You might have already been aware of the immense variety of synthesisers available on the market. Modular synthesisers are what we are most interested to talk about today and this article will give you a lot of interesting information about this terrific musical instrument.
The difference between modular synthesisers and analogue synthesisers
Modular synthesisers are a kind of synthesisers that is similar to analogue synthesisers, however, with modular synthesisers, the capability of extending your machine to accompany the sound you need is beyond your imagination.
With an analogue synthesiser, you have oscillators of various wave forms that generate sounds based on waveforms. These waveforms are typically of the sawtooth, sine, square and triangle, pulse and other types.
You are also able to control the octave of each of these oscillators. What makes a modular synmthesiser different from a typical analogue synthesiser is its the capacity to extend or modify the components of your modular synthesisers. With an analogue synthesiser, you are still able to produce massive amounts of crazy sounds with your imagination. Yet, at some point, you may run out of the components that are required to produce and shape the sounds of your vision. This is because those components inside analogue synthesisers are predefined by manufacturers.
With the extensive capabilities of modular synthesiser, the sound you can produce is beyond and never ending!
What can you do with a modular synthesiser?
Typically, modular synthesisers used a patch system which allowed you to use a patch cable or a patch matrix board to connect various components together to make really dynamic sounds.
Let’s say, you have a custom modular synthesiser where you have three oscillators with various waveforms. For some days and months, you played around and you feel like the sound is not enough for you and you want to make it fatter and beastly than what you already have. You are able to add as many oscillators you want to meet the sound you desire easily. This is just an example out of the unlimited things you can do with a modular synthesiser.
Standards for modern modular synthesisers
Things were very random back then when modular synthesisers were just getting into the scene. Now, these modular synthesisers have some form of global standards in terms of various modules including power, form factors, connectivity and others.
One of the most advanced and modern modular synthesisers standard is called, ‘Eurorack’. Unlike the old times when only the giants like Moog Modular, Buchla, Arp, EMS,EMU etc. The modern modular systems like Serge, Eurorack offers a lot more modern features that goe so well with the age we are living in.
You can always check out various modern modular synthesisers that offer extensive patching mechanisms with extreme flexibility. With a modular synthesisers, the kind of a sound you can design or come up with while playing or poking around is unimaginable. Sometimes you may get to the exact or close or way beyond the sound you expect.