Help to find some resources

Plugins & Modules
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Hello everyone,

I’m a music enthusiast and have been using VCV for a few months now. After learning the basics of modular synthesis by watching several tutorials, I’ve spent some time experimenting with existing patches and creating my own.

I recently discovered a musician I really like. He plays the kind of music (on his Eurorack modular system) that I’d love to get close to. So, I’m trying to figure out how to achieve similar sounds. However, this is where I’m struggling a bit: I can’t manage to create these sounds on my own, and I’m having troubles to find patches that come close to it.

I have no idea what “style of music” this falls under or how to describe these sounds, which makes searching quite difficult since I don’t even know what terms to look for. It’s kind of “aerial” but not “ambiant”, very melodic…

If anyone comes across this post and can help me in any way, by identifying the name of this music style, helping me characterize and describe these instruments and sounds, or even by sharing resources, patches, or modules that could get me closer to this, I would be very grateful!

Here is a link of one of his video:

Thanks in advance!

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I find it to be a bit “synthy Cure-ish” with quite a few dashes of ethereal wave and dream pop. Some of those might, if not help, at least inspire, I hope.

It is useful the gear list is mentioned at the end of the video, while they might not be available in Rack, you can look up what they do and find if not equivalents, at least similes, and… experiment.

There’s always the option to contact the author and ask questions…

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Accurately characterizing music styles is inherently difficult. The closest I’ll get to this one is “rhythmic down-tempo modular patch with simple sounds and lots of reverb” :slight_smile: And I would also venture to say that unfortunately it won’t get you closer to recreating this in VCV Rack. It won’t be too difficult recreating these sounds and rhythms in Rack though. If I get a bit of time I’ll post you a patch as a starting point.

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Not sure about genre, I find all that stuff slightly pointless really. It’s all electronic music, I would probably just call it techno. Anyway here’s a few tips based on what I could hear:

The intro sounds a bit like Rings, which is called ‘Resonator’ in VCV - apologies if you already knew this. Maybe not, but this will get you some similar sounds.

There’s a kind of arp sound that comes in after that, which has some glide/portamento - you can do this in modular by patching a slew limter on your V/Oct signal, after the quantiser.

The lead sound has some modulation on the volume, which starts out like a tremelo but goes into audio range. This is called AM, or amplitude modulation. You can do this by patching an LFO that goes into audio range into a VCA (for example, the Bogaudio LFO goes up to 400Hz, I think most of them do actually, or you can use another VCO, which is called oscillator cross-modulation).

For drums, no idea what was used in that video, but my tip is to download some free samples and load then into a sample player. Trigger the samples from a gate sequencer if you want to program your own patterns, or try something like Permutation or Seeds of Change for generative beats. These sounded a bit EDM, so maybe start there, or even just use some loops if it sounds good. Don’t feel like you have to make everything from scratch yourself when starting out. Nothing wrong with buying the Host module, and using VST synths/fx either. If it sounds good, it’s not cheating!

I can see some other kit in the background (OP-1 sampler maybe, one of the Nord synths?), so this probably isn’t all modular.

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The drums are Elektron devices.

@VirtualModular is right: not everything is modular, besides the drums mentioned above, the Reverb is an Eventide unit and the Delay is a Digitech.

The specific models can be found at the end of the video.

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The very first sound I think is an oscillator through a low pass gate (LPG).

To get started, I would suggest downloading some vcv patches you like and experimenting with tweaking them. Omri’s patches are usually clearly organized and explained in his videos. DocB’s etudes are also good starters, but more difficult to understand than Omri’s.

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Thank you all very much for your insightful responses! It gives me some ideas to keep experimenting. I’m taking note of your advice and suggestions :slight_smile: Bye !

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what about synthpop

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Here is a short interview with Gattobus (Gianni Proietti). Some history and his relationship with and contributions to Roland.

In the interview there is also a short mention of his Eurorack setup.

A Few Minutes with Gattobus: From Roland Fan to Family - Roland Articles

Speaking of Eurorack, I must say your latest Gattobus composition on YouTube, “Circles,” is absolutely magical. How did you get into modular synthesis? Are you working on an ever-growing wall of modules or do you prefer to keep it simple?**

Thank you. Well, I believe every synth addict ends up with a little modular system sooner or later. But I’ll never have a wall of modules because it would be impossible to use all that effectively. The inspiration behind my system is the West Coast modular approach. Once I had all the pieces, I stopped there.

So, West Coast synthesis generally refers to the early synthesizer designs of Don Buchla. Generally based on waveshaping/wavefolding and (fast) lowpass gates (VCO → Waveshaper → LPG). Waveshaping more generally is the direct manipulation the shape of the wave to get complex spectra. This can also include oscillator interactions like FM and AM. This approach can easily generate complex spectra from simple waveshapes, even when starting with bare sines. Also, it was generally aimed at more experimentation. E.g. historically no ‘normal’ ‘black and white keys’ keyboard attached.

As opposed to the East Coast approach, the early synthesizer designs by Bob Moog. Generally based on subtractive synthsesis: starting with more complex richer waveshapes/spectra (like Saw, Square/Pulse, Triangle) and shaping the spectrum with filters (VCO → VCF → VCA).

Generally, waveshaping often sounds more harsh then filtering. Also there are more non-linear effects in waveshaping. Generally Lowpass Gates (VCF+VCA) are used to tame some high end and have a sort-of-natural decay, dampening both volume/amplitude and higher end frequencies over time.

VCV Rack offers plenty of waveshapers/wavefolders and Lowpass gates (you can also use a VCA+VCF using the same envelope) or a VCF with cv controlled drive that goes all the way down to silence).

VCV Rack also offers various complex oscillators incorporating various West Coast elements. E.g. check out the Instruo collection: VCV Library: Instruo

The strict distinction between West Coast and East Coast is a lot less relevant today. In the the days of Eurorack and VCV Rack you can combine all the different approaches and techniques.

Here’s some background and history on the different approaches:

East Coast vs. West Coast Synthesis Explained - Perfect Circuit

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