So how many of your are just content with...

nuketifromorbit · Joined: Jan 19, 2009 Posts: 10 Location: South East US

First time posting here I think, I usually frequent VSE. I'm now posting because I just reduced my entire set up down to just a nord modular g1 keyboard and a circuit bent yamaha VSS 30. I have previous experience with the nord g1 engine from owning a micro-modular and frankly I always found the editor easy enough to use, but after reading a lot of the archived tutorials I'm left wondering how many people are just content with the raw sound of the nord oscillators?

Basically it seems a lot of the tutorial examples make heavy use of logic modules, level shifters/inverters, signal shapers, etc in the pre filter and pre mixer stages of a patch. Just out of curiosity how many users here actually see this oscillator enhancement as being necessary?

wishniak · Joined: Jan 05, 2009 Posts: 27 Location: berlin, germany

welcome to the forum (from another noob).

if i understood your post right - it depends on how many different signals are getting summed in any particular patch, but if its just one or 2 oscillators than often i end up amplifying the signal. otherwise there is usually plenty of gain happening (is that what you were asking?)

are there alot of nord users down in boone?

nuketifromorbit · Joined: Jan 19, 2009 Posts: 10 Location: South East US

sonifr · Joined: Oct 23, 2006 Posts: 23 Location: osaka, japan

welcome nukeit!

i also employ a pretty minimal setup. NM1, microKorg, and a KP3, basically. my modular does most of the heavy lifting, and it isn't even expanded.

the more i've worked on it, the more i have explored techniques to get different sounds from the modular. that is to say, i'm interested in pushing it's boundaries. its not that i dislike the sound of the oscillators, rather i want to discover as much as i can about what the instrument can do. in practical use, i tend to tweak percussive sounds with signal shapers, diode processors and other small audio modules to "enhance" the oscillators. there are also a lot of other things that can be done with envelopes and 'deviant' patching that audio modifies can't do to get interesting sounds. however, there is nothing quite like a raw percussion oscillator's waveform going straight to the output. controlling one with some sort of melody generator i find to be one of the most pleasing sounds for that purpose. i never get tired of it. then again, crossfading the output between two signal shapers set to opposite shapes and tweaking that with the stereo chorus produces some stimulating variation. i also have been coming back to the spectral oscillator because i like the overtones that it generates particularly (as compared to the square and saw oscillators). i'm not sure exactly what makes the difference, but it sounds especially nice to me in combination with an 18dB/octave filter.

overall, i suppose the aesthetic quality of the raw oscillators lies in the ear of the listener. what i enjoy (as many modular users will tell you) is the peculiar quality of the NM1 sound in it's totality. there really isn't anything quite like it, and that is what keeps me satisfied. i enjoy the relative simplicity of my microKorg, but though i can contort it's processors into sounds the likes i've never heard produced from that synth, it's ubiquity and it's fundamental quality relegate it to accompaniment for the modular. it simply doesn't have the "x-factor" the nord's processors pack.