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Springing for Actual Hardware

November 2024

I FIDDLED WITH REASON for eight years. I spent a few years learning about modular synthesis with VCV Rack. Could it be that the time had come for real hardware? “Nooooooooooooooooooooo!!,” the inner voice screamed. (The inner voice was half-listened to … for a second … then ignored.)

In 2018, after much trepidation, I bought my first hardware synthesizer, the Behringer Neutron. The Neutron is a “semi-modular” synthesizer. That means it’s composed of a bunch of different modules, each with a different function like a fully modular synthesizer. It has a bunch of jacks for connecting the various modules together in different ways, but it also has a “prewired” signal path, so it can make sounds even if no cables are plugged into any of the jacks.

Next came guitar pedals. The first were from Digitech, the Obscura delay, Polara reverb and the Ventura Vibe tremelo pedals. Eventually, I sold those and impulse purchaced four Klowra pedals based solely on an enthuiastic review by Ryan Burke of 60 Cycle Hum. Honestly, they're probably more of a “side-grade,” but at least I got an additional effect out of the deal. Pedals richen and enhance the sounds the Neutron produces. A recording of a squealing pig passed through a decent reverb can sound like an angelic choir, or at least an angelic choir of squealing pigs.

Over time, other devices have joined the collection. Continuing on the path I started with VCV Rack, I look for things geared more towards drones, noise and experimentation. I am painfully aware of the spending, and I try to seek out relatively inexpensive devices and those that gave you a lot of bang for the buck, but admittedly, “relatively inexpensive” is kind of an absurd term in the world of hardware synthesis. Devices come and go, but the current inventory includes:

Our son Thomas also gave me a LostVolts theremin for Christmas one year.

These items have now moved on to new owners:

In 2023, I started putting together a small Eurorack modular system, but I’ll talk about that in another article.