Hi everyone -
Eurorack has become my new hobby in 2020 to take my mind off quarantine, and thanks to that amazing Black Friday sale, I bought a NerdSeq + all current expanders.
When it arrived, I was part way through creating a cover/remix of a song from one of my favorite Sega Genesis / Mega Drive games, Ristar. I decided to record all the sequences I had already made into the NerdSeq and finish it entirely on there, which was a great learning experience.
Here's a video showing my setup at work, including some views of the NerdSeq project:
Some notes since we're all NerdSeq fans here:
- First of all I LOVE the workflow here. I've tried a few different sequencers and this has been my favorite one so far. It looks intimidating at first, especially if you aren't used to hex format, but it gets easy quick.
- I used all 8 tracks. Two Modular, two CV16, two Trig16. Track 7 is a 2-OP FM and Track 8 is playing some waveforms. Didn't use any samples via the NerdSeq (the drum track is a Trig16 track controlling another sampler module). To be honest its because I don't have many samples that fit within the the 2MB load limit. I have to compress them more.
- Once I got the hang of how Glide works, it really opened up things I've always wished I could do in Eurorack sequencing.
- This was my first project on it so I only very lightly used features like Tables or the FX column. I'm excited to try more later on a less complicated song. I went pretty deep for a first song here...
It is interesting, isn’t it, just how much power the NerdSEQ has but how quickly it gets out of the way and lets you do your thing. Any complications I’ve run into have largely been on my end, either misinterpreting something I’ve done or just trying to figure out how I want to integrate it into my setup. It is exactly the kind of problem I want to have if I’m going to have one.
How are you liking the Polygogo? I’ve been back and forth on it a few times during the last year, deciding whether or not to buy one, or at the very least when to do so relative to other modules.
(01-07-2021, 04:43 PM)mvdirty Wrote: [ -> ]It is interesting, isn’t it, just how much power the NerdSEQ has but how quickly it gets out of the way and lets you do your thing. Any complications I’ve run into have largely been on my end, either misinterpreting something I’ve done or just trying to figure out how I want to integrate it into my setup. It is exactly the kind of problem I want to have if I’m going to have one.
How are you liking the Polygogo? I’ve been back and forth on it a few times during the last year, deciding whether or not to buy one, or at the very least when to do so relative to other modules.
The Polygogo is a lot of fun to use and it's very easy to make it sound pretty, especially when paired with a good stereo filter and reverb. The controls are very easy to use and understand too. Plus, as you've probably seen in Loopop's Polygogo review video I assume, you can do fun tricks with the Fold or Teeth parameters to get a very textured envelope animation.
For the negatives, it just comes down to it being a very luxury module. It's huge, and it's $600, and in the end you're only getting 1 oscillator. If you've got the room and the cash I think you'll have fun and get some neat FM tones in your Eurorack songs.
I first heard it early in 2020 and throughout the year I kept my ears open for modules in and around the same sonic territory. While some do seem to cross through it while going to and from other places, nothing seems to cover quite this territory, and there’s almost certainly nothing with control dimensions quite like the Polygogo.
Were it smaller it’d be a no-brainer and I would almost surely have one by now. At its size, I’ve had to (and continue to) think long and hard about it. I do plan to have room for a couple larger oscillators in my setup, so mostly it is an issue of deciding whether or not the Polygogo is one of them.
(01-08-2021, 02:54 AM)mvdirty Wrote: [ -> ]I first heard it early in 2020 and throughout the year I kept my ears open for modules in and around the same sonic territory. While some do seem to cross through it while going to and from other places, nothing seems to cover quite this territory, and there’s almost certainly nothing with control dimensions quite like the Polygogo.
Were it smaller it’d be a no-brainer and I would almost surely have one by now. At its size, I’ve had to (and continue to) think long and hard about it. I do plan to have room for a couple larger oscillators in my setup, so mostly it is an issue of deciding whether or not the Polygogo is one of them.
That makes sense. Are you also considering the XAOC Odessa for big fancy VCOs?
I will say though that using NerdSeq envelopes or MOD glide on the Polygogo's various inputs is really fun. I've actually barely scratched the surface of that. I plan to make a bass patch via the Polygogo in my next project, since I tend to use it as my lead instrument. I really want to get those two FM sliders moving via NerdSeq!
