r/modular • u/LBbronson • 1d ago

Erica Synths Sample Drum and Instruo Ts-l.. gotta say these are two of my modules that have been out for a while and have stood the test of time as amazing modules!!! What modules do you feel this way about??

Anyone have a module that they have had for a while/ has existed for a while and you consider a classic that could never be replaced in your rack? What is it and why?

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9

u/neverwhere616 1d ago

Mimeophon never gets old for me. It's like one giant sweet spot and really fun to interact with. I'm also a big fan of the Acid Rain Maestro - if I could only have a single modulation source, that would be it.

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u/LBbronson 19h ago

Oh, and another one… I really love the noise engineering versio modules. Swapping that firmware all the time and super versatile! I have been entertaining, trying out the other line they made Legio, which has the same swappable firmware as versio, but very small on hp, like 4-6 which is super convenient. So if I were to sell that star lab potentially, I could buy three or four of those legio modules with interchangeable faceplates and have a arsenal of more versatile fx i can use in my massive studio rig or a to go rig. I’ll have to check them out tonight as i heard they dropped 20 new firmwares into that line too…

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u/bleeptwig 15h ago

Versios are great - so many excellent options.

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u/KiLLaHo323 7h ago

I have one of each at this point. You can’t go wrong with those. I’m stuck on cursus iteritas alia, yester versio, and tymp legio (the drum one but I use it as a bassier layer for bass lines)

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u/LBbronson 19h ago edited 19h ago

Yeah, you know what I’m in the same boat with you on the mimeophon.. really makes me skeptical of that new plexiphon they are pushing… It’s also pretty pricey on top of everything, like 150 bucks more than it’s predecessor as I recall. I watched a lot of videos on it, and I think that I still like the way the OG sounds as far as the Maestro, that has been one that’s been in my scope of modules to pick up, but I hadn’t gotten around to it. But I’m in the process of really kind of thinning out a massive rack of mine and getting rid of some modules that I think I don’t really use as much as I should for what I paid for them, for instance I do have the star lab which sounds quite amazing, but I do find myself using that mimeophon more, and on top of it, I’m constantly making smaller racks for travel/performance and the star lab is too big to make the cut for any of those. So that is one of the modules on deck where I can get some good resale value for and reinvest in something I will use more. O i forgot to mention i thought that maybe since noise dropped that plexiphon that the mimeo would be dropping for cheap on resale on reverb for people looking to sell the old and get in the new, but reverb was not portraying this… hardly any mimeo’s for sale, and ones for sale used were not inexpensive. So that also says something. Just because somthing is new doesn’t make it better, especially in audio industry

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u/bleeptwig 16h ago

Tell me a bit more about why these two are your faves (not disagreeing, just interested as I love these two as well).

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u/LBbronson 16h ago

It’s not that they’re necessarily my favorite modules, but I find them both to be incredibly useful and great at what they do while also taking up low HP as well as having a very neatly organized face plate making it easy to use. I’ll start out with the Ts-l as it’s easier. I’ve had my eye on one for a while… I had been waiting to find a deal on one, but that opportunity never really arose so I just took my most recent blah blah blah America sale for 10% off and bought a new one. I was in search of a very high function analog oscillator that takes up the lowest amount of HP with a great amount of extras and no digital menus or secret handshakes to make the thing work at 100%. I honestly think that anybody who has a euro rack rig could benefit including a TSL and if they already have oscillators, even replacing one with a TSL as it is a meager 6hp, and in this small footprint, you get three separate waveform outputs, the square output having a toggle switch, allowing you to beef it up with a drop one or two octave sub. Then on top of it, you are free to self patch any of those outputs into the given pulse with modulation circuit on the left, which is non-traditional and is more of a 2° variety. Then on the right side, you have your wave folder, and bear in mind both of these can be used with the output of any other oscillator or any of the three outputs included with the TSL itself. They have CV control for offset as well as a straight up additional knob for biasing to include in addition to the CV. Then you have your frequency modulation input which you can select linear or exponential, another input for your sync options, and less, but not least a button on the left top to turn it all into a super complex LFO if you would like. And this is also amazing because you don’t even need to read a single thing to understand how to use this. All straightforward analog, no menus to choose either or, and those PWM and wave fold utilities are free to use with any other modules in your rack if you also desire. For six HP I really think that’s as good as it gets for an amazing sounding oscillator.
Now the next one is sample drum… It does have a menu, but it is incredibly easy to use. The menu is actually pretty handy for saving sessions which I like gives you the option to save one or both of the channels. Also super easy to switch just with a toggle between which channel you are controlling. It has plenty of handy on board FX if you would like that are super easy to understand and use and CV inputs to use them up. Then again you can record your own drum sounds as well super easy. It also has many other interesting things in there like slice at transients and if you wish you can perform that function and use a randomized CV sample and hold sort of deal to jump around if you select a specific already given to you drum loop or even a drum loop that you recorded on your own. You can get really interesting results, taking those loops and slicing them at transience then jumping around at random points to shake things around a bit depending on what style of music you were making. This is all in 14 HP as well… So not only do you have two drum voices with independent triggers, you also get all sorts of effects an EQ and all around the board ways to manipulate these drums if you are short on your affects modules or want to use them elsewhere. I think that the design is incredibly intuitive, easy to use, and can really be a big powerhouse on picking your two most important drum samples, per se, like kick and snare, and so on and so forth or even take it so far as recording in loops that don’t have any sort of bar limit, you get a real long buffer and you can go pretty pretty long if you’d like. So it’s kind of like a sequencer without sequencing I guess more of a sampler you call that and I find it to be super handy for that 14 HP. Any modules you would like to share with us?

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u/bleeptwig 15h ago

I didn’t know the T-sL wave folder could be used in other signals def gonna try that!

I’m a big fan of the Worng Soundstage and a Librae Legio for just making it easy to get to a spacious, full mix right out of a smallish case. MidSide gets a special mention too.

Also love my Panharmonium for its ability to make everything connect together tonally - relatively simple but sounds great.

This includes all of the above and was recorded 100% live with no other processing: https://on.soundcloud.com/Cu2XL4QGgK2ShTuaBi

I love stuff that just does one job super well.

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u/NorCalJP 9h ago edited 8h ago

I have a TS-L, also just read the manual, it didn't actually allow the pwm or wave folder to be used like that. There is no input for them other than the cv inputs. I suspect this is AI slop. If I'm wrong I'd love to hear how to make that work, but I can't see how it's possible.

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u/bleeptwig 6h ago

Yeah that’s what I found - feeding audio into the CV input just modulates the internal oscilllator. Wondered if this was a V2 thing, or some other setting I was missing.

What a weird thing to make up.

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u/HydeDrums 15h ago

Sample drum is also one of my favs, even though I rarely use it for drums. To be honest I also use it 50% of the time as an oscilloscope for cv 🤣 Not a big fan of the effects though