What brought you to Eurorack modular synthesizers?
I have been playing electric bass in various soul, rock, reggae and ska bands in the Washington DC area where I got to play at some major venues as well as tour up and down the East Coast, but I have always been interested in and have been a fan of electronic music.
Around 2017 and 2018 while at work I started to seriously research how to make music using hardware after having used programs like Propellerheads Reason and Logic. I am not sure how I came upon many Eurorack videos on YouTube and fell into that rabbit hole. What fascinated me was mainly the generative music aspect because it was something I had always thought about but had never conceived or grasped in my mind how it could be done.
It all started back in the rave days of the late 80s, early 90s when in the wee hours the TB 303's acid sound would take on a life of its own and it seemed like the music had run away from the DJs. I always wanted to make music that made itself, mixed itself and sounded different every time you listened to it, yet it was iterations of what you had listened to before. So back then I envisioned a CD that was like a petri dish, with the music changing with every listen. Once I saw generative music being done with Eurorack synthesizers I was hooked.
How did Eurorack wreck you as a musician?
Once I had somewhat of a complete system I allowed myself the making of music not tied to specific pitches, scales, the happy accidents, the unhappy accidents. I spent a lot of time listening to sounds for sounds' sake.
How did you survive the wreck and thrive?
The realization that it is a private playground, just me and the modular synthesizer, with my headphones one, no one to tell me that what I did was wrong or right or steering me into any direction. It wasn't about a pitched melody but more about textures and appreciating noise or even the spaces in between the sound, searching for what could be inside, like a continually magnifying microscope.
What were the biggest challenges at the beginning?
Making the generative music or sounds I was looking for, having variety, etc.
How did you overcome these challenges?
I still go back to Make Noise's video on the Krell Patch. It's always a starting point for me every now and then. And then of course, having sequencing, quantizing modules, LFOs and random voltages helps a lot.
What's your best advice for a newcomer?
I would steer away from modules that involve a lot of menu diving. I think an oscillator, a filter, a VCA from Doepfer for example, will teach you a lot.
What is your biggest mistake with Eurorack?
I always give complex modules a chance and I always end up not liking them and go back to playing with an analog oscillator, a filter, a VCA.
What did you learn from it?
These simple, single-function modules are sometimes the best for learning and playing.
What's the best module to start with?
Despite all of the above, I love the Morphagene and I would recommend it if paired with LFOs and maybe one effect module like Mimeophon.
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