All language subtitles for 12-08 - Experimenting With Modular Synths - deadmau5 Teaches Electronic Music Production

This is all very intimidating I think like you do 90% of people who don't know much about audio

Your production to come to the studio and see this wall

Or balls of you know just blinking lights and knobs and all this stuff and get really

Kind of overwhelmed by the complex look of the thing but

It's actually really not complex at all did these these all all this s*** is is no.

Different than a BST

In fact this is what vsts are built off of except these wires are basically replaced

With on-off switches or

Toggle dancer route routing switches or mod matrix's

That the thing you should

Take away is this you know this is called a modular synth meaning that its modular everyone

None of these panels some made by the

Same manufacturer some made by other manufacturers every one of these small little modules has a very

Purpose

So what you have is oscillator Zoar let's just say sound sources and then mod

Modifiers

That's

Basically the two things that are kind of happening here so

I have one module that outputs

Vco which is a voltage controlled oscillator

Voltage plays a huge role in

Modular synthesis because

Voltage dictates on the pitch of something or the amplitude of something depending on

The voltage of going in

And what I'm doing is I'm coming out of a VCR which is a voltage-controlled oscillator

I'm coming into a

I'm just a small mixer here and I'm going directly out

To a mixer that's

Going into the input of my computer

So

What you're hearing there is just a saw wave from this one module

And then you know this knobs controlling the pitch

Now the quality because it's an analog oscillator the quality is inherently just going to be better than a

Mini digital synth

So that's

Not very exciting so that's when you have to get start with your patching so instead of

Coming out that these wires are basically just controlling the signal flow of what have you

Whether that's the voltage or the audio

So I'm going directly into a mixer and will just say this is my computers input because ultimately it is

So

Instead of going into that I want to go into a low pass filter so you could take any

Filter you like

Let's say

This one here this isn't it's not going to take the output of that saw wave and then inserted into

An audio input into that filter I'm going to take the audio output of that filter and then go back to my output

So now I'm just going from here to there to there

Wellbutrin

Follow the wires

So now I'm controlling the filter cut off so now I've added a little

More

Kind of

Death to that sent Walnut death but I have a parameter now that I can change

And of course all these modules have

Different ways of doing things in different outputs

What we're hearing with the filter open there is just a soft butt

Just like flicking a switch on a VSC I can change that from a saw to a

Sine wave or to a pulse

Or a pulse-width where you can

Modify things like pulse width

But just for argument's sake let's say

I want to use a assign

Witches

That kind of resolution between the high and the low

That range you're getting is an analog sound

So that you can't really replicate well with a vst2

So of course you can be more complex than that

This is a group of three of the same module so I can take another sine wave out of one

And then go into the frequency modulation input of another one

One so I'll let's take the mod index of

This one and cross modded which I believe you

Sprint so now I have a sine wave modulating another sine wave

So this is got to be so I can also send it as LFO

Automation because this is the rate of the low-frequency oscillation and this is the pitch of the

The destination

Here's the

The amount if you want should be

So this is now the amount of modulation

With no amount I can now have that as a framing rmsi

Switch that say if I want to go to vco

A weird kind of George called frequency modulation so I'm using this oscillator to modulate the frequency

This one

And all that is

Is you hearing that effect for being sped up

Cross modulation so you can cross modulator

Instead

Four but I don't know but I'm always sounds good with signs for

Every reason

We're still taking the output of this one and going into this filter here

Mom mom

So Tennessee you want to automate something like that then the patch gets a little more

Harry where you'll take what's known as an adsr attack Decay sub stained

Release or you can have a VR which is just attack Decay and release without the sustained but

When I will take the value of that envelope and go into the cutoff parameter

Which is called control modulation which also runs over voltage

So what I'm going to do here

Is I now need something to trigger

That 80s are so

I have to take like a gate input to That 80's R come from

I don't even know why you it could be anything

Could be there Sky the Tempe

So now as this

Channel is blinking here

You can see that that voltage is being sent here and the gate is being turned on and off

Now if I increase the amount of that

Anna just some of these parameters

Are you getting the filter opening and closing for you

And of course that's going on the rate of

Of whatever that you can sync to another clock and all that stuff and that's good and great

That's just like so many Limitless things you can do with

Modular system so it's like oh I want I want a copy of that envelope to

Also trigger the pitch of my carrier wave

Or

The sink

Of the

Second wave

It's this one

So now we have this

Some outgoing into the

Computer but sound wanted hit an effect module or something before I do that

I can take

This

Output

And go into a G'zOne even know

Maybe

I got

I thought I had a river

Okay I got it

Echofon these are always fun

So I can take the output of all that go into the input of a delay type unit

Actually give it a little more

Games

Cuz it's very quiet

So now what is happening isn't this is cross modding that.

