Exploring the 4MS Ensemble Oscillator!
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 31 ก.ค. 2024
- The 4MS Ensemble Oscillator is a very unique sound source and this video was a lot of of fun to make! I'm quite certain I'll revisiting this in future videos as there's some much more sonic avenues to explore with this one. Hope you enjoy!
Ally
#eurorack #synth #digital #modular #electronicmusic
CONTENT
0:00 - Intro
1:38 - Overview
6:46 - 80's Bass
10:52 - FM sounds
13:40 - Chord Switching
18:00 - Freeze
20:20 -Outro
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Also, I subscribed ages ago. Come on everyone who hasn't done so yet, hit that subscribe button and lets get him over that 10k figure. He absolutely deserves it for this quality of content.
Cheers man ~ much appreciated!!
Wonderful video on this module. Taught me some things tonight! Love your example tunes as well.
Bought two weeks ago, this module is amazing. A little bit wild to manage but easy to get creative moments... Matthias Puech designed this module like a polyphonic and overtone singing. Thanks a lot to made this video full of beautiful examples!
Yes it’s one of those modules that’s so fun to sit and explore.. it could go beautifully or it could go wild!
love seeing new videos on this timeless module. it was my introduction to modular and I think everyone should have one of these.
Great module to start with!
Great patches - definitely the best demo I’ve heard of this module! Was never too sure about it from what I’d heard previously, but you’ve coaxed some serious loveliness out of it, as always!
Not only does it sound good but it's also very playable and fun to use. A little bit of practice and you will hardly make any horrible mistakes when playing live. So in my experience it is probably one of the best sound sources for a small or newbie system. This module can seem a bit overwhelming, theoretical or deep maybe but as I am a bit lacy and stupid there are a functions that I never bothered to get into, but for me what I get from being superficial is much more than I probably deserve.
Love your videos btw.
Cheers man! At first I thought it might be great for ambient chord jams only but it’s definitely capable of way more ☺️
Wow, I really enjoyed listening to this! It sounds so lush and satisfying.
Glad to hear it! ☺️
That 80's bass patch you performed was unreal. Loved it! I've been considering this module for a while now.
Thanks! I like that one too ☺️
Another great video, and super helpful. I've been struggling a bit with the Ensemble, as a relative beginner, and this has given me some really great starting points!
Cheers man ~ glad to hear it!
I Watch all your video’s !!! You are a big inspiration
Your musical sense is always tidy.
Cheers man! :)
Cheers Ali, I've had Ensemble for ages but discovered much more about it here. Good luck for 10k; I reckon this video will do it for you..😊
Cheers man! I hope so 🤞
I always have more to learn... thanks for this video!
Glad you liked it! :)
It's just one of the most beautiful modules! I jammed with it at superbooth two years ago and fell in love. I just turned knobs and an incredible SONG came into the world. I recorded it because I was hunting samples and I listened to it over and over again. Had to buy it! Such an experience. Thanks for the great relaxing content!
I love it when you discover a piece of gear that gets the creativity flowing ~ this is definitely one of those pieces of gear!
excellent video! good job ;)
Wow, that thing sounds massive!! The feeling reminds me of that mad QPAS jam of yours. So I need this and a QPAS now. Thanks. ;-) Thumbs up for 10K!!
Ensemble + QPAS is a good video shout!
Love this oscillator, good stuff!
Me too! :D
Really beautiful sounds in this video! I kinda wanna buy one now !!
Do it! :D
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Thanks for your video about the Ensemble Oscillator, that one being a module I recently also have in my want-list
Thanks! It was in my list for a while too :)
yeah. you just informed my decision to buy this module.
Thank you.
this module is fiiiiiiiire! Really considering getting one now :D
Do it! :)
Excellent this sound
Thank you :)
Mate are you kidding me,
A year and a half ago I stumble on your Beads as a Sampler video and think "okay I'm finally ready to take the plunge let's do this" and after a year of watching you closely I figured "okay I've learned everything I can from this guy, time to get a 168hp 6U case and fill it"
Then literally a day later you go and prove I'm never done learning and there's never enough HP in the case. Ugh. Beautiful, as always. Just beautiful. Best example of how to use this oscillator from anyone I've seen.
His videos are so informative and organized. A pleasure to learn from.
Hahah thank you! So you’ve got a case of modules now? How’re you liking it so far?
Thank you :)
Part 2 please! I love this module!
Will definitely be revisiting this module in future!
