I've been playing with Eurorack since 2020.
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I've been playing with Eurorack since 2020. Here's my current setup: a 104HP, 6U (two row) box full of, mostly, Mutable Instruments modules. It's missing two: one that I own but have lent out, and one which I intend to buy when I have an income again.
Mutable Instruments was a company founded by Emilie Gillet, a French trans woman who has been in electronic music production for many years. She designed about two dozen modules, each of which was completely revolutionary in one or two ways, and for most of which she published schematics and code. That code now underlies a huge percentage of reverbs, granular synthesizers, and even basic VA and wavetable synthesizers on the market today, and is available in VCV Rack as "Audible Instruments". Beyond even that, her design principles, such as autoranging and mode changes based on which ports have cables connected, have completely shifted the ecosystem. Emilie left the industry because of transphobia; there is no more production of Mutable Instruments modules, but there are plenty of folks pumping out clones of varying quality.
When I started with Eurorack, I couldn't afford most of her modules. I had only one; a used Tides v2, which is still in my rack today. I've spent the last four years saving and finding deals and trades to build up my collection of her originals, and I'm very glad to have the system I do today.
The rest of this system is a patchwork; an LFO and an effect from Xaoc Devices, an output module I built from a Befaco kit, level shifters from ALM. It's only missing two things: a Karplas-Strong string synthesis module, called Rings, which I lent to a friend years ago, and a sequencer-adapter, for which I intend to use the Squarp Hermod. I already use the Squarp Pyramid as my main sequencer, but it made more sense when I used other synths along with my modular; these days, it's mostly just the modular and my guitar.
Modular synthesis is not a good way to make music from scratch, but it is a great way to explore soundscapes, build machines that generate their own, unique sounds, and process other instruments.
#Eurorack #synthesis #synthesizers #modularSynth #mutableInstruments
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@noracodes You should check out Masanori Nozawa and the other artists on his Medium label. Their key focus *is* making music from scratch with modular setups. It’s really great stuff!
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@noracodes Hiroaki Iizuka’s “Range” album is especially beautiful.
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@ruby Thank you!
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@noracodes when I last spoke with her, a few years back, she gave no indication that transphobia was a reason.
She did say she wanted to do new things and move away from the MI.
Can I ask where you got the information that it was because of transphobia please?
I’ve not experienced any in the MI itself, though there are a lot of men doing a lot of mansplaining. -
@PaulaMaddox She said so on Reddit; I'll see if I can find the post.
