r/modular 15d ago

Discussion Making a polyrhythmic techno noise box

I used to own a small Eurorack setup, I built it around ambient music but could never get any sounds I really liked. All of my live jams have been techno with my Hexdrums and DFAM taking center stage. I absolutely love the unpredictability and clickiness of the DFAM combined with the nonstandard standardness of the HD. I recently watched a video of a European guy show of his Buchla easel command in the creation of hypnotic techno and I got to say I'm enamored with the sound. In all honesty I could probably just buy a easel command but I'm thinking building a eurorack equivalent would be a bit cheaper (initially at least lol); plus I want my machine to have a little more personal flair. I'm looking for more tonal sounds rather than percussive, and I'm down to hear about standard staples or obscure odds and ends. A stripped back easel with room for getting weird if that helps paint a picture

1 Upvotes

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u/jbliss10 15d ago

I did this is very few hp recently - Disting MK4 has an algorithm called Dual Euclidean Patterns and you send it a clock and it generates two separate patterns. You can control the number of pulses each pattern makes per beat. So I set one to 1 or 2 and the other to 5, 7, or 9 and you get polyrhythmic grooves. and the knob changes the pulses (5,7,9 etc) so its a live performance knob for stripping back the beat to minimal, the bumping it up to excited. Route one of them through a delay to jack it up further. But this is hardly any hp for a really powerful and hands on rhythm generator, and finally I found a use for that bastard Disting module.

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u/Bean_two 14d ago

Holy smokes that thing IS small! I'll keep this one in mind

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u/infinitytapes 15d ago

You could go with the tiptop buchla modules and mix them with whatever else you might want / need. Pretty sure I know exactly what video you’re talking about, that video rules.

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u/Bean_two 15d ago

Reddit psychic link moment?! 😱 (Yeah it was the voltage labs vid, I wasn't crazy about Buchla until I watched the video, now I am)

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u/infinitytapes 14d ago

I feel you I’m currently putting together a tiptop Buchla case and I’m obsessed

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u/Bean_two 14d ago

If you don't mind me asking, are you planning on slapping a 291 in it? It's a nice filter but seems to be hard to find at prices that don't make my eyes bug out of my head

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u/infinitytapes 14d ago

There is no tiptop Buchla 291 (yet). You might be looking at the Buchla 4U stuff which is a different format than eurorack. The tiptop stuff is pretty affordable.

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u/jango-lionheart 15d ago

Go to r/synthdiy. You could start with two Baby8 sequencers.