Moog Music Forum

I've been wanting to do this for a long time, but I finally have three Mother-32s in a 3-Tier Rack.

It's astounding how many different soundscapes you can create with:
(3) Oscs
(3) Filters
(3) Envs
(3) LFOs
(3) Sequencers
and the ability to interconnect them as you please.

I've been playing with it for days and I haven't even felt the need to connect a MIDI keyboard yet.

At first I used the EXT. AUDIO jacks to daisy-chain the output of each Mother into the next, and used the MIX and VOLUME knobs to balance the three Mothers against each other. It was cool, but it gave too much sonic control to the last Mother in the chain.

I opted for a small, cheap, passive mixing solution from ART that only cost $50:
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/SplitMix4

Since its four inputs can be Mono or Stereo (TS/TRS), you can easily mix up to four Mothers and then send the mix to effects, or, send each Mother to its own stereo effect which then each goes to its own stereo input. The stereo mix output can then go to even more stereo effects if you want.

I'm using four Eventide H9 MAX (one for each Mother, and one for the final mix) which takes each Mother far beyond what you'd expect from a single oscillator.

It's at this point that you'll appreciate the efficient simplicity of the Mother layout, which makes it possible to look at three of these on top of each other and still understand what's going on.

If you've already got one Mother-32 and are trying to decide whether to get another Mother or something entirely different, I'd recommend getting at least a second Mother. They play off each other so well.

Sounds like fun. I have two Mother 32's in a 3 tier. Was thinking of a 3rd but devided on a Pittsburgh Lifeforms SV1 with a mixer/attenuator module. Was supposed to be here early May but now is pushed to June.

Dan,

Would love to see/hear one of your fantastic demos on this set up.

I would like to get at least one more, and a three pace tier for other gear...

Damm Daniel, back at it again with the White H9's, and connected independently to three Mothers, sonically stunning!!!

I couldn't stop at two. Three seems to be the perfect number of Mothers.

Hi Dan

I have a question regarding your setup.
All this great hardware goes to a $50.- mixer..... So, you get $50.- quality cheap sound..... Is that right? I'd like to read your comments. Thanks!
Best!

dortola wrote:Hi Dan

I have a question regarding your setup.
All this great hardware goes to a $50.- mixer..... So, you get $50.- quality cheap sound..... Is that right? I'd like to read your comments. Thanks!
Best!

I understand a passive mixer does not change the sound since it doesn't have preamps

dortola wrote:All this great hardware goes to a $50 mixer... So, you get $50 quality cheap sound... Is that right?!

Hi dortola,

I have since purchased another of those mixers and now use it for my live keyboard rig as well (Kurzweil, Hammond, and Theremini). These shows are regularly performed for crowds of between 800 and 3,000 people.

Since each audio cable is now a stereo TRS cable, I have reduced my rig cables from 8 to 4. And, since the mixer is passive, I've also dropped another AC cable.

I'm rather fussy about my sound and, because I programmed those sounds, it's easy to hear if I'm getting the same quality I had when I was sitting at the keyboard with headphones.

Interesting to hear that you are using a passive mixer.

I also have 3 mothers (and other things) in a rack and generally route the VCA outputs directly into a compact mixer (usually a Mackie 402VLZ4 or 1202VLZ4).

A simple passive mixer would simplify things for me in certain set-ups but I haven't tried it.

Do you find any downsides to the passive mix approach? For example, excessive loading of the output stages of the whatever module you feed into the passive mixer? Are there any unwanted interactions between the output stages of various modules going unbuffered into the mixer?

What's the passive mixer feeding into? Any problems there with matching or controlling signal levels?

Stevie Ray wrote:Interesting to hear that you are using a passive mixer. Do you find any downsides to the passive mix approach?

Hi Stevie Ray, none so far.
I liked it enough to get a second one for a different system.

Stevie Ray wrote:What's the passive mixer feeding into?

Various things including:
Mackie Mixer
Bose SoundLink III
IK Multimedia iLoud
AVIOM Monitor Mixer

Stevie Ray wrote:Any problems there with matching or controlling signal levels?

Not really a problem, per se, but you obviously can't get output signals louder than the inputs' sources.
So... if you need one of the four sources to have a lot more gain than the other three, you have to turn up whatever the passive mixer is plugged into, and then lower the other three knobs on the passive mixer. But that's never been a problem to do.

_DemonDan_ wrote:

Stevie Ray wrote:Interesting to hear that you are using a passive mixer. Do you find any downsides to the passive mix approach?

Hi Stevie Ray, none so far.
I liked it enough to get a second one for a different system.

Stevie Ray wrote:What's the passive mixer feeding into?

Various things including:
Mackie Mixer
Bose SoundLink III
IK Multimedia iLoud
AVIOM Monitor Mixer

Stevie Ray wrote:Any problems there with matching or controlling signal levels?

Not really a problem, per se, but you obviously can't get output signals louder than the inputs' sources.
So... if you need one of the four sources to have a lot more gain than the other three, you have to turn up whatever the passive mixer is plugged into, and then lower the other three knobs on the passive mixer. But that's never been a problem to do.

Thanks for the info DemonDan.

I'm encouraged to experiment with passive mixer idea. I'm all for simple and inexpensive solutions wherever possible.

I think these days we're led to believe that signal buffering and amplification is essential in all cases, but seeing as modern audio circuit designs are generally well-buffered on their output, and equally modern mixers, ADCs and PA equipment have plenty of gain at the input stage, passive mixing is probably a viable option in some set-ups.

I'll knock up a passive 4-channel mixer from the spares box and see how it flies.

Regards

Stevie