Who's using Ochen K A-Series?

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dvdrtldg
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30 Jan 2016

I'm getting more & more interested in modular synthesis and wondering about the potential of these Ochen K devices. But I'm also extremely time poor at the moment, have to be very disciplined with my Reason activities and don't want to disappear down a rabbit hole with nothing much to show at the end of it. So what I want to know is: do the A-Series units simply offer a fun way of getting to grips with the essentials of building basic synths? Or can you really use them (along with other REs) to make deep & powerful devices? If the sky really is the limit, then I'll get started.

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am0eba
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30 Jan 2016

I'd say the potential is there, but you have to be disciplined and have some sort of text or roadmap for exploration.

The great thing is that these modules can be patched into and out of any other Reason devices, including Rack Extensions, and you are only limited by the available connectors.

So, I've probably added nothing you didn't already know in your heart...

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Loque
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30 Jan 2016

I like modular synthesis too. But i figured out that its nearly impossible or very hard to do some stuff that good synths do. There are actually several modulare devices in the shop like the A-Series, Ammo and Polymodular System. I could not get them work togehter in a nice way (maybe lack of skill), but each of their own are special, but also limited.

I really liked Polymodular System in the last time. It's oscilator with Movement is realy fat! Movement can be used for free oscilator curves and evelopes for Amp and Filters - great! And the F-16 filter sounds great. But, if you want to have a polymodular synth with 8 voices and 2 or more oscilators per voice, you are getting nuts and get lost in the rabit hole (to use your words). Thats a fact for all modular systems. Great freedom, but if you want more, it's getting complicated and CPU hungry.

Do not forget, that Thor is a great synth, that allows several oscilators to be combined and a great and free modulation matrix. Combine it with a compinator and you get even more modulation stuff.

If you like OchenK maybe have a look at 4MER as an oscilator source. Did not actually tried to feed it with envelopes or different filters, but works smothly with Distributor to have 8x polyphonie.

If you are looking for some good package for modulare systems in the shop, i can recomend the Polymodular System, or Ammo, where i am actually not very used to is Ammo - maybe if i have more time ;)
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Ahornberg
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Location: Vienna, Austria
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30 Jan 2016

I played around a bit with A-Series. My use is for building microtonal synths with that instruments that lack a "keytrk" knob in ther oscillators.

I didn't build any modular synth using only A-Series but I think the way to combine them together and with any of all other devices is nearly endless.

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electrochoc (PRX-A)
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30 Jan 2016

dvdrtldg wrote:I'm getting more & more interested in modular synthesis and wondering about the potential of these Ochen K devices. But I'm also extremely time poor at the moment, have to be very disciplined with my Reason activities and don't want to disappear down a rabbit hole with nothing much to show at the end of it. So what I want to know is: do the A-Series units simply offer a fun way of getting to grips with the essentials of building basic synths? Or can you really use them (along with other REs) to make deep & powerful devices? If the sky really is the limit, then I'll get started.
Being one of those who frequently go modular within Reason, I'd say that I consider A-Series mostly as some kind of educational devices... All its components are fairly basic, but you really have to wire absolutely everything, forcing you to always think modular when you use them. Once you're used to this way of thinking, it becomes easy to replace any component with a more powerful one, being a stock device or other REs. Note that A-Series also has some functionnalities not found or not handy in stock devices, like a sample-and-hold, a basic ring modulator and a poly MIDI-to-CV tool.

This said, despite being basic, the A-Series form a full-working synth capable of a very wide variety of sounds. Its modularity means that you have no limit in terms of the number of oscillators you want to use, how you can use the envelops, etc. I've myself made some very nice patches using A-Series. So yes, it can be powerful, but it stays, to me at least, mostly a way to get familiar with modular synthesis.

If you want to have an idea of what they are capable of, you should listen to this demo of Navi Retlav's ReFill dedicated to A-Series:

This comment is provided courtesy of PRX-A!

