2021: A Year in Gear (What You've Bought or Want to Buy in 2021)

[justin3am]

LPGs are... quirky. A lot of it's character depends on the vactrol and they can vary from component to component. I've only used a few LPGs that I really like and I use those in almost every patch. Others that I have tried almost sounded broken (no decay or too much decay, lots of bleed, etc.) compared to the ones I do like. The QMMG and Thomas White LPG are my favorites by far. My Optomix doesn't have a very long decay, but it's still good for those woody percussive sounds.

[pekbro]

LPGs are... quirky. A lot of it's character depends on the vactrol and they can vary from component to component. I've only used a few LPGs that I really like and I use those in almost every patch. Others that I have tried almost sounded broken (no decay or too much decay, lots of bleed, etc.) compared to the ones I do like. The QMMG and Thomas White LPG are my favorites by far. My Optomix doesn't have a very long decay, but it's still good for those woody percussive sounds.

Neat! I didn't know about the Thomas White LPG, the QMMG being of course unobtanium.

[elxsound]

The Thomas white one would be my first choice except for the DIY part. I’m definitely interested in getting one later but I still haven’t put together the magnetophon!

I thought I read that QMMG was going to be re-released in one of their bundled skiffs (or 6U racks… I can’t remember).

[Shabdahbriah]

I thought I read that QMMG was going to be re-released in one of their bundled skiffs (or 6U racks… I can’t remember).

We tried really hard to make a run of QMMG in 2019, but the parts that arrived weren’t what we wanted, and we haven’t been able to identify good old stock to finish this run. We are still working on a solution, and will post an update here when we have news. Please note that shops were never given the ok to take orders because we didn’t yet have these in production.

[pekbro]

IIRC Make Noise had an event in North Carolina where you could purchase the last QMMG's made with the vactrols they had remaining, but you had to be there in person to do it. That was 2 or 3 years ago I think. I think it was vactrols, anyway whatever part it was, I believe they were hard to get as they
weren't being produced anymore or rarely, because they were hazardous.

[Shabdahbriah]

^^^ yes, it was predominately the vactrols.

[justin3am]

You can get VTL5C3 clones from Coolaudio and Xvive but the variance from part to part is huge. I have a few of those parts from 2018-19 and they all have a really weird response. I wasn't surprised to hear that like 40-50% of the parts that they ordered in 2019 were basically useless. That combined with the fact that each QMMG uses 8 of them and they need to be matched by hand...
It's funny too, because I don't think QMMGs sold very well at first. The second one I bought was #399 from the "final batch". Lots of people didn't like the look of Make Noise modules. I think most preferred the look of PlanB's Model 13 at the time.

Some things to mention about vactrol based LPGs in general...
It's not unusual for two units of the same product to sound completely different.
Set the Offset to max for a bit while your system warms up to get the best response.

[foosnark]

Some things to mention about vactrol based LPGs in general...
It's not unusual for two units of the same product to sound completely different.

Yeah, I really did not like that the Optomix that I tried a while back, in Make Noise's own demo case. Some video demos I've heard of it sound quite a lot different.

People have said that their DPLPG has different response on the two gates, but the one I had was super closely matched.

I know Make Noise use to really love vactrols and it was kind of a selling point. But I wonder, as much demand as there is for QMMG, since they're having trouble sourcing good consistent ones, if they shouldn't do a new version that emulates the vactrols instead. As much demand and love as there's been for Natural Gate, it's a little surprising other contenders haven't jumped in on that. (Pittsburgh's DIF is the only other one I know of -- and though it sounded great under CV control, its response to the impulse input was pretty lackluster.)

[justin3am]

Yeah, I agree. No reason not to emulate the behavior of a vactrol... but the term 'emulate' has become so loaded.
I think that the combo of the Dynamics section and the Contour envelope (the modules and 0-Coast) are a good compromise and in many ways improved on vactrol LPGs. Natural Gate is cool because it gives you a lot of control over the ring/decay behavior.

[Shabdahbriah]

Yeah, I agree. No reason not to emulate the behavior of a vactrol... but the term 'emulate' has become so loaded.
I think that the combo of the Dynamics section and the Contour envelope (the modules and 0-Coast) are a good compromise and in many ways improved on vactrol LPGs. Natural Gate is cool because it gives you a lot of control over the ring/decay behavior.

Yes, I've got Dynamix (*2) and a Contour, and am pleased with that combo. Will likely pick-up another Contour eventually.

[justin3am]

I might also point out that running audio through a slew/slope generator (Maths, Envelator, DUSG, etc.) and modulating Rise and Fall with an envelope can also give you a remarkably LPG like response. The Smooth section of a Serge SSG is great for this.

[elxsound]

I didn’t realize vactrol based LPGs could sound different between the same module! It’s not something to really pick up on in YouTube videos either. I’m curious to see what I get with the Doepfer one now.

I’m going to spend some more time with 0-Coast’s Dynamix. There still some Dynamix modules available from Shabdahbriah‘s link earlier but I know that won’t last forever.

[foosnark]

I had a Dynamix for a while, and found that though it suits the 0-Coast very well, I just prefer more high-end rolloff. Before I got Natural Gate I compared a bunch of LPGs, and Dynamix kind of felt "flat" to me compared to the rest.

But Contour is very good IMHO. I'd still have it if I were using envelopes more, but with my tendency toward more droney music, Maths, Stages, and NG's variable decay are enough for me.

(I guess I have mixed feelings about Make Noise -- I like them generally, but specific things about the sound of many of their modules just don't work for me. I'm not a fan of their wavefolders, the DPO didn't work as well in my hands as other complex oscillators even though it does wonderful things for other musicians, I got tired of QPAS pretty quickly, I wasn't in love with FXDf. I do really enjoy Mimeophon though, most of their modulation sources feel really good to me, and I think 0-Ctrl is brilliant. And 0-Coast's saturated triangles with plucky envelopes made for some great bass sounds... like I said, the Dynamix style LPG worked very nicely for that instrument.)

[vurt]

need some interesting modulation bits me thinks!
any suggestions for something a bit "different"?
random cv type stuff maybe?
all suggestions welcome for research purposes

[justin3am]

Random*Source SSG or sign-up for the second batch of Sport Modulator 2: https://www.modwiggler.com/forum/viewto ... 6&t=245542

I'm really enjoying my Intellijel Quadrax. It gets really crazy with some self-patching.
I had a Qubit Chance for a while and liked that quite a bit. I didn't end up using it as much as I thought I would.
I also really like self-patching my WMD ModBox, but that benefits from a few attenuators.
I don't know how you feel about menus but Ornament & Crime can do a lot of interesting things. Also benefits from some attenuators.