I've had one of these for over a year. Can be very beautiful sounding or it can get seriously gnarly if you start mixing the twist, warp and cross FM stuff with anything other than simple octave multiples. Really good for sonic explorations. There are good and very different takes on it on YT by Red Means Recording and Cinematic Laboratory among others. Great fun indeed
Yea I really didn’t expect it to get so gnarly! I watched those videos too when I was planning mine ☺️
The ensemble oscillator through a lpf/lpg 🤤 Sounds so good. It’s funny, I had one for a few months and loved it but sold it because I just wasn’t using it much. I’ll rob one buying another one. Matthew really knows his code.
Yay 10k!
Woohoo!! ☺️
Great video, cheers. Happy to sub.
thank you - much appreciated! :)
Wild, I just went to check out your Spotify and randomly hit play on House only for it to completely sync up with the video I was playing here. Like really really sync, I listened to it for a solid minute and a half tripping myself out 🤣🤣
Hahah no way! I wonder if they were both the same bpm!
Apparently same bpm and same key (minus when you switched to Major on the Ensemble). Love it when the universe does that haha.@@TheUnperson
Love ours. its a beast
Sure is!
First of all I really like your style of playing! I am not a fan of the TE Field because for the price, I (I mean you, because I already have one) a top of the line M2 IPad that will do so much more. I actually use the Pocket Operators for that type of thing too. You probably thing I’m a price snob, but I have some ridiculous costly gear as well, obviously anyone into Eurorack, doesn’t care about cost as much as innovation, I have the Ensemble too and love it! Great video and you have a new subscriber that hopefully won’t be more of a pain in the ass than it’s worth! Lol
Hey thanks for the kind words! I have the original OP1 and I do really like it. As much as I’d love the field I can’t justify the price, and as you rightly say, I could do a lot more with an iPad! I haven’t explored music making on a tablet yet but it’s definitely on my radar!
I love this thing so much! It's the last thing i bought and I can't stop evangelizing for it lol. It's idea, manual and layout made me rethink the way i looked at musical key and temperament- and i know how hyperbolic that sounds🙃😋
Edit: Btw, i used it for a bit just to make crazy metallic tones for cymbals and strange percussion. You can make it sound like you're hitting a fence with a hammer as well as a choir of angels lol
Ohhh that's a great idea! Definitely making some drum sounds with it today.
Awesome video as usual, thought I was done buying modules for a bit, looks like I now to to get myself one of these now, my bank account thanks you very much for doing a video on this 😂
hahaha I'm sorry! If it makes you feel any better then I have a gear-lust list as long as my arm :D
Edit for this comment, just got one in yesterday and wooooooooow!!! Thing sounds incredible dude, just beautiful module all the way around
Goodness that module sounds so dang good in the first patch! Had to stop to comment right away! Wild!
Haha cheers! Yea it’s pretty easy to get this thing singing ☺️
@@TheUnperson oh I bet. I’d imagine you could easily get lost in it, in the best possible way!
I actually have another youtube account that I rarely ever use. but I just logged into it to get you one subscriber closer to that 10k.... I love your vids so much!! thanks bunches for them, ollie... ali... however it is that you go about spelling it, sir. bravo!! &, again... thank you!!
Hahah! That is very much appreciated! ☺️
@@TheUnperson that's my pleasure, good sir.
@@TheUnperson & I see you made it to 10k!! that's fantastic, man!! big, big congrats on that!! your vids & the music therein really are at the top of the heap for me, in all the loads of vids I watch here, ollie. so, I hope you feel encouraged both as an artist & as a video essay, demo youtube dude as well. & I hope you make a million dollars too. ;-)
@fallprecauxionsmusic thanks for the kind words! My name is Alasdair so anything beginning with and A is fine: Ali, Ally, etc lol ☺️
@@TheUnperson aaaah... nice!! that is a really graceful name. thanks for the clarification. & thanks for all the great music & walkthroughs & whatnot. bravo, ali!! (that's all letters that're actually in your name.) yaaay!!
yesssss
Hey man, great jams, I love listening to the sounds that you come up with. I'll definitely check your music !
Just a quick question, where's your fx aid output's going into ?
I like those ALM effects. sounds great.Excellent advice on switching up from minor to major, I dont hear that often.I picked ensemble oscillator up at Knobcon two years ago, it blew me away, they had it combined with the duel envelope vca, I wanted to grab both, but the envelope vca wasn't for sale untl October..
That would be a pretty powerful combo! Envelope modulation of the ens osc is my favourite so far :)
Amazing as always, keep doing these videos please!