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Jagwah
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30 Jan 2016

I love the A-Series. Not just the modular side of things but the oscillator seems different to me from others in that when connected certain ways it has a life that I imagine is similar to a real analog oscillator. The way it can build up to your desired Hz can have a very alive feeling imo. Love getting intricate and stacking lots of CV bending devices and it's easy to get carried away... in a good way. :)

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chimp_spanner
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30 Jan 2016

A-Series actually helped me understand synthesis a lot better. There are other modular options in the store, yes. And to be clear, they're all very good in one respect or another! But they also tend to have their own little unique spin or twist (like PolyModular's Poly CV system) which can actually get in the way of what's actually going on, or they function in ways that aren't quite realistic, or they obscure some part of the process.

I like A-Series as it's super direct. Watch Ochen's tutorial videos; they're a great place to start. I've made some killer old school poly synths using these modules. Being able to design each voice in a 4 voice synth is so cool.

What I would love to see eventually - maybe even from Ochen himself - is something like Pulsecode Modular for iPad.

http://www.pulsecodeinc.com/modular.html

Each unit does one job. Nice and simple. Totally modular, and totally flexible. No redundant controls or wasted screen space. I would love, LOVE, to see this in Reason.

But, I'm day dreaming. If only I could code...

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dvdrtldg
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31 Jan 2016

Interesting, thanks guys

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Eagleizer
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Location: Thailand

02 Feb 2016

Didn`t understand much CV when I bought them. Loaded an old file because of this
thread and discovered tons of awesomeness with Ammo100 to control it.

BUG?:
On A-Series 1, the CV in FINE starts tuning as soon as it gets a cable (without signal)
Is it supposed to do that? (Make sure it has a value on the front)

Cheers :)

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electrochoc (PRX-A)
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Location: Montréal, Canada
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02 Feb 2016

Eagleizer wrote:Didn`t understand much CV when I bought them. Loaded an old file because of this
thread and discovered tons of awesomeness with Ammo100 to control it.

BUG?:
On A-Series 1, the CV in FINE starts tuning as soon as it gets a cable (without signal)
Is it supposed to do that? (Make sure it has a value on the front)

Cheers :)
A-Series's CV-ins are unusual: When nothing is connected, a knob like Fine works as usual (and expected). When there's a CV cable connected, the knob becomes a "trim" knob, controlling the amount of modulation from the incoming CV signal. For example, for the Fine knob, if there's a CV cable connected to it, the Fine value will be locked at 50%, and the knob itself will rather control the amount of modulation coming from the incoming source.

This pretty unique behaviour is explained in this video:

This comment is provided courtesy of PRX-A!

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Auryn
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Location: La Mancha

03 Feb 2016

I use it quite often actually, usually in conjunction with the polymodular system. I particularly use the ringmodulator and the noise generator a lot. The s&h module is also useful and the cv-remotable mixer is also a boon if you want to mix different oscillators together in one voice.
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Speedball
Posts: 3
Joined: 17 Nov 2016

17 Nov 2016

good evening,

if someone has to time to check something pls. Blank Reason Song, build the simpliest possible A-Series Synth:
A-19SEQ CV Out to A-11VCO CV in
A-19SEQ Gate out to A-13VCA Gain in
A-11VCO Osc Waveform (whatever wave) Audio out to A-13VCA Audio IN1

1. Play some Midinotes with a Controller or Reason Sequencer, but only 1 note at a time -> works fine
2. Press a couple of notes at the same time - > CV is broken, i cannot play the A-series with different pitches anymore

Is this a known bug ? Would be nice if somebody could have a quick look...

Thanks very much

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chimp_spanner
Posts: 2908
Joined: 06 Mar 2015

17 Nov 2016

I have reported this to Ochen as a bug - the problem is when you set it up as a monosynth, the gate doesn't retrigger. If you were to try the same thing but using Blamsofts Distributor instead of the A-Series SEQ it would work just fine (which is what I've been using instead, although I'd like to keep it all within A-Series if possible).

