You can view the system for yourself here. What the gosh darn heck is goin’ on here?? Let’s discuss.

Sliiiide to the left

On the top left of the system, we have our Horologic Solum. This is going to clock all the sequencers in our system, and can do some basic sequencing by itself. Maybe you want a 16th note snare build? HS has you covered. Next to that, we have an Extra Mullet, which can split our clock out to our other modules (you could also use splitter cables or hubs to do this if you want to save rack space, but having a buffered mult like this is handy for splitting CV as well). To the right, we have Numeric Repetitor and Zularic Repetitor. Each of these have four outputs, which feed very nicely into Confundo Funkitus below, where they can be combined, faded between, muted, and then routed to our percussion and bassline modules. These three modules fit into my “foolproof” concept: you don’t have to do anything to keep a rhythm going, and all you need to do to start them is feed in a clock. Instant beats! However, you can easily manipulate them with their different parameters, take them in and out with the mutes on CF, and keep things interesting on the fly over your whole set.

To the left we also have a Bin Seq. BS is super accessible and immediate, and is great for sequencing synths with its gates or triggers. It also complements the rhythms of ZR and NR, allowing us to program in a quick sequence with exactly what we want.

To the right of these, we move on to CV. First, we have two Mimetic Digitalis. These will cover our melodic duties, and most of our modulation. Again, all you need to do to create a melody or some new modulation is hold down Shred and you’re off to the metaphorical races. You can also prepare melodies and modulation patterns ahead of time and save them to be loaded at different times in the set. To the right of this, we have Mimetic Sequent and its expander Mimetic Multium, which can take three channels of MD and further manipulate and randomize it, to keep things a little bit different. The expander also offers randomized trigger outputs for further rhythmic fun!

Back to the bottom row, we have Muta Jovis, which can be used to mute CV (an underated performance option), and Lapsus Os, which can be used to fade and invert CV on the fly, and then split it out to multiple destinations. Our last CV module is the Sinc Defero, a simple buffered attenuator/multiple. Always handy to have!

LOUD NOISES

We’ve gone over the sequencing and manipulation modules in this system, but that doesn’t do much good without stuff to sequence. Time for synths! We have five voices in this system. I’d avoid having any more than this; in fact, four is more than enough for a lot of cases. First, we have two Basimilus Iteritas Alter. BIA is my favorite kick drum in Eurorack, so one of these will be dedicated to kicks. Since it has so many parameters, it can easily be modified and modulated to create accents, tonal changes, and more. The second one can act as a number of things: hats, snares, or another synth voice.

Next is the Manis Iteritas, which can also serve many functions, including claps or metallic sounds, or as a bass or lead. I would probably use the two BIA as kick and hats, and the MI as a clap-type sound with some modulation.

Next is the Loquelic Iteritas Percido, my personal favorite voice. While it excels at synths, I really like it for kicks as well. Just route the envelope to the pitch of one (or both) of the oscillators, get some modulation going, and it’s guaranteed to shake the foundation. I’d probably use it for basslines though, in this case. LIP is great because it’s very easy to tweak and get a wide variety of sounds out of, but it can easily be kept in tune if you don’t touch the pitch encoders.

Lastly, I included a sample player, the TipTop Audio ONE. There are a lot of techno sounds that work really well that are easiest to use as samples, so load up an SD card full of your favorites and you’re off. I’d use this for 909-style snare builds, cymbals, one shot synths… you name it.

Tune your kicks plz

Lastly, we need to mix it all together and make it sound awesome. I’ve included a Soleo Vero, two WMD MSCL, two Happy Nerding Tritone, an Erica Synths Drum Mixer, and a WMD Pro Output. I also have a Make Noise Erbe Verb for some DSP.

First off, SV is really handy as it lets you easily tune three voices visually. This means you can make sure your synth voices are in tune with your kick (which they should be! Kick pitch is extremely important, as it’s the foundation of techno and everything needs to gel with it) and make sure everything is sounding like it should before you send it out to the dance floor.

Second, I have the Erbe Verb. Reverb is a very handy tool for adding space, creating builds and layers, and adding tension. 20 hp is a lot of space to dedicate to reverb, but to me it’s worth it, as it’s basically another element to play with and tweak.

Next, we have two MSCLs. I would use one of these to duck one or two synth voices to the kick via the sidechain input (it’s stereo and in this case we can process two voices separately before they go out to the mixer) which helps keep things dynamic and bring out the kick. I’d use the second one after my mixer to compress and limit things just a bit and bring out some punch (check out our Mixing for Modular post for more on that!).

Then we have two TriTones. I’d probably put one of these on a synth or two that I felt needed some frequency changing (maybe too much low end? Too much high end?). The nice thing about the TriTone is that the individual bands can be used separately, so I could, say, take a notch out of a snare, cut some lows on a kick, and boost some highs on a synth with just one module. I can use the second TriTone before my final MSCL as a master bus compressor to add some character and smooth out any stray frequencies.

Last up is the Erica Synths Drum Mixer. It’s a nice seven-channel mixer with a very aggressive built-in compressor. I like how the knobs feel and it’s great for doing slow builds and fades, and the compressor adds a touch of glue which is useful too. The more tools the better!

Nice

So we have a basic layout for a system. This system is very much designed for improvisation and randomisation, so it’s hard to really go wrong in a set with this one, which is great. There’s also a huge range of sounds that can be had from this system, so even if you don’t change any modules you could have completely different performance one night to the next. But what if we want something oriented more towards prepared melodies and patterns and less improv?

Switch it up

System #2 enters the playing field! You can view it here.