Sipping the Eurorack Kool-Aid -- SE Boomstar incoming!

[TwilightOdyssey]

Have known about Eurorack/modular synths for a few years now, got my first Eurorack compatible synth a few months ago (Moog Mother-32) and was originally planning on getting a second Mother-32; but I saw a Studio Electronics Boomstar Oscillation VCO for a great price and couldn't pass it up. Plan is to rackmount it with the Mother-32 to thicken up the Moog's sound (M-32 only has a single oscillator).



The Boomstar is modeled after the Oberheim SEM; it should be a good addition to my synth setup! Without an Oberheim filter it will never sound like a real SEM, but for thickening the Moog or MiniBrute it should do the trick!

I will be rackmounting the Boomstar and Mother-32 with a Happy Ending kit from TipTop Audio. My long range plan is to take the Moog's case and install a Tiptop Audio Zeus power supply and drum modules in it.

 

[LLL]

Re: Sipping the Eurorack Kool-Aid -- SE Boomstar incoming!

That's a schweet piece o' kit.

Eurorack? Do tell.

 

[TwilightOdyssey]

Re: Sipping the Eurorack Kool-Aid -- SE Boomstar incoming!

Basically a synth that you build just like a pedal board except it's rack mounted. There are a couple of different module sizes, depending on the manufacturer/system, but the two most popular are the Moog modular and Eurorack sizes.

Eurorack fits into 3U vertically with a conversion kit, so the 6U rack I am using can fit two rack kits inside it.

Eurorack width is measured in HP with 5hp= 1inch. A 19" rack is 84 HP.

Imagine a synth you can totally rewire to make new sounds using patch points. You can change the signal flow or alter it any way you want. This means you can swap out entire sections of the synth just like a pedal board for a guitar.

Of course there are no presets or memory slots, so you either have to take very good notes or be comfortable with the fact that you may never be able to replicate a particular patch again.

 

[TwilightOdyssey]

Re: Sipping the Eurorack Kool-Aid -- SE Boomstar incoming!

Oh, two other things :

1, this is strictly mono. Polyphony with modular would cost as much as a car!

2, by synth I mean actual voltage controlled waveforms, not samples like flutes and violins. This is more in the blips, bloop, and breeeoooww type of stuff.

 

[Jacew]

Re: Sipping the Eurorack Kool-Aid -- SE Boomstar incoming!

If you have never seen a document "I Dream of Wires" you should. Great film and very interesting stuff, despite that I aren't even much interested about synthesizers.

Just decided to throw this in as a general notion... If someone wonders what this is about...

 

[TwilightOdyssey]

Re: Sipping the Eurorack Kool-Aid -- SE Boomstar incoming!

Good call! It's a very interesting and educational documentary.

 

[PFDarkside]

Re: Sipping the Eurorack Kool-Aid -- SE Boomstar incoming!

Oh boy have fun! I nearly fell down that rabbit hole a few years ago, thankfully I set myself straight by turning my Les Paul and Marshall up loud and played some power chords. I kid.... but you can be at the 5 figure mark before you even blink!

 

[TwilightOdyssey]

Re: Sipping the Eurorack Kool-Aid -- SE Boomstar incoming!

Oh boy have fun! I nearly fell down that rabbit hole a few years ago, thankfully I set myself straight by turning my Les Paul and Marshall up loud and played some power chords. I kid.... but you can be at the 5 figure mark before you even blink!

Agree on all counts! I am in the middle of recording a new song, however, and I am chasing a sound in my head; time will tell how successful I am. It's all slated to arrive in a couple of days.

 

[TwilightOdyssey]

Re: Sipping the Eurorack Kool-Aid -- SE Boomstar incoming!

Gave it a very quick play this morning. Thoughts: Great Googily Moogily! The sound of two analog oscillators slightly detuned and vaguely in sync is a sumptuous aural banquet!

I only had about 20 minutes for a quick play this morning, will be able to go in depth tomorrow night, but my initial feeling after running emulations for the past couple of years is: WHAT VST?! Sorry, but this is immediately, demonstrably better in every aspect. And I didn't even fire up the Moog yet!!

My test setup was: Arturia MiniBrute > pitch CV > Boomstar > mix out > MiniBrute Audio In. Brought up some -1 8ve sub osc on the Boomstar and some -2 8ve osc on the MiniBrute. The Boomstar's sub was driving the MiniBrute's filter to overdrive... Lord, that is a thick, warm, crunchy sound!!

I didn't have time to do anything more advanced like LFO modulations, FM, hard sync, tuning the oscillators to intervals, add external modulation or delay, etc. Truthfully, it really doesn't need it, but will be fun to experiment with.

My recommendation for anyone on the fence wanting to know what analogue synthesis is all about, start with the new Roland SE-02. It will probably be all the synth you will ever need, has a sequencer, and presets. It has three oscillators, I believe, and the presets sound great to my ears.

 

[greekdude]

Re: Sipping the Eurorack Kool-Aid -- SE Boomstar incoming!

So how do those old-school synths compare to the new digital ones? I played a little bit with soft synths in Linux, going after the hammond-leslie sound and I though it was too much work for no great results. I also played the boss sy-300.

 

[TwilightOdyssey]

Re: Sipping the Eurorack Kool-Aid -- SE Boomstar incoming!

There isn't a quick answer, unfortunately. It partially depends on what type of synthesis you are looking to do and how you try to achieve it. Digital synths are great and I have several.

If you are trying to replicate the sound of an acoustic instrument, like an organ or a violin, you have to go digital and would be much better served using samples than a wavetable synth.

If you are looking for some really unique hybrid sounds using single waveform samples combined with analogue oscillators then wavetable is probably where you want to look.

If you are looking to specifically modify raw wave oscillations you can do so in either domain. Some digital oscillators sound great and are classics. I prefer analogue oscillators. There are many soft synth emulations of analogue circuits which are great for learning about synthesis but don't sound as good as the real thing in my opinion.

If you are trying to create the sound of an organ using nothing but waveforms you are looking at a very very difficult task! And if knob fiddling is not fun to you, avoid analogue synths at all costs!

 

[LLL]

Re: Sipping the Eurorack Kool-Aid -- SE Boomstar incoming!

If you dig old school analog synths (and I know you do), you'd prolly have a blast with this one (although it is a plugin):

Arturia Moog Modular

 

[TwilightOdyssey]

Re: Sipping the Eurorack Kool-Aid -- SE Boomstar incoming!

If you dig old school analog synths (and I know you do), you'd prolly have a blast with this one (although it is a plugin):

Arturia Moog Modular

Yeah, it's great! I have the entire V-Collection, actually.

The V Modular is great if you want to learn the nuts and bolts of modular synths; the manual for that plugin walks you through the whole process, it's like taking a course.

Slightly easier to grasp is the V-Mini, their Mini Moog emulation. It has some amazing presets! The layout is much more stripped down than the modular but it still has three oscillators for a very fat sound with lots of complex patches possible.

At about the same cost as the V-Collection, though, you can get an actual hardware synth like the MiniBrute or Korg Monologue or Minilogue, and have the real thing.

 

[TwilightOdyssey]

Re: Sipping the Eurorack Kool-Aid -- SE Boomstar incoming!

Few things are more crushing than dying to get home and to the mailbox to retrieve the cable you need to power your synth, only to discover that the company sent the wrong cable! Waaah! I needed a 10 to 16 pin ribbon cable for the Mother-32; they sent a 16 to 16 pin cable. Doh!

Ah well, what's a couple more days? At least I can still play round with the Boomstar some more!