Earlier in the month I had a look at the Doepfer LC1, a compact modular synthesiser case with 48hp of space for Eurorack modules:
48hp is just large enough to make a self-contained instrument, but unless you buy a load of modules from mini-modular maestros 2HP you have to make some hard choices. One oscillator and some modulation options? Two oscillators and no modulation? One envelope? Two? Do I really need a spring reverb?
To which the answer is yes, yes I really do need a spring reverb. Could I buy a third, even smaller case, just to house the spring reverb? Such as for example Doepfer's MC Mini Case, which is 32hp wide. But that way madness lies.
Apart from being sources of mental uncertainty smaller Eurorack cases are also useful as expansion boxes, and that's the topic of this brief post. The music at the top of the page was made with the following configuration of the LC1, plus a Behringer Model D, which I really need to dust off with a brush. And also a biscuit tin, because I couldn't see the monitor otherwise:
In this setup the LC1 houses a pair of Behringer 112 VCOs, plus some miscellaneous modules that provided moral support. I think I used the Doepfer A-166 a little bit, the other modules not at all. The oscillators are feeding into the Model D's external input, which is in turn feeding the sound through its own filter and envelopes. The end result is a MiniMoog clone with five oscillators, which is overkill - the MiniMoog was not known for sounding thin, the Model D likewise - but why not. All of the obvious synthesiser sounds, plus the SPROING! snare drum sound in the latter half, were made with this setup
The sproing snare drum sound was made with the Model D's oscillator modulation. It sounds exactly like a similar effect in Jean-Michel Jarre's "Calypso 2" and I wonder if he used a similar technique to make that effect, with whatever synthesisers where on Waiting for Cousteau (unusually, that album doesn't list his equipment).
Of course the track doesn't just use the setup above. There are some space effects, which are made with a cheap guitar delay pedal with the intensity control turned up so that it creates feedback. I was thinking of Tangerine Dream's early albums, when they only had a VCS3, and most of the synthesiser-style effects were made with organs and guitar pedals.
There's also masses of Mellotron, courtesy of GForce's M-Tron, which is by now twenty years old. Can a VST plugin be vintage? M-Tron is older now than most people on Reddit and by extension the internet as a whole. The latter half of the first movement uses GForce's Isolation Choir bank, which was recorded during the COVID lockdown. And of course Valhalla's Supermassive, a terrific and free reverb plug-in.
On a musical level I wanted to make something that was harrowing and relentless, because I was in a happy mood. It's inspired a little bit by Tangerine Dream's Alpha Centauri and "Thru Metamorphic Rock" from their much later album Force Majeure, and also by the colour black, and the thought of pencil lead and dry paper.
