A few newbie questions for my first mod synth

chiefthomson · Joined: Feb 13, 2015 Posts: 2 Location: Switzerland

Hi all, it seems I landed in the right place Wink

I'm a musician and always sort of wanted to have a modular, but never really had the guts to start... Now I have.
I've done a lot of research the last couple of weeks.
Because I'm into electronics, I first thought, why not having a mod synth with banana jacks (because I already have a lot of them), but soon I saw that +/- 80% of all modules are working on 3.5mm jacks basis, so I better forget this idea Laughing

A few facts I know already, I'm gonna go for Eurorack format and 3.5mm jacks and a 9U rack. I'm going to create to rack myself because my friend is a woodworker, so... lucky me!

But for the start I have a few questions I didn't find an answer yet.
- Many new people I've seen online start with a tiptop bus board. Because I'm going for a 9U rack, the one zeus studio bus board will not be enough, so there is the second passive bus board from Tiptop I found. These two boards with the power supply and the zeus access cost me around 300$. Now I just wonder, the Doepfer A-100 DIY Kit#1 cost me around 120$. What are your recommendations on this? Is the Doepfer not good enough, thus a little cheaper? I mean there must be a big difference somewhere...

- I'm not quite sure about the "Out" module. Some people speak about it some don't, but there seems no clear way to do it. Do I need an output module? To output my sound, like L/R channel with volume and headphone output? Something like this: http://pittsburghmodular.com/outs/ or will a mixer be just fine? (these mixers with 3 inputs and 1 output.)

- What are your suggestions, better buy a bunch of tiptop's stackable jacks or having enough mults?

- Anyone have some experience with using the minibrute as the main midi-to-cv converter? I own it and didn't know about this conversion before my research Wink

I know it's mono only... but isn't it enough for a start?

- Some people suggest buying an envelope follower too for newbies... I think I sort of understood what it does. But isn't it enough for beginners to have like 2 or more ENV generators?

- Is there a huge difference between a "usual" sequencer and the clock divider from Doepfer, which seems something similar?

Thank you for helping out
Andy

AlanP

chiefthomson · Joined: Feb 13, 2015 Posts: 2 Location: Switzerland

mosc · Posted: Sun Feb 15, 2015 4:18 pm Post subject:

chiefthomson to electro-music.com

Modulars are great fun. They are almost all by nature experimental. Home brew ones are almost always changing as your experience develops. A lot of synth builders use a software modular, like the Nord Modular G2 Demo, to try out ideas and experiment before building.

My building days are over, so I don't have much to offer, but just wanted to say hi.

Spivkurl · Joined: Mar 13, 2015 Posts: 7 Location: Rochester MN USA

Hope you enjoy your foray into the world of modulars! They are a joy to experiment with.

I am wondering why you decided against the banana jack option? If you are building your own modular, and don't really intend to connect with other modular formats, then banana jacks can be a good option. Easy to wire and mount, and offer much flexibility if you get stackable plugs.

Oh yeah, and envelope followers can be useful, though you don't really need to buy one in my opinion. Many of the schematics for these are quite simple to build. If you don't have any actual envelope generators yet, it can be nice to to have a follower to experiment with and test your other modules. (VCO, VCF, VCA, etc..)