In his latest video, Alex Theakston of Mylar Melodies takes an in-depth look at why modular synths and loopers can be a great combination.
Cost has always been one of the main barriers to musicians playing and performing live with modular synthesizers. Most styles of music rely on having multiple independent voices and doing this with synth modules can quickly get cost-prohibitive for a lot of musicians.
Lots of styles of electronic music also are built on repetitive patterns, though, which is where loopers can come in. If your music uses repeating patterns, you can capture loops and then immediately repurpose the synth voice or modules to create additional parts.
In the video, Theakston covers why loopers can complement a modular system so well, discusses building a compact system with looping in mind and demonstrates how to use a looper with your modular synth.
Topics covered:
00:00 Hello/Intro Jam
02:10 What the looper means for modular users.
04:08 How does the looper sync?
05:24 How I’m Making Drums: Noise Plethora etc
08:44 Power of the Befaco Percall
09:08 One Weird Trick for Quantising Drum Hits
12:29 How Looping a Modular Actually Works
18:45 Gosh, this is like my big system, but small.
19:39 Other Loopers to Consider: eg Endlesss
21:02 What isn’t good about this system right now?
22:43 How I’m Making Melodies: Voice/Sequencer
23:25 A Quick Demo of the Eventides
26:13 The Turing Machine/Routing Tricks
30:25 Pointeuse for 16th Note Triggers/More Routing
32:07 There’s a Moral Emerging Here.
35:18 My Kingdom For a Looper: Outro Jam
Check out the video and share you thoughts on it in the comments!
Answered some questions I’ve had while considering the new RC-505. Thank you.
Sounds like David Attenborough discussing how flies bonk. Good point that any looper (I use a Kaoss Pad) frees up dedicated bass/drum machines. It’s important to have MIDI modular gear for syncing, ‘though. I had a MIDI mod done on my Volca Modular which cost a pretty penny.
I have a kaoss pad too for looping but find it’s syncing to be terrible, do you have the same issue?
I route MIDI clock from pams workout pex p1 expander into motu midi express patchbay and out to kaoss this syncs pretty good 4me.
The Kaoss MIDI synchronisation is probably wobbly. I tend to start and stop sequences to compensate for the timing. The synchronised echoes sound great too.
A rack mountable, CV controllable, looper would be ideal. The Instuo Lubdah comes close for my must have list but I wish it had more than 2 tracks.
I’ll probably be going Loopy Pro (when it’s out) including MIDI controller (MIDI Fighter Twister because the leds around the encoders can be programmed to follow the loop). Its a cheaper alternative with way easier workflow, and endless features.
Is there a map for the MFT and Loopy yet? That could be a great combo. I love my MFT but I really hate setting up the maps. Took me months to come up with the map I wanted for Ableton. Thx!
Haven’t got one myself yet but the maker of Loopy recommended that controller as it was easy for him to program. He also said he would implement the features in a near update.