New to Analog/modular....help needed

[atldj]

I've recently purchased the Voyager RME, vx 352, MF 101, Freq Box and Ring Mod. ......I also own a Nord Lead 2X Rack and a Roland V-Synth Rack.
I'm new to all of the modular stuff, but knew it was a direction very exciting to me so I must admit, I sort of blindly hand picked the pedals and expansion.....I've been quite encouraged by the information on this forum and the willingness of people to help out the newbies!! So many of my questions have already been answered by searching. I do have a question or two I was hoping to get some help on

1.) I was wondering about my purchase of the MF 101.....Since the RME aready has it's own filter, is it redundant to have the other? I started to get a little discouraged thinking I didn't need the mf101, but because I'm fumbling around and don't know very much yet, I thought maybe there is good purpose for having it in my system even though the Voyager already has it's own filter.

2.) I recently had my studio reconfigured and we put everything on patchbay (Neutrik 48 Point TRS Patchbay). I did this when I bought the new Moog gear. When we set everything up, we ended up putting the RME, Nord 2x and V synth all on the patchbay (in's and out's). We also put the ring mod, freqbox and mf101 audio ins and outs and then I also have connected (both ring mod and freqbox connected to freq. and mf101 connected to filter and labeled "controller in" as an input on my patchbay. I think my question is ....would it be easier to keep the foogers off of the patchbay? I didn't set this up, but someone from my pro audio shop who specialized in studio set up. In theory, could I set up a seperate patch bay for all of the foogers and run each of the control ins and outs (ie... rate, osc out, carrier in, env. out) from the front of the rack, or would this be a bad idea?


3.) Wanting to make sure I'm heading in the right direction..... I have the opportunity to grab the MP 201 and 1 other....should I grab the vx 351 before the CP 251? With what I have so far is there one that would be more beneficial than the other? While this gear is all in my studio, my hope is to eventually use this rack for live performance.....I'm running Ableton Live 8.

I thank you in advance for any help!!!
best regards,
atldj

[aranm]

"1.) I was wondering about my purchase of the MF 101.....Since the RME aready has it's own filter, is it redundant to have the other? I started to get a little discouraged thinking I didn't need the mf101, but because I'm fumbling around and don't know very much yet, I thought maybe there is good purpose for having it in my system even though the Voyager already has it's own filter."

The MF-101 has an envelope generator, here is a cool way that I use it with a guitar and my voyager. Plug the guitar signal into the MF-101, then plug the envelope output to the LFO input on the voyager, this means that when the input to the MF-101 gets louder/hotter the lfo oscillates faster. I have the VX-351 which allows me to get the lfo output back out of the voyager, I plug this into the resonance or cutoff or mix of the MF-101. now when i play softly i get a slow vibrato kind of filtering effect, and when i hit the note loud the speed dramatically increases. sounds magic. Moog has a combination video for the MF-101 and Voyager on their site using the MF-101 envelope to control the filter on the voyager.

"2.) I recently had my studio reconfigured and we put everything on patchbay (Neutrik 48 Point TRS Patchbay). I did this when I bought the new Moog gear. When we set everything up, we ended up putting the RME, Nord 2x and V synth all on the patchbay (in's and out's). We also put the ring mod, freqbox and mf101 audio ins and outs and then I also have connected (both ring mod and freqbox connected to freq. and mf101 connected to filter and labeled "controller in" as an input on my patchbay. I think my question is ....would it be easier to keep the foogers off of the patchbay? I didn't set this up, but someone from my pro audio shop who specialized in studio set up. In theory, could I set up a seperate patch bay for all of the foogers and run each of the control ins and outs (ie... rate, osc out, carrier in, env. out) from the front of the rack, or would this be a bad idea?"

At least then you would never get them mixed up. I like the idea of a seperate patch bay just for CV's, but that might just be personal preference.

"3.) Wanting to make sure I'm heading in the right direction..... I have the opportunity to grab the MP 201 and 1 other....should I grab the vx 351 before the CP 251? With what I have so far is there one that would be more beneficial than the other? While this gear is all in my studio, my hope is to eventually use this rack for live performance.....I'm running Ableton Live 8."

I'd go for the VX-351 first, so you can get the voyagers CV outputs, but i'd want both eventually.