The story
I created this instrument by sampling my modular synthesizer. I’ve started building my modular setup last year and are slowly but surely growing it. The sound comes from the Mutable Instruments ‘Plaits’ which is being modulated by both the Mutable Instruments ‘Stages’ & the Pico DSP. If I had to categorize the sound of my instrument I’d say it’s a multifunctional synth. I’ve created my own script for it which allows the user to control the Cutoff, Reverb & Distortion amount. I’ve also included my own graphics to make it look the part. This will be the first of many unique sounds from my modular synthesizer and I hope you like it! I’m truly excited to become part of this community!
PS: I’ve created a .NICNT file as well so you can load it up from the Library tab.
All the best,
Nick / Husman
Reviews for Husman Modular – Alpha
- Sound
- Character
- Playability
- Inspiration
- GUI
Leave a review to let others know what you thought of the instrument!
1980s Secondary School Computer Club Synthwave
The sounds in the library reminded me of 8-Bit computers, particularly the Commodore 64 SID chip which I had a lot of experience with when making the From Bedrooms To Billions soundtrack. For my demo track I made a piece of Systems Music based around patterns of increasingly shorter lengths along with some randomisation. I'm quite pleased with the result. It sounds like Synthwave being performed by a 1980s secondary school computer club, which is certainly a specific genre. Only uses sounds from the library. No effects used other than a SEM LP filter sweep for the intro and and some light mastering.
Awesome sound, but not synced
I believe this sound has incredible potential that at its current state cannot be reached, since it is being held back by a few issues. The sound repeats itself after once in a while, but it seems that it is not tempo synced and it is not in line with the keybed, so you can pretty much only use one note per time, but even then it will be very hard to deal with in the context of a mix. Perhaps it can be used as an fx with further processing, so I guess it's up to everyones creativity. I have to note though that even though the GUI features 3 nameless horizontal sliders, they work vertically instead. It would be also great if there were labels or just mouseover tooltips for them.
Limited but interesting
It's worth noting off the bat that this instrument has some issues. The .nkr file which presumably creates custom knobs on the interface is missing and can't be found. In their place, the GUI has default horizontal sliders which require vertical movement to work. In addition, there are two different folders containing all of the samples within the main library folder, which unnecessarily doubles the size of this library. It's not huge to begin with, but it's worth pointing out that there was probably some additional beta testing which could have been done for this library. As for the sound itself, it's interesting. It's creative, rhythmic, and it loops. Unfortunately, those loops don't sync to DAW host tempo, which pretty severely limits the usefulness of this library. The samples all have a fairly significant gap before starting, which further reduces playability. So, this is an interesting experiment, but I didn't find it particularly useful.
Not for me
I don't want this review to reflect badly on the instrument. ive just never been into this style of synthesis. I would personally never use this sound but i don't want to dissuade others from it. It you like modular synthesis you'll probably love this, i would just probably never use this in my work. There are a few sliders on the GUI but theres no writing above them so you have to figure out what they are doing for yourself
