Modular Madness

As part of our spectacular Ultimate Synths sample collection we’ve donned our lab coats to bring you 900 of the craziest modular synth samples around

We’re bringing you the best synth sample collection ever this issue with a packed DVD (or download) with several classic and new sample packs. Here we have a truckload of old-school sonic ramblings in the form of some mad modular synth multisamples and loops in WAV and Sound Font formats (so can be played in free players like Alchemy).

The modular maestro

Robbie Stamp of Cyclick details how he produced this most mad of modular collections.

“The original oscillations came from three main sources,” he says, “the Jen SX-1000 monosynth with its Triangle, Square and PWM oscillations, a Moogerfooger’s low-pass filter with its resonance on full to produce a sine wave, and the carrier from its ring modulator. The Moogerfoogers were often run through each other and connected by CV to form different control chains, tuned for each note using a standard chromatic guitar tuner.

“A chain of pedals was set up after the source oscillations and three or four combinations were recorded to build up a number of multisamples at once. Each note was edited so that it produced a perfect oscillating loop – with more complex waves, it can be painstaking getting the endpoint to exactly match the start of the loop for a seamless, click-free tone.

“Multiple chains of analogue pedals were then set up to give each sample its flavour, and the recordings were painstakingly edited to create perfect looping tones – a tricky task for some of the more complex waveforms.

“The loops were then made using these very multisamples, loaded into Camel Audio

Alchemy, balanced, panned and shaped through enveloped filters and ADSRs. The output from Alchemy was then sent through an Eventide ModFactor pedal with a Yamaha SPX1000 effects unit, as well as a set of pedals into the two Moogerfoogers (Lowpass filter and Ring Mod) and the Boss DE-200 digital delay.’’