(01-08-2021, 07:56 AM)Spiceopod Wrote: [ -> ]That makes sense. Are you also considering the XAOC Odessa for big fancy VCOs?
The timing of your video and your question are quite fluky, as I’ve spent much of the week weighing large VCO choices in anticipation of adding one to an order I was going to place this week for something else. Helps spread out the shipping and brokerage and such.
I’ve long had the Odessa on my shortlist of large oscillators, along with things like Polygogo, Akemie’s Castle, and Recombination Engine.
I nixed Recombination Engine yesterday after being reminded of more flexible ways to perform wavesplicing using individual modules.
I nixed Odessa this morning after one last batch (of many in the last year) of YouTube searches. I’ve only heard one person move Odessa out of the glassy/bell/FM-like territory that literally everyone else seems to keep it in, and she did it live for myself and another Discord user who were curious if it could do anything else. Either all these other folks want that sound or the other things it can do must be in distant and narrow sweet spots for some reason never shown on video. At this point I think I’d rather go with something else that can reach more points and do so more predictably and directly.
That left Akemie’s Castle and Polygogo. (Not that any of the four were meant to be directly compared, of course, rather they’re just the four that were large and grabbed me somehow.) I suspect I’ll end up with both but for the order I placed today I could really only justify the one for now and Akemie’s has a more natural fit with a patch I’m working on, and is the one I’ve most regretted not picking up when I can find it, so Polygogo will wait for a bit later.
(01-08-2021, 07:56 AM)Spiceopod Wrote: [ -> ]I will say though that using NerdSeq envelopes or MOD glide on the Polygogo's various inputs is really fun. I've actually barely scratched the surface of that. I plan to make a bass patch via the Polygogo in my next project, since I tend to use it as my lead instrument. I really want to get those two FM sliders moving via NerdSeq!
While re-watching various videos of all these modules recently that came to mind for me too, and shaped my considerations about all of the options I was looking at. My CV16 outputs are itching to modulate the crap out of these modules.
This is honestly one area where I think the Polygogo may shine the most of them, as each axis of modulation is quite sensible and, at least in videos I’ve seen, even when combining axes there appear to be sweet spots all over the place. [Addendum: Damn, now I’m GASing again.
]
Oh! Well I'm glad I could help inform your decision even a tiny bit more. Or maybe I made it more complicated?
I wasn't familiar with Akemie's Castle that much but I looked it up, that seems like it would go very well with NerdSeq controls as well. I hope you post some jams with it, I'd love to hear how it turns out. I'd be tempted as well but I have plenty of FM options already, just as hardware synths.
I was sort of considering Odessa as my next big oscillator purchase once I have room for it, since I want a 2nd polyphonic option. I used the Zadar as one in my Ristar song but to be honest it was a huge pain, it kept getting out of tune. I guess that's what I get for using an envelope generator as a VCO. I do really enjoy glassy bell noises, but if that's really all the Odessa can do I may skip it as well.
Oh, don’t worry, it wasn’t a question of easier or harder, just of fluky timing.
As for Akemie’s, I’m not a heavy-duty FM guy but I definitely reminisce about the Sound Blaster days of old. I could venture into FM within the NerdSEQ audio tracks but my setup performs too much pitch management downstream from the NerdSEQ, and the Humble Audio Quad Operator, while it seems excellent, is surely too crazy for what I need. At least for now.
FM in hardware synths, instead of Eurorack, is almost surely the even better way to go. More capable. Less expensive. I find the Twisted Electrons desktop boxes quite appealing, for example, but for the moment I have an “everything in the rack and via CV” rule so I pay pay more for less in some ways.
Don’t let me dissuade you from Odessa. It is still cool, and I too had been considering the Hel expander. IIRC it’s paraphonic, though, not polyphonic, and I believe the voices have to split up the partials amongst them, so bear that in mind if you most like what you hear from it when it is running monophonic and using more than a quarter/third/etc. of the partials.
I’d definitely love to hear it more often venture out into other tonalities, so if you happen upon anything, or create something, that does then please feel free to share it!