That's going into unfiltered the filters being triggered by an envelope generator and then it's all going into

Do a mixer into one channel the mixers coming out going into a delay type unit and then

And that delayed type units going to my master out which is going to my computer

Muscle playing around you can do it isn't

Adjust the dry weather

Instead of taking that oscillator I could just take a

They really need to make really long

I can take a different type of oscillator so this is just a

Going into the filter now I passed all this and this is an analog controller

Digital oscillator

Of course I still have my filter and I can just open that out that's on

And all these

Different types of synthesis

Syncing with another saw

Well that's kind of a cool cinnamon

How how do you incorporate that into a sequence wall

Computers for you would do is say so

You use a module like this which is a midi

2

Voltage

Converter basically so what it'll do is you could take a midi out of your computer

Come into this

And then send it no data and it'll send the corresponding pitch

Control voltage that you can use to

The control

Your

Your pitch of a

A bat

Particular thing so

You can do it by hand

Where

But you really wanted a Ritz out of it now you could use

An analog sequencer like this

2

Shifting

But you can do that

I'm actually sending an audio pulse

To the sequencer

And then ask that

Colts reset it sends a gate

To this song

Dismal

Like step sequencer if I make it only like three steps

Every time that

Pulses it's going to send a voltage Spike to the sequencer to keep it going

Now and if I wanted those to be notes on a keyboard with all that have to do is

Take the voltage output

Of that

I mean come into

And then I'm adjusting the

But I don't have single which is kind of cool because it says it's producing a kind of sound that's not

And then it's a matter of you know

Now that

Nature of these things is there really hard to tune

And you're always going to get minor tuning variances if you

Wire in such a way where it's not going to quantize pitches properly

So those aren't actual real notes but they're they're approximated they're really close but that's going to give you a

A kind of sound that you can't replicate go out with Abby St

Once you kind of done that then you just kind of decide on which affects you want it

What kind of things you want to modify by hand while you're try

Trax recording you just hit record on your your workstation and then do a couple takes

And see what sticks

I'm very organized patch but

Kind of explains of

About what

How these things work bummer is is this

I can't say this

Once I start unplugging these cables I'll never

You know

I would never be able to recreate that ever

No way

Not exactly like that maybe something close me if something sounds like Abby you'll never be able to recreate it

And that's why I really like

Modular synthesis for making

Even just one shots or like like simple one little sin flip that goes in there because

Cuz you know you won't care that flipped anywhere in the world

One song that I actually really extensively used modular system on was My remix of Ice Age

It which was

How To Destroy Angels tracks am what I done is I had made

A hole

Cacophony of

1 shots and sequences of Blitz that I recorded into the computer and then

Cut up inside the computer and then you know made this really long non-repetitive sound

Sounding like

Glitchy

Drum synth

Type sound

That was a lot of

You know I'm just

Recording small elements from here wasn't all done in one take

With some monster Padgett was a

A combination of a whole bunch of likes

Small

Simple patches like this where it's not patch

While I'm explaining if I wasn't explaining it might only take me about two minutes to do but

You know you do about a hundred a hundred fifty of those and then record all the shots and then create your own alive

Ferrari of

Modular bleeps and bloops

Then you can reference that Library go in grab the audio data while you're sitting down at your dog and then pick and choose what

Do you want to use that kind of thing so that that was

Something I used on

Sometimes I'll go to the modular to recreate a I simply need a top-line or something you know

With like three or four oscillators running in unison to create a

Again

You know Cindy

Where we saw wave-like

Filtered thing

But more often than not it's it's just more for adding you know

Bells and whistles and cool little

Things in your track not so much as

Features

Feature items Like a Kick Drum

You could make on a

On a on a modular synth like a good solid 808 no problem it's just you know what sine wave with the proper

Modulation in the envelope control and transient design and all that stuff

It it sounds the same just using it I sample for that

Kind of things so it's like

I've more lean towards using like you know

I need to wait

Sample

As opposed to trying to read

Invent the wheel with a modular

Same thing I'm trying to get a familiar sound out of a modular kind of

Defeats the purpose of using a modular

You could spend

Hours upon hours of you know just kind of playing around with one of these things and not actually record

Anyting I I tend to do that a lot

Which is kind of cool cuz then if

If

There's something you need to do like you'll know how to do it quickly or are you know you'll know the patchwork that you need

Need to do to achieve

A certain type of a fact but

These things are

Like hobby toys really like where you're not even recording any of the iron you just playing around with it making interesting

Found some

All the better if you're recording them so

But more often than not I find myself you know just making

Crazy goofy patches with these things

You know your options are literally Limitless when it comes to you know creating really new original pipes

Sounds and you can buy you know my modular synth about

That big with maybe about four or five modules in it

Kind of Essentials

Panda

You can do all sorts of creative things I just

Like having all these options open War

Animal hoarder

And I like to clacton

All that kind of thing