What I like about this rack is that unlike a hardware modular synth, it stays in tune, doesn't need to be calibrated, and doesn't have to warm up for 15 minutes before use. Also, alot of these hardware synths barely sound musical. This is fantastic.
thank you, appreciate that. I work mainly with Eurorack hardware, but it's all synthesis and applicable to lots of things so I try to give things an educational edge whatever I'm doing.
Brilliantly paced and edited tutorial. Going into this I was worried it would be long and windy, but literally every minute I'm learning something completely new about this synth and modular synthesis I had no idea about. Thank you so much for a stellar tutorial. Subbed.
Great stuff Andrew, thanks. It's minimal in terms of software I cover here but I hope you can apply ideas from the other videos to gear or software that you do have.
I wasn't sure about Complex-1 judging by the demos on the prop shop. They didn't sound like anything I couldn't do with Thor or my hardware analog synths. But your video gave me palpitations and made my palms sweaty, and I bought it immediately 😅 Thanks dude ❤️
i am pretty new to synthesizers and overwhelmed by the possibilities, terminology, and effect of these tools, but following along and copying what you did each time was actually helpful to a degree. i can't wait to come back in a few years when i really understand and can visualize what each tool does and see how much ore value i get from this - and thanks for the patches!
Forgive me if this is already somewhere in the video (haven't watched the whole thing yet, but I don't see it in the chapter list either), but you can add another eight modulation sources by putting Complex-1 into a combinator and mapping its eight CV inputs to whatever you want, then connecting any external device to those inputs. Want eight envelopes? Add four SubTractors and use their mod and filter envelopes. Connect a Pulsar for two more LFOs. Anything is possible.
Thank you very much. I have wanted to explore modular snyth for a year and recently got Reason. After discovering Complex-1 I found this video and it helped so much.
Love this video, for such a potentially complex subject, you broke it down really well so a n00b like me could get to grips with the basics. Well done sir.
Thanks for the great tutorial! Nice and in-depth look at what Complex-1 can do. Looking forward to trying it out for myself, and referring beck to this for tips. Cheers!
Thanks, Ben. Great work - very welcome for those of us who don’t have as much hardware as we would like and those who use the software for ease and repeatability. This is good stuff.
Thanks for this video man. Not had a lot of hardware fully modular synth experience, so I was completely lost on what some the functions in this are. I have a much better understanding now.
Great I've been using complex 1 since it's release but I've learned some new things from your video. I'll be coming back to this video often to really digest everything thanks great work!
ABS is "Absolute value" and not abstract. More info here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolute_value. Otherwise a really good tutorial for starting out with modular synthesis and you actually managed to do a deep dive in 45 minutes. Well done!
Really useful vid' for me, coming back to Reason straight from Reason 6. I was horrified to find out how much I'd been left behind. I also wanted to get back into Analogue synthesis, which I left in the eighties. This vid' was a great reminder / catch-up tool for me. Thanks very much for the clip and the way you presented the Complex, quickly but thoroughly. I can use this as a stepping-off point and leave out a lot of work I would otherwise have had to do myself. :)
Nice video! Lots of new ideas. :-) Also keep in mind that there's a 50 pages long manual for complex-1 that's worth reading and also contains tips&tricks on using the different sections.
Surprisingly convincing sound, the Buchla stuff seems to be really difficult to emulate. I use Arturia's Easel V and it sounds great as a synth in general but really different from the original to my ears
very heavy video full of knowledge ! I enjoyed it a lot ! please make more videos aboyt anything related to Reason or its Rack Extensions , Im sure alotta Reason user are waiting and looking for people like you to make these :)
@@DivKid I already have way too many rack extensions and I recently was gifted the Arturia V collection so I'm in no hurry to get it, but it's on the wishlist :D
Just had my first play around today, I’m used to other modular synth stuff. But something I found weird was I plugged something into the audio in on the back and it changed the sound without being routed anywhere in the front, any ideas? Also I wish there were more cv in and outs on this so you could more easily daisy chain together to make giant modular synths with many parts etc
Greetings from London! Thanks for the comprehensive video brother! Appreciate you taking the time to share you knowledge. Would be great if you could show how to automate functions in a DAW (Logic) for the C-1 as well. Have you done any other vids for the Rack plug in version for Logic? I'm particularly interested Dr. Octo Loop Player, Grain Sample Manipulator and the Advanced Sampler. Thanks again.
This is an awesome video, thank you so much!! I've used Reason for years so sorry for this basic questions but I cnat figure out how to get my SEQ from Complex-1 into the Reason SEQ as MIDI notes. There is no copy pattern to track type of feature, i've tried hitting Record on Reason and letting Complex-1 playback my SEQ (it doesnt record the notes). Does it just have to RUN the whole time and automate when to turn ON Complex-1 and Off? I know im missing something simple. I'll reach out to Reason if I need to. Thanks again!
Thanks for the great tutorial and explanation of Complex-1's modules and features. I am not seeing a link to extra patches anywhere. Will you be adding this to the description? Thanks!
Hi Philip, yeah I realised that, they're on my other computer and just moving somewhere where you can grab a link which I'll do soon. The next video will be all about those patches though with everything shared properly then.
Nice explained, Man. Do I need a MIDI-device for this? Would I then be able to use an Arpeggiator connected somehow to change frequency (&) modulation at the same time?
HI Norten, thanks. As this is a device in the software Reason you have all the tools in the software to make music as you like. There's arpeggiator devices and the piano roll style note MIDI internally to sequence and make patterns.
Nice basic tutorial on the Complex. Too bad most Reason instruments are impossible to use when zoom in more than 100%. All gets blurry and pixelated. It's why I stopped using Reason years ago, most of us have 2k or 4k screens, so using software with high resolution graphics is a must!
@@DivKid Not really, Cubase it's my Daw since Atari days. I use the Reason rack as VST from time to time, but the fact it's low resolution UI, that's what turns me off. It's 2024, most people stopped using 720p screens more than one decade ago
it might have been addressed in more recent versions (I can't say, I don't have the later versions). Vector based graphics you can zoom and re size are a lovely thing.
Can you patch between 2 complex-1 instruments? Let's say if I wanted to patch the ADSR of one complex-1 to the filter or pitch of another complex 1. Can that be done?
god this looks comlex, hence the name - complex 1 haha, great tutorial, the manual doesn't explain almost anything, but can you actually make any sounds you can use in your music, only sounds i've made sounds like they're made for an old school video game like mario
How are you,,,,I love all of your videos but what you did not show is after you create all this sounds then how would you trigger from a keyboard,,,,,what I mean is hit any key on the keyboard and the sound play,,,,,cause when you create the sounds patching cables the sound keeps going ,,,,I want to be able to hit any key to control it with a midi keyboard
I try not to be a yank all the time, in that I try to recognize different uk accents... Liverpool? Most americans think NI actors are scottish and wouldn't understand a Welshman, but I'm pretty certain that is Liverpool. Also, thanks for the vid. I'm using complex as my entrance to modular.
well ... not really. VCAs control volume in one direction. Ring modulators are balanced modulators that would invert the signals too. Take a sine wave as a the modulator. In a VCA it would half wave rectify the signal, as the positive part of the modulation would open the VCