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Kees.
 Since March 2004 my studio contains a Nord Modular G2. This piece of equipment, manufactured by the Swedish company Clavia, is a digital simulation of the "old-fashioned" modular synthesizers, like the Moog System 55. This system consisted of separate components, like oscillators, filters, amplifiers, sequencers and mixers. These could be interconnected by patch cables. Because the principle of voltage control was consequently maintained, the parameters of any module could be controlled by the output signal of any other module. The digital version consists of two parts. The hardware, a keyboard, which performs the actual sound-generation, and special editor software, which must be installed on a PC. Via USB the Modular G2 is connected to the PC. The editor allows the user to build patches. From a toolbar diverse modules can be dragged onto the screen, and then be connected to each other by virtual cables. Through the USB connection, every change is directly transmitted to the Modular G2, so the result is audible instantaneously. Almost all parameters of the modules in a patch can be assigned to one of the 8 knobs on the front panel. The moment you turn a knob, you hear the sound change. A very great feature of the Modular G2 is the presence of four audio INPUTS, so every sound can be processed by any of the modules. The amount of modules is very large. There is a vast array of oscillators, filters, envelope generators, sequencers mixers and effect units at your disposal. Even an (excellent sounding) vocoder module can be used. This piece of gear invites you to experiment, and all aspects of sound theory can be demonstrated. And most of all, the sound is very good and FAT. |
Examples of Modular patches.Here are two examples of patches for the Nord Modular. The first patch makes the signal on the audio input sound like that of the first talking movies.The second patch, the "Pitch Follower", uses a vocoder. The pitch of the oscillator is influenced by the frequency of the speech signal. That's why the synthesized voice has a rather natural intonation. 80 years of radio broadcasting!For a commemoration program on Radio West of the first radio broadcast in 1919, I reconstructed the announcement of Idzerda with the Modular. Listen here. (WAV-file, 490 KB)Moog Series 900 Demo TapeIf you are interested in a demo tape about the Moog series 900 modular system, you can download it here. (MP3, 1.3 MB) |
Download!Those of you who also posess a Modular, can download these, and other patches made by me, here:Patches for software version 2.0. Patches for software version 2.1. Description. New patches, now even with artificial speech! More new patches, 28-03-1999. Listen to some examples!Vocoder (WAV, 75 KB)Gabbersynth (WAV, 109 KB) Moog Bass(WAV, 217 KB) Stereo Beats (WAV, 236 KB) Short Wave Sound (WAV, 205 KB) Blah Blah (WAV, 132 KB) Artificial speech:Coffee!! (WAV, 18 KB)Clavia Nord Modular! (WAV, 82 KB) A news-jingle:Some time ago, I produced a news-jingle for the Dutch "Day of Regional broadcasting", in which I used the Modular extensively! Listen here... (WAV, 697 KB) |