I'm not sure how active Ochen is with REs right now though so, until there's a fix, I would recommend using Blamsoft's Distributor if you have it! Or failing that, be sure not to overlap your notes.

Speedball
Posts: 3
Joined: 17 Nov 2016

17 Nov 2016

chimp_spanner wrote:I have reported this to Ochen as a bug - the problem is when you set it up as a monosynth, the gate doesn't retrigger. If you were to try the same thing but using Blamsofts Distributor instead of the A-Series SEQ it would work just fine (which is what I've been using instead, although I'd like to keep it all within A-Series if possible).

I'm not sure how active Ochen is with REs right now though so, until there's a fix, I would recommend using Blamsoft's Distributor if you have it! Or failing that, be sure not to overlap your notes.
Thanks very much. Distributer i have, will use that instead.


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Faastwalker
Posts: 2281
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Location: NSW, Australia

17 Nov 2016

I love the A-Series as educational tools for understanding modular synths especially with the excellent videos OchenK put up. I've got some pretty nice sounds from them as well but nothing I couldn't get a lot easier using a regular synth. So it really is about having an interest in modular synthesis for me. Combined with some of the excellent 'CV' RE's available there's no telling where you could go with this. But it does take time to get there. I'm still a complete modular novice but it's a fascinating world.

My approach is a bit like circuit bending - attach a CV 'out' to an 'in', so if anything interesting happens & then go with that. Only problem is you quickly loose track of what is going on! I've recently started using Zvork's SL-1 as a sort of macro controller for all the CV stuff. You can label each control so it helps heaps in keeping track of things as you only assign controls to parameters that do interesting things & you can keep it separate from all the other RE's you have filling up the screen(s). I use JP's free spacer RE's to help spread things out a bit & keep groups of RE's apart so it's not such a clusterf**k of cables on the back side.

https://www.facebook.com/Reason-CV-Modu ... 285494893/

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chimp_spanner
Posts: 2908
Joined: 06 Mar 2015

17 Nov 2016

Faastwalker wrote:I love the A-Series as educational tools for understanding modular synths especially with the excellent videos OchenK put up. I've got some pretty nice sounds from them as well but nothing I couldn't get a lot easier using a regular synth. So it really is about having an interest in modular synthesis for me. Combined with some of the excellent 'CV' RE's available there's no telling where you could go with this. But it does take time to get there. I'm still a complete modular novice but it's a fascinating world.

My approach is a bit like circuit bending - attach a CV 'out' to an 'in', so if anything interesting happens & then go with that. Only problem is you quickly loose track of what is going on! I've recently started using Zvork's SL-1 as a sort of macro controller for all the CV stuff. You can label each control so it helps heaps in keeping track of things as you only assign controls to parameters that do interesting things & you can keep it separate from all the other RE's you have filling up the screen(s). I use JP's free spacer RE's to help spread things out a bit & keep groups of RE's apart so it's not such a clusterf**k of cables on the back side.

https://www.facebook.com/Reason-CV-Modu ... 285494893/
I like the CV8x4! It's free, although nowhere near as powerful as SL-1, which I have been meaning to pick up some time. Maybe Black Friday ;)

There are definitely some unique/interesting things you can do with modular poly synths though. My favourite is setting each of my voices to different waveforms and octaves, some of them a fifth above the root, then set the distribution order to "random" and play arpeggios or chords. You get this awesome random voicing. Different speed/depth LFOs on each note sounds cool as well.

I also like that sound you get where you have, say, a two or three voice synth with long amp decay, but sharing a single filter envelope. Stuff like that. Slightly off topic but have you see that new AE Modular system that's in crowdfunding atm? Inspired by the Volca series, you can get a 32 slot rack (pre-loaded with 14 modules) for like 490 EU. Madness!

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Ahornberg
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18 Nov 2016

AE Modular system looks interesting. I have no experience in modular hardware but if I would go on to it I would choose Eurorack modules.

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