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A blogzine about eurorack modular synthesizers and music

The Modular Sound

You’ve all probably seen it by now, Behringer has jumped into the synth market and is about to release a polyphonic analogue keyboard synth. This would be a totally unrelated story, if not for one sentence by Richard Devine, who, in the first teaser video, describes this new synth with the words: “It sounds very [...]

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Scanning Through The Waves

Cover photo by Ian Wallman If you’ve never heard about Scanner then you’ve probably been spending the last 20 years on the un-illuminated side of a far away planet listening to … well … basically nothing. Calling him prolific and multi-talented is almost an understatement. Since the beginning of his career he’s released [...]

HannesHannes

#INSTANTBONER are Joe Steyer and Matthias Millhoff, two musicians and producers from Berlin, Kreuzberg. They believe that modular systems and improvised electronic music are a perfect fit for the dance floor. The duo works with a combination of modular synth (for melody, basslines, drones and vocals; this is Matthias’ part) and a computer-based drum machine (Joe’s part) and prefers to create their music live on stage than in the protected context of the studio.

On the 1st of May 2015 we had our first official show in Berlin. In the following year we worked a lot on our setup and tried to make it as flexible as possible but also establish a significant sound within this flexibility. We were never trying to work on tracks in the studio, we decided from the beginning that we want to be a real live act, create everything on stage, with the pressure to deliver something to the people. We tried to play as much as possible, mainly around Germany. This year we played again on the 1st of May at the same spot and this time it was streamed by Be-At TV [ed. link is below]. It’s really fun for us to play a set, the vibe and the venue influences us from set to set and we try to create something special every time.

Their video Instantmotion was born as a way to explain what they do in their live shows.

[…] we got many questions about what we actually do with all these knobs, lights and cables. To give some answers we put together a short video which we believe speaks for itself.

For those who are interested in knowing the technical specifics behind this video:

[…] The sound you experience is actually the simple patch you see in the video. Only the Hexinverter Mutant Bassdrum is not visible but is triggered by the very first cable plugged into Pamelas Workout. The hihat is a noise from the FMVDO with MakeNoise Maths envelope 2, the bassline is played by the Doepfer Dark Time into Verbos Complex Oscillator and Manhattan Analog SVVCF with the TipTop Z4000 Envelope. The Pad is the mighty OP-1 shaped by Maths envelope 1. Modulation of bassline and hihat are coming from the QuadLFO. The Reverb is Z-DSP with the Valhalla-Card and is also modulated by the QuadLFO. And finally the Mixer/VCA is the ADDAC Quintet Mixing Console.

The Be-At TV live stream (well the archived version of course) can be found on the Be-At TV website here: www.be-at.tv/artists/instantboner

Chosen Waves 011: #Instantboner – Instantmotion

#INSTANTBONER are Joe Steyer and Matthias Millhoff, two musicians and producers from Berlin, Kreuzberg. They believe that modular systems and improvised electronic music are a perfect fit for the dance floor. The duo works with a combination of modular synth (for melody, basslines, drones and vocals; this is Matthias’ part) and a [...]

HannesHannes

kvsu-pikachu-_0001_vintage

Pikamod, by Hannes Pasqualini

This time, the new cover photo is one of my own creations. This shot was originally intended to be used for one my band’s gig posters (www.kvsu.net), but then we went with an illustrated version instead. Since I really like this photo and the Pikachu is holding some patchcables (plus, there’s a modular in the background, though you can hardly tell), I decided to use it for our blogzine instead.

This bent Pikachu was made by the great Japanese circuit bender Kaseo.

Cover Photo, Summer 2016

Pikamod, by Hannes Pasqualini This time, the new cover photo is one of my own creations. This shot was originally intended to be used for one my band’s gig posters (www.kvsu.net), but then we went with an illustrated version instead. Since I really like this photo and the Pikachu is holding some patchcables (plus, there’s a [...]

HannesHannes

Tune your patchcables to strings

“I improvise when I play on my own, so I see where the patch I have made takes me,” says Stefan Paul Goetsch from his home studio in Berlin. Far from being an uncommon utterance among the modular crowd, whether it be jamming at home or taking a portable modular system to a live venue, this sentence has a certain gravitas [...]

KonstantineKonstantine

Modular Spam Sandwich Anyone?

If you ever ran a blog (or are running one) you’ll know how much comment spam one has to handle. We sure get a lot here. 99% of the time, spam is just what you’d expect it: Pornography. dubious, loans, online games, cheap drugs, that kind of stuff. All the more I was surprised to find this spam comment here: What you’re [...]

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Chosen Waves 008: Moritz – Elephants

You probably heard the name Moritz Scharf already. If not, you most certainly heard about Endorphin.es, the makers of the Futrhrrrr Generator, the Shuttle Control and the Terminal. Moritz is one of the two guys who run Endorphin.es, but he’s also a prolific and talented musician. It’s not a rare thing to find that somebody [...]

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