal source running through the stuff mentioned above, and printed twice, with randomization intact.

Incredible. Thats why i use that stuff.

[inverseroom]

Sweet. I love that Zorlon Cannon.

Tell you what I do, polyphony-wise. I've got a Roland JP-8080 racked up with the modular, and I soldered up a cable that collapses the stereo headphone output from the JP to a mono 1/8" signal. (modular synths don't seem to like line level.) And I've got a midi patchbay that is controlling the JP and the modular, so the gate signal will trip the filters and amp envelope on the modular at the same time it's triggering the JP. I wrote a JP patch called MOD BASIC that serves as a polyphonic oscillator--wide open filters and envelopes, not that the filters on the JP are bad, they're not at all!--and I can use all my modular gadgetrey with the JP's output. The filter retriggers with new keypresses of course but it's kinda pleasingly retro, like the Korg EX-800.

The "feedback" oscillator on the JP-8080 is wonderful, by the way, and sounds great through my analog filters (Wiard Borg, MOTM GX-1, Harvestman Polivoks).

[joel hamilton]

Sweet. I love that Zorlon Cannon.

Tell you what I do, polyphony-wise. I've got a Roland JP-8080 racked up with the modular, and I soldered up a cable that collapses the stereo headphone output from the JP to a mono 1/8" signal. (modular synths don't seem to like line level.) And I've got a midi patchbay that is controlling the JP and the modular, so the gate signal will trip the filters and amp envelope on the modular at the same time it's triggering the JP. I wrote a JP patch called MOD BASIC that serves as a polyphonic oscillator--wide open filters and envelopes, not that the filters on the JP are bad, they're not at all!--and I can use all my modular gadgetrey with the JP's output. The filter retriggers with new keypresses of course but it's kinda pleasingly retro, like the Korg EX-800.

The "feedback" oscillator on the JP-8080 is wonderful, by the way, and sounds great through my analog filters (Wiard Borg, MOTM GX-1, Harvestman Polivoks).

Awesome.
I have done the same thing with softsynth patches out of an Mbox into the modular.

[apropos of nothing]

I've been rocking whatever poly- or mono-synth into my Health Club Switcheroo I ordered it with a modification that has switchable independent inputs for filter input and envelope follower. It rocks my dismal world, and was eminently affordable, although I did have to wait a while for it since its hand-made. Worth it -- every moment of pause and every penny.
http://www.healthclub-music.com/index.htm

[Babaluma]

As has already been stated, a modular is overkill (more possibilities than you would ever need to create simple pads), and underkill (they are most appropriate for mono or duophonic sounds unless you want to invest a lot of money and space). Having said that, I have created some intense lead sounds using a pretty standard MiniMoog type architecture on my Frac modular (3 VCOS, a ladder VCF, VCA and a couple of LFOs). I have around 40 modules in total, but I never do chordal/pad stuff with it.

If you want nice analogue pads I'd recommend a second hand Oberheim Matrix 1000, they are cheap and sound great!

I second the Wiard recomendation if you do go modular though. I now have two Borg2s, two Boogies, two joysticks, two JAGs and a Noise Ring, and the possibilities for sonic manipulation are endless!