[sdiy] Modular - sound or song

[Dave Kendall]

Hi all.

My 0.02 pence worth. I don't expect this will be a popular viewpoint, 
and certainly not on [AH] but anyway....

Synths of any description are tools - fun tools you can play around 
with - true, but still tools. The capabilities, feel, sound and UI of 
ANY instrument *together* determine what you can do with it, and what 
you want to do with it.
Sure you can try and take a modular live and play chords on it with 
multiple patch changes, or you can struggle to get real-time 
controllable Tim Blake-style bubbly noises out of a DX7. Both those 
choices are possible, but not the optimum use of those instruments - 
maybe valid for experimentation and fun, but not when there's any real 
work to do, and certainly not when under time-pressure to get something 
done. If a song calls for a sustained chord, I'll reach for a digital 
hardware synth, or an analogue poly (or softsynths if I had some) 
first. If I must have That Analogue Sound, odd noises are called for, 
or a heavy synth bassline, or the other stuff simply doesn't cut it in 
the mix, I'll use an analogue modular or monosynth.

What works in the track/song is paramount, whatever type of synth, and 
whatever style it is, from a 3-minute pop song to a 20-minute 
experimental soundscape.

Sometimes you just have to tolerate a particular UI to get the job 
done. Both bands I'm in often have complex material that requires 
polyphony and keyboard zoning of different sounds, and often 2 
keyboards are played simultaneously, with several patch changes.
Much as the old faithful Kurzweil K2000's UI is not particularly fast 
when programming or setting up patches, it's a necessary compromise, 
and for it's type it's pretty good. Most importantly though, It stores 
patches for instant recall, and has a huge amount of flexibility and 
power when it comes to mapping sounds out, which I use a lot. It would 
be impractical to do this sort of stuff live with a traditional 
analogue modular, and difficult at best with all but the most advanced 
analogue polysynths
(perhaps an Andromeda A6, but IIRC, they can't use samples). Once set 
up, the K2 is only limited by my ability to hit the right notes in the 
right order....... ;-)

If you've learned to program/patch a machine and are familiar with it, 
that weighs very heavily in the balance where UI's are concerned.....

Of course everyone uses their stuff differently, but for me it's horses 
for courses..
I've got a Rhodes Mk1, but use a Nord electro live, because it works 
very, very well. I often use the real rhodes for recording (it has a 
great feel), but gigging such an elderly lady would not do her any 
favours, and the audience won't hear or care about the small 
differences. Only a tiny handful of people would ever spot the red Nord 
keyboard and go "Oh, well now I don't like it, because it's not a REAL 
Rhodes."
Personally I don't care about that, and - anyway *THEY* don't have to 
load the van......  :-)

As a teenager, I started off with simple monosynths, then increasingly 
went for digital polysynths/samplers for the bang-for-the-buck factor. 
I got back into modular/analogue because I bought a beaten-up old SCI 
pro-one cheap, on a whim, and loved the sound. I then made the fatal 
mistake of thinking that it might be even cheaper to build something 
similar, but maybe with a couple of extra LFOs and things........

Oh dear.... 5 years later, and it's *definitely* not cheaper, except 
perhaps compared to buying ready-made modules, and *if* you write off 
your time as fun.
But that's just it. I love the small modular I'm building, and mucking 
around with circuits is great fun, plus, having built it, you can keep 
it running yourself.

The job determines the tool, and that job might be simply having a good 
time and loving your modular. Perfectly valid :-)

cheers,
Dave