I Found An Affordable Way Into Serge!

Over the past year to eighteen months i have been increasingly interested in the concept of patch programming in modular synthesisers [i worte about it in at least one previous blog post]. up until now i've been lying to myself saying the generative synth i have is my way of having pacth programming fun, but as i slowly got coaxed into this rabbit hole i realised from watching Doug Lynner's selection of Patch of The Week youtube videos, [where he not only chooses a serge module and goes through nearly every self patched clever trick you can use to turn that module into something else, but also demos it in use with other modules showing how you patch program with combos of well known serge modules.], that without knowing it some part of me had been desiring more than what i could achieve with euro, sought out further understanding and sneakily set up an unconcious journey to actually diving into this terrifying habit.

in other words, some crafty bit of my brain tricked me into wanting serge without telling me. but there's no denying it, it is my idea of the perfect synthesiser as far as it com,es with totally non musical concepts in my head. its like if there were adult lego and then you discovered there was adult lego technic. the reason i described serge synthesisers as a terrifying habit is mostly because of the format they tend to use - the original serge synths were sold as 19" 4U panels, with maybe 10-15 modules all behind the one single panel a s a whole. they tend to still mosstly be in that format to this day.













why is that a problem? if you can only buy 10 - 15 of an expensive luxury in one go athen each panel costs you around £2k - £2.5k and although there's now 'm-class' half width panels and other variations on the theme, there's still chassis, power and cables to be covered, and you dont even get the fun of choosing which modules you want to fit you unique self this way either - suddenly the prospect loooks less appealing...

fortunately, there's a little company out there in the thriving and complex diy serge world by the name of Elby. Not only have elby been around a while [so the benefits of experience deliver in the form of great customer service/interactions, products where _every_ little imagineable kink and inconvenience has been designed out, rock solid build quality, a decent website, reasonable prices due to being a bigger company with a stable customer base and reputation in the industry to see them steady etc.etc. etc.], but also elby are still innovating and taking serge off in their own direction whilst also offering the more traditional products simltaneously.

never-the-less, none of these things are what drew me towards them:
Doug Lynner's selection of Patch of The Week youtube videos although somewhat slow and basic and plain, do show off elby products real well, so they got me past the blocks i had like 'elby's that weird aussie diy euro that loooks fisher price and is boring', or 'on modular grid they use drawings not photos, they must be crap' into 'the only thing these dont have is modern modules like NTO and none of those mean you lose patch programming fun' - 'instead you get vintage serge circuits, 73-75 stuff', and 'they do not just serge, but also panther, cgs/catgirl, ken stone and ian fritz stuff'.

the real sell for me tho was elby's 3u euroserge range - individual modules built to euro sizings and power specs, but with all the possible modules elby offered. the more i researched the more i sold it to myself - in reality the modules werent white paperface toys with garish sockets and weird knobs - they were swish doepfer style aluminium, colour coded sockets and some very nice indeed knobs [dont judge a book by its cover...]. and then i settled on the fact the euroserge is available in 4mm banana plug as well as 3.5mm jack - tho i had been on the fence about nana, i just suddenly knew it was right and bettter. the final sell was the knowledge that it being truly modular i could buy as many or as few as i wanted at a time, and also sell single modules i didnt like. i.e. money flexibility and a form of safety net.

The treat of elby is that even if it costs about the same to buy all the modules on a 4U panel in elby euroserge format, you dont have to buy 15 at once - i ccould afford to buy 7 or 8 of the cheapest pre-builtt modules on the maarket every three months now i had finished my other projectss - so i could build up a 24U 84hp pair of flight cases with power and cables etc in just 2yrs, getting a row of 3u every three months approx. all that was left was to choose my first modules!















The first row is definitely the hardest choices to make - it has to be modules you are excited about and willing to play with on their own for the three minutes until you get your next order, they have to be totally self contained as a system therefore which puts crazy highg pressure on each module to be patch programmable in as many ways as possible.you might argue i should just get a buncha dusg's and be done with it - but this misses out on advantage of going with elby - there a whole buncha cycling slope generators with unique features not only the dusg or other more recent serge designs, such as the separate halfs of the universal slope gen, the positive and negative slews - they have +ve/-ve pulse outs for end different stages, the envelope generator with a built in cv'able window comparator that has high/low pulse outs or elby's own panther moduels such as the audio out with the "unique 'crossfeed' function which mimics the inter-channel interactions of the real world by delaying and attenuating the signal from one channel and feeding it to the other. The use of the crossfeed results in a realistically spacious sound stage where instrument locations seem more natural. The perceived depth also lowers the listener fatigue considerably."

for me the audio outs was an essential to get balanced 1/4" jack outputs, the positive and negative in preference to a cramped feature poor dusg, and a pair of env gens, again as preferred over a dusg for the extra features. the smooth n stepped is so versatile and unique it was an essential tho big and not exactly an 'original' choice - itt is a staple for a very good reason. finally i settled on the Random Voltage Generator because it has a smoothe/stepped, s+h out, noise outs and a switch to choose random distribuiton type - way more features and hence flexibility than the other noise/random sources and much better than the lfo i originaly considered.

it's now here arrived in just a week all the way from australia via singapore, germany and other places besides - and ofc straight away i got to rather nervously installing the modules in my ready waiting brand new 12U 84hp tilting mixercase, tiptop racks and rails all powered by a tiptop uZeus [good for two rows of modules each since elby stuff is low current draw]. thankfully i've installleed so many euro modules in my time and in particular into identical such cases/rails/psu's that i dint get too nervous and screw up, as i did this i noted the fantastic build quality and good desiggn suchas labeellling every pin on ther power socket so +12V/-12V/gnd were clear etc. ive been happily patching ever since [yes, i took time to email elby about how impressed and pleased i was].

where next? i'll leave you with another pic and an explanation to come in future;