Doepfer

*Lurk mode off*

Hi Chris,

You should probably take my suggestions with a grain of salt since I
only recently got my first Doepfer modules and I'm a newbie in the
modular world. But I don't want you to have this request unanswered
and don't want you to be frustratet, becaus you bought something you
have no use for ;-)

On 4/30/06, Christopher Scullion <chris_t2000@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Hi, I am new here. I have no previous experience with A-100 synths but am
> thinking of buying one. I have been reading up about them and I am thinking
> of getting one of the basic systems, System 1 or System 2, but I am not too
> sure if they will be able to do what I am hoping they would do.


Well, first of all, I wouldn't recommend the System 1 or 2, since they
are equipped with quite old modules. Doepfer developed a lot of new
modules in the meantime, which are quite cool (especially some filters
and the A-143 series of modules, and actually a lot more...). So it's
probably wisest to put together a system, that fits your needs... You
could start with one of the basic systems and replace whatever modules
you prefer... (Doepfer has a quite useful system planner Excel
sheet:http://www.doepfer.de/pub/a100_sys.xls)

> I have very little equipment (guitars, small yamaha keyboard with Midi
> output, cheetah MS6 synth and some microphones.) and I would hope I could
> use some of these with the a-100.

Maybe taking a look at the Sound Processing System
(http://www.doepfer.de/a100_systems_e.htm) to get some ideas of how
your instruments sounds could be "mangled" by a Doepfer system would
not be bad ;-)

> The type of thing that I am looking to do is this
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5D2OVzG8U0

Oh... I love these (not so) new (anymore) Frusciante records... Well,
he has as far as I know some mix of Doepfer, Analogue Systems and Plan
B modules. But he does also have quite a lot of modules. So don't
expect, you could do this (live, rhythm sequenced rhythm sounds whil
processing a guitar) with one of the basic systems. Probably a good
live rhythm sequencer (I'm thinking korg electribe s or something like
that...) and a well thought out system with some sound processing
abilities could do the job...

> or also the sort of thing that Jonny Greenwood does in Radiohead for the
> song Idioteque. Is this possible with the a-100?

What does he do? I mean I know the song and I like it, but I don't
know what he does. The harmony in this song is actually sampled from a
70ies computer music piece "Mild und Leise" by Paul Lansky (see
http://www.music.princeton.edu/paul/radiohead.ml.html) and he used FM
synthesis to create it. I'm way to new to modular sound synthesis to
be able to say, that you can or can't do it with a doepfer system. But
my guess is, it would be quite hard... But some of the rhythm stuff
and the ambient sounds from Idiotheque should be possible...

>         One last question is, how does sound come out of the a-100? Does it just
> have to be plugged into an amplifier?

Yes.

-Michael