I Dream of Modular Synthesizers

Many months ago I watched the documentary titled “I Dream of Wires” on Netflix. It was a really good film about the history and culture of the modular synthesizer. When I was a teenager in the nineties we were quite insane about this kind of thing. Of course Daft Punk was new band and electronic music was popular in general. We were also inspired by bands of the past like Kraftwerk and Wendy Carlos with her Switched-On Bach. Not being able to afford any of this magnificent equipment and the advent of the cheap and affordable personal computer. We used software to give use the experience and ability to play around with music creation. Some of the software that was popular back then was FastTacker, ReBirth RB-338, and Buzztrax. The documentary however is really good. I found myself relating to it and seeing a lot of equipment I have only dreamed of owning. The film does a good job of really getting you to feel what was so exiting about this stuff. It covers the two primary philosophies of the modular synthesizer, east coast (almost everything, more of a Moog design) or west coast (more of a Buchla design). It also talks about digital and virtual synthesizers as well as giving you a good idea of what’s happening now. I would really recommend watching the documentary.

All of this got me Nostalgic for virtual Synthesizers. This led me through all sorts of pages of open source software to find something decent. I ended up with TAL Noisemaker, a free VST instrument that is a virtual synthesizer played on the Psycle Modular Music Creation Studio software. This provided me with a nice, simple virtual synth to create awesome sounds and music with.  Trying it out is not difficult, but is a little involved. First you need to download and install Psycle. Then down load and install TAL Noismaker. Then remember that TAL Nosiemaker is a VST instrument. So you either have to put TAL Noisemaker in the correct folder in Psycle or at least make sure that Psycle can find it where ever you put it. Then you will open Psycle. You will see a Master Machine in the middle of a blue background. Double click the blue background click on the plus next to Sound generators. Find TAL Noismaker click it then click ok. Then you will need to right click over the TAL Noisemaker and drag it to the master machine. You will see a line with an arrow connecting the TAL Noisemaker to the master machine. Then go to the ‘View’ and then ‘pattern Editor’ click the record button and use the keyboard to input some notes into the pattern tracker. Then click ‘view’ and ‘machine view.’ Double click on the TAL Noise maker press the power on button (It’s the circle line thing under the word Programs) and start adjusting the nobs. All this, one has to do just to get sound. After you get the hang of it though, you can use the virtual synth and patterns editor to create music, dope beats, or celestial sounds. I am not saying this is the easiest or best technique but I sure thought it was a really good and versatile program, don’t let the learning curve scare you.

Another really interesting thing that came out of all of this is a website called ModularGrid. The “I Dream of Wires” documentary mentioned a new modular synthesizer format called Eurorack. While I was reading about the Eurorack format I came across the ModularGrid. It is basically a site that lets you design your dream Modular Synthaszier. The most popluar format of ModularGrid is Eurorack but you can design most anything. Set up an account an you’re off. You can choose your case and each of the components that you would like. It kind like search then drag and drop to your rack. This also lets you get an idea of how much all of this would really cost. The ModularGrid has almost everything you could think of on it. It is a fun way to dream and spend a long time in creative play.
 

Electronic music can be really fun, and for some of us nostalgic. I just wanted to share some of my new synth dreams inspired by a great documentary. I hope I may have given some of you new fodder to dream of modular synthesizers!

Resources:

• I Dream of Wires (http://www.idreamofwires.org/) Website for the documentry.
• Propeller Heads (https://www.propellerheads.se/) Website of the makers of ReBirth RB-338
• FastTracker 2 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FastTracker_2) Wikipedia page about FastTracker2
• TAL Noisemaker (https://tal-software.com/products/tal-noisemaker) – the website of TAL Noisemaker, a free VST instrument that is a virtual synthesizer.
• Psycle Modular Music Creation Studio (https://sourceforge.net/projects/psycle/) sourceforge website of Psycle
• ModularGrid (https://www.modulargrid.net/) Lets you plan, sketch, and experiment to make your dream modular synthesizers based on the format of your choice.