Can you do a video of this module into rings???
Oooo that’s a great idea!
The 'He, He, He' at 8:50 was worth the price of admission right there.
Hahah! Thanks!
The freeze section of this video has a strong tonal resemblance to the crazy mid-sections of "The Carny" by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. I guess it's probably something to do with the minor chords, but there's also a rhythmic feel that's akin to it. Not quite circus mode, but off-beat enough to draw the association. Really nice.
awseome man !!! i should play more with spread knob !!!!
The spread knob is a lot of fun indeed! :)
👍Seems musical, Thanks🙏💚🧡🌄
thank you - much appreciated! :)
I sometimes regret selling this module, but at the time I remember just being so creatively frustrated with it (only after using it as a main sound source for over a year). Maybe I'll pick one up again sometime.
I think if I had only one oscillator as a main sound source I’d get bored with it too! ☺️
Maybe you could make a part two on this module at some point? Go a bit deeper? Like using that Learn button?
Yea I definitely plan to revisit it in future videos :)
i love this. how do you connect the keyboard to the modular? are you using a midi input module?
The keystep has pitch and gate outputs so it connects directly to the oscillators :)
Fantastic. Love me some sine wave manhandling. What is this favorite plugin you speak of June 3 at 17:33 ?
Hahah me too! It’s a soft synth called Dune 3
Would you recommend for 4ms for a beginner dark ambient build? What are your thoughts on digital oscillators and are they any good as analogue?
I love digital and analogue oscillators! Typically digital ones are more experimental and varied, whereas analogue ones do the classic sounds better. The ensemble oscillator would be pretty good for dark ambient jams!
What’s the module you’re using in the beginning intro jam??
It’s the dual dagger stereo filter :)
If you havent't got the module ... you wanna have one now!! Great video Ali. Love the patches. But... I do have a question: when I connect my Arturia KS 37 to the module (pitch out to 1v/oct on the enosc) I can't play more than one octave or the module will sound completely detuned / off octave. Any ideas? Is it the Arturia? Is it the module? Been trying to make scales, no luck. I can;t play the module using a keyboard, it sounds horrible. Must be something stupid I'm overlooking. Appreciate your thoughts. Thanks.
Thank you! Strangely enough I've had another comment here reporting the same issue. So far it's been tracking perfectly for me. Perhaps it needs to be recalibrated?
Amazing video for an amazing module! I always struggle to keep the EnOsc in tune when using the Keystep with it. Have you run into this? The only fix I’ve found for it is recalibrating the 1v/oct and root every single time I turn the module on, which is… not ideal. I’ve been wondering if I was just doing something wrong or if others are experiencing this as well?
I should add that I did the update a little while back that allows you to lock the fine tune. That’s a useful addition, but it still doesn’t help with keyboard tracking. Even just one octave apart the notes start to drift out of tune unless I recalibrate. 😢
That doesn’t sound right! Mine seems to track perfectly so far. Might be worth sending 4MS support an email ~ I’m sure they’ll help you out :)
@@TheUnperson okay, good to know that it’s something I should look into further. Thanks for the reply!
which vst are you talking at 17:30?
It’s called Dune 3
In the "Chord Switching" part... what´s modulating the Root Input?
You mention a S&H? is that gated in quarter notes?
The periodic ramp modulating the cross fm with Maths is suuuper nice.
Trying to get my head around this amazing patch!! Very nice and musical Goldfrapp vibes :)
cheers Tom
The S&H is coming from Pam’s output 6 and going into channel 2 of maths for attenuation. I kept the range of S&H CV very low to keep the root modulation subtle ~ hope that helps! :)
@@TheUnperson amazing, thx a ton!!
I´ll bring out the ol Doepfer Matrix Mixer and will give these cv ins some subtle workouts.
Thanks for giving me a new view on my 4ms, liking it even more now. cheers mate.
Done
Appreciated ☺️
This module is nice but is also basically the Xaoc Odessa, perhaps with more control over specific scales?
I'm not familiar with the Odessa - i'll check it out!
you'll love it @@TheUnperson
A simple chord oscillator that you soon discover is far from simple when you tweak the lower knobs
Yes! And there’s so many sound sculpting options :D
It's quite a thing, isn't it? I've made some _very_ happy sounds with this one.
Yes it's very unique and fun!
Finally I have found someone making real music with modular synths instead of just blips and bloops. I am also glade you finally started zooming in on the modules you are demonstrating. Keep up the great work, you are inspiring me to get back into modular. 👍👍👍
Thanks for the kind words! Go power that rack up 😃
OK so I once asked someone who was well in with the major players of the synth industry, I asked him, what is the actual voice of the synth, he never answered straight away, he almost struggled to tell me.
It wasn't a loaded question, but he still struggled to get to the answer of "oscillator".
So it doesn't matter how good everything else is, if your source is weak, doesn't matter how much you try, you're just masking that og voice and that is a bad thing.
So when I buy a synth, I look at the whole package, this is sequencer (if it has one), FX (if they're there) etc.
So I have dabbled with some Moog gear and I just never really liked my M32s I had, they were extremely expensive for just 1 oscillator, the UI was cluttered imo and you needed a cheat sheet for the sequencer.
The oscillator was creamy though, I get the sound, it just wasn't for me as there wasn't enough variations of it to make me want to keep pouring money into this format.
This is where modular comes more into play as you get to design your own synth, you get to partner the best bits that you want, at a cost mind you, but it's your baby with off the shelf gear.
I have seen people pour a ton of money in desktops and they have a wonderful sounding synth, only to ruin it with post FX smeared in verb that kills the quintessential character of that osc.
So I make sure that with my gear, I am using the built in FX, or I do some soul stealing with external fx pedals.
Which leads me to my next point, you can get an FX pedal to make synths sounds almost the same, not always, but that the soul stealing that I mean, you destroy the osc and use the pedal as a synth in place.
It's good and bad, depends on your approach.
With regards to this video, the osc is 1st and foremost, it is the character of what we want, without the burger helper and added MSG to alter the taste.
This is why I stick to older music, it seems the tech used back in the day, was why the artists used it, and well there was nothing else really available.
Give me a good sounding raw osc, and a usable UI and I would be as happy as a pig in mud.
Please tell me you didn’t take a sledgehammer to your mother32 😃
@@TheUnperson bwaaah ha ha ha
Look they were well made devices, even the wood was much better than the Model D I had.
I had 2 M32s but they failed to get my juices flowing. I found I spent more time scratching my head in getting into hidden menus, than actually producing music, this was pre DFAM and SubH.
The cost of 2 M32s was almost the same as my Pro 3, so I found more value in the Pro 3.
The sound of the M32s is a creamy filter and nice OSC, but you only get one, so that's an expensive synth.
The Pro 3 has 3 OSC, is hybrid, comes with keybed and a funky little sequencer that I don't need to squint on anything to see what I am doing.
I hate wearing glasses because it's for short shortsightedness, so when I am jamming, it's kinda hard to go from reading labels with glasses, to not needing them to jam (if this makes sense?)
I am a night owl so I jam with dim lights, which means I rely on big Fischer price type of knobs and switches.
The M32s I was happy to explore, just not for me, and they afforded me to get into my next level.
Pro 3 is nice but a little too big for my tastes, just money wise, it's an excellent purchase for me, given they went up by around 35%.
In the end, it's sound 1st, form factor and UI. I can normally allow for 1 of 3 to falter IF it sounds great, ie my Blofeld I can never get rid of, lousy UI, sounds great, awesome keybed.
M32, sounds great, lousy UI, cumbersome for me wot work with.
I think you get my drift, but yes no sledgehammer has ever been involved lol.
i actually had a similar experience with the Sub37. It sounds great but I couldn't get creative with it. If I was more of a keys player then I probably would have kept it but I typically use synths for sound design more than traditional playing. It got the sledgehammer treatment.
@@TheUnperson eeek.
I am someone that is not a keys player but like to tweak on the fly.
If I had the chance, I would only have modules and sequencers, but alas my Pro 3/2 don't come without keys.
I only have 4 keyboards so it's not too bad.
I've seen people doing theremin MIDI control stuff and I love it. I am all about gestures rather than traditional keys.
Subbed
Cheers!
dude you did a video hell ya man lol.
one question i had for you was with the dual dagger, when i have lp,res, and hp all the way counterclockwise i cant hear anything but watching your video i see you have perfectly loud signal coming through with your knobs turn all the way counter clockwise. how are you able to get sound this way? sorry still a newb here. thanks for doing this demo.
I’m using maths as an envelope, triggered by the keyboard, to open the filter via the LPF input. Any envelope will work the same way ~ great way to shape your sounds :)
@@TheUnperson oh right awesome thanks buddy and thanks for doing that demo on 4ms im getting one now lol.