Modular Synths

I've built a few DIY kits and have never run into any issues until now. And I'm not even sure if I messed up the build or the design of the module is just wonky... Turning up the decay past 11 o'clock or so causes the volume of each hit to vary, and fluctuate wildly if turned up all the way, as can be seen in the image.

I can sorta replicate the issue in the simulated circuits linked in the manual - it seems like the volume of each hit depends on what direction the wave was moving when a new hit is triggered. In some cases the volume goes up, because of resonance, in others it goes down as the newly triggered wave is muffled by being out of phase with the previous one. Interestingly the issue disappear of the pitch is turned all the way up.

Anyone else having this issue, or did I fuck up the build?

So I’ve finally decided to get a real rack and I’m looking for advice on a couple of areas. I will be making drone/dark ambient and I already have a digitakt, 0-Coast and NTS-1. I want the rack to create slowly evolving drones and textures which I can layer with the 0-Coast for fx/bass and the digitakt to play more textures, glitchy fx, or whatever sounds right. I also plan to use VCV for CV modulation and sent to midi which seems to be nice and easy with the Nifty case.

So far I have decided to get the Nifty case and Morphagene, along with FX Aid XL for big reverbs and probably Befaco Out v3. The areas I am undecided about are modulation, distortion, and perhaps utilities.

For modulation, I would like a few different LFOs that I can use with both the rack and with the 0-Coast. I’ve been thinking about Ochd + some kind of mixer because I love it in VCV and it seems hard to beat in terms of separate LFOs and footprint. But then, perhaps Maths might be better? I would get less choice of outputs from it vs Ochd but I could potentially do more with it?

For distortion, I really have no idea. I want it to be stereo in/out as I plan to use it before or after FX Aid but I don’t know what kind of distortion I need for creating filthy distorted pads/drones. I quite like VCV's Debriatus’ saturate and fold sections in VCV. I’ve been looking at Erica Synths Pico DSP since it is small, stereo and could be useful to have other fx when I don’t want distortion. I think I also want it to have some kind of tone/filter to tame it and make it dark.

For utilities, I don’t think I need a great deal, at least for this iteration of the rack. It looks like I can attenuate the inputs on Morphagene and I don’t really need to create envelopes for now, nor do I need sample and hold (although this might be handy later on).

So any advice on modules? I’m also thinking that a stereo mixer with a few different inputs might be useful so that I can route the digitakt (which will have the 0-Coast running through it) because I only really have a stereo output to my speakers/computer.

Just found & joined Lemmy and so want to add to it by starting a community on a favourite (time & money consuming!) hobby: modular synthesis.

This is my current system although I'm currently building a Befaco Hexmix, Robaux LL8 and a Sonic Potions Penrose quantizer.

I have a new case arriving next month that's portable so once we can go outside and congregate again, I'm going to look at playing some shows (if I actually have any music and haven't just disappeared down a noise rabbit hole!)

2 years on and the system looks like this:

Another case by Case From Lake and plenty of modules that I managed to acquire through luck such as the ACL Sinfonion for £750!

I'll have to go through my ModularGrid page to update my racks there and post them