Some time ago i posted about a little analog synth i bought, the doepfer DARK ENERGY…
And although it sounds quite cool out of the box it mainly whet my appetite for more…
My dream is to build a tool for sounds that are full, warm, original but still have an edge, are exciting. For the warmth and “aliveness” i´d like that tool to be analog not digital. Full and “fat” screams for several different oscillators and to have punch but still give “room” for thick drums i like to combine a lowpass and a highpass filter… I dont think that all of this can be achieved by only expanding this little synth, but its a great opportunity to check out several things: Does analog still sound “better”? Is it that easy to “build”? Will playing it be more fun and inspiring than “mousing” with plug ins?
Good that there are many modules for a system called “Eurorack” that is compatible with the size and the voltage of the DARK ENERGY. These Modules not only have knobs to play with but you also can plug in cables to route signals as you like. I only had to chose modules, build a box around them…
…and put cables everywhere to “pimp” my synth.
Born was the EXPANDED ENERGY.
A mixture of modules from MFB and Doepfer are giving the newborn synth the total of 4 Oscillators, 4 LFOs (all 4 can reach audio frequency!), 2 Envelopes and 2 very different Filters. The new Filtermodule is a clone of the famous Korg MS-20 Filter which is known for its dirty sound and nice distortions. Appetite!
Then i started patching sounds. This is a snippet starting with one single bass sound with a different sound doubled left and right later.
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This is two recordings of the same synth sound spread left and right.
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Here again is a single sound followed by two additional recordings of another sound left and right. I used some patching tricks to get an aggressive but still playable sound…
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And here are those three sounds with some drums in the “musical context”. All synth sounds done with the new EXPANDED ENERGY.
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And here is some percussive stuff and some bass tracks i did with it:
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Oh, and its painted white now:
