Carriers/also racks and help with studio designs

The Moog Forum Moogerfooger Forum
1

dumb question, I know, but I’ve seen alot of references to external carriers on this site. What is that referring to?

I play my guitar (I don’t really use synthesizers too much, just the guitar) through various pedals, my most favorites of course are my moog ring mod, MuRF, and Bass MuRF, then into the amp. I’m really starting to get into/understand the world of modules and synths. My wife and I made a deal a while back, I’d buy the house and one room in it would be dedicated to my music “paraphinalia”, well not really a deal but still… What are these huge modules I’ve been seeing in pictures on this site (are they different mods that have been brought together? What do they do or what can they do? Where can you learn about them? I ask because from the small taste I’ve had of synthesizing, I think this is the direction I want to take my music in and would need to design this studio around a module. In any event I need an easier way to access my moogerfoogers than just laying them on the floor, any pics or suggestions as to how to kind of mount them on a rack? Thanks in advance.

2

I rack my Foogers and I prefer them that way, although its space comsuming.

Moogarchives.com shows you what the old modular style synthesizers look like, module for module.

Synthesizers.com is about the best place to start for trying to put together a synthesizer like that.

As far as external carriers, Id have to see how that was used in the sentance.

THe hard thing to break to you though is the fact that when you start talking about modular synths…just having 1 small room might not cut it, hehehe. From one married man to another, renegotiate the deal! :laughing:

Im assuming that when you say “big modules” that modular synthesizers are what you are referring to.

Pretty much think about it like this. You have a distortion pedal, a phaser pedal, wah pedal, compression pedal, chorus, flange, etc. Well a synth is like a pedal board except that it takes a module to produce a tone, a module to modify it, a module to route it and a module to let the outside world hear it. You have to connect them altogether in order to GET a sound. Oscillators, Filters, Envelope Generators, Voltage Controlled Amplifyers (VCA) are the essential building blocks for a synthesizer. THe more you want to do the bigger your cabinet will be and then soon your room will be filled with one of these:

But as soon as you get that, you realize that you need to expand it to look like this:

And then of corse you have to have a Baby Room too if you haven’t one already. :slight_smile:


Eric

3

awesome, thanks. I was looking at synthesizers.com, and I agree, one room won’t be enough, I want a house with a basement but apparently no one likes those anymore and they’re hard to come by around here (i live in raleigh, NC), already got a kid too, lost my music room and all my toys were reduced to one little corner, with more than half winding up in the closet. What would a good basic modular rack or cabinet system include? I’ve noticed that Doepfer, Analogue Systems, and Moog are the biggest names in modular synthesis. Doepfer seems to be the cheapest, but synthesizers.com had some reasonable “starter” kits, are these worth it (especially, as you mentioned, since I most certainly will want to expand it)? People don’t seem to be selling these systems on ebay.com or amazon.com, or if they do they are individual modules, are there other sites where people are selling their used systems? This may be a dumb question, but can you mix and match modules from different brands?

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I didn’t think doepfer offeres the cheapest modules.

Modular synths generally contain
Signal Generators
Signal Routers
Sound Generators
Sound Modifyers

In an analog system like these, the signals can be Control Voltages (that control things like Osc freq, Filter cutoff-parameters that are usually manually controlled by potentiometers), or Triggers/Gates (signals that tell a unit to turn on or off only (like those that fire envelope generators or start and stop sequencers).

Signal generators are things like Keyboard or other types of accessory controllers (ribbon controllers, joystick controllers) or modules like envelope generators, sample and hold (random voltage generators) or sequencers.

Signal Routers are devices that aid in programming. Modules like Multiples (multiply a signal and allows that signal to be sent to usually 4 destinations) and Attenuators (modules that reduce the strength of a signal) route signals to other destinations. Early Moog Modulars had half- sized panels on the bottom of the cabinets that were hard wired to other modules to save on patch cords and to make real-time performances easier.

Sound generators are modules like Oscillators, and noise sources.

Sound Modifyers are modules that modify sound such as filters, VCA’s and Ring modulators.


A little more in depth info:

Some modules have double functions, for instance, an oscillator can become a signal generator and some filters can become sound generators if they have that feature. Envelope generators generate a signal by modifying a signal (turning trigger signals into variable voltages) so its something that takes a long time to familliarize yourself with.

Not all companeis adhere to the same voltage standards. Most companies today produce synthesizers that respond to control voltages that are 1 volt per octave. Some old Moog stuff is Hertz per Volt, and Some are less than 1 Volt per octave.

One of the main differences between companies are the trigger voltages. Triggers turn something on or off so it might be -5v to +5v or 0v to 5v. SOme exceed these voltages. Id be doing you a disservice if I tried to tell you what exact numbers particular synths (even Moogs) use so Ill let someone else chime in.

Lots of people have “hybrid” synths that pull together modules from various companies that have the features they are looking for. Moog is famous for their filters. Doepfer has bit crushers. Dotcom has the nice sequencers. Modcan has the quantizer, Buchla has the controllers. You can pull all of these together just so long as you know that the signals are compatible and have something to MAKE them compatible if they aren’t.

A lot of people these days like the “Eurorack” type of cabinets because they think that Moog/Dotcom sized modules really are a waste of rack space. Youll need 5 rack spaces just to hold 1 oscillator. In a 19 inch rack space you can only hold 8 single sized modules. Eurorack offers more compact systems, but I am not familliar enough with Eurorack to aid you there.

If you live in NC, visit the factory in Asheville and check out the Moog Museum when they get that built.

Hope this helps you out.

My advice to you is to go to moogarchives.com, click on a module and read both the functional description and the musical application for each module. You might not understand how everything works, but as you progress in synthesis you will. Go and download a manual written by Tom Rhea and spend a lot of time reading that.


MicroMoog manual
http://www.fantasyjackpalance.com/fjp/sound/synth/synthdata/07-moog-micromoog.html

Read read read and think about what the modules do and visiualize how you would patch them together if you had them.

Synthesis is engineering, its not an art form in my personal opinion. Applying the sound is where the art comes in. It has a relatively high learning curve but once you see how everything operates then you will be able to hear a sound in your head and figure out how to get there, or you can listen to some synth on a commercial and tell exactly what they are doing to get that sound.

Eric

5

erick covered a lot of stuff already, but I just wanted to throw in a little on your question:

analoguehaven.com sells basically all of the doepfer modules available out of CA, check em out for individual modules.

I’d suggest going with doepfer if you’re cramped for space as the eurorack sized modules are way smaller than the american-type (dunno the actual name for that format) synthesizers.com modules.

mixing and matching is possible but you need to keep an eye on voltage requirements and again the two formats listed above, as some things won’t work right if one isn’t designed to be compatible with the other.

6

Why doesn’t attenuators have voltmeters :question:

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good question, very good question. Or at least make voltmeter modules.

One thing that helped me out A LOT with learning modular synthesis was the free demo of arturia moog modular v. You can find it on the arturia website I believe. It took me some time before I could even make a sound but now im able to understand it a lot better and create sounds from memory. Some day I will have a real modular but this and my micro and foogers will do for now.

8

I cut my teeth on the Micro and that helped me on the modular software…although that software has errors.

THe software increased my understanding of the Micro.

Eric

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Looks like i’ve got some homework to do. Good call on that moog modular V demo. It seems kind of similar to the reason demo, lay out and all, and at first i didn’t know what i was doing, and after a few months i got the hang of it. Thanks for all the input, i’m sure i’m going to have more questions later after i pick up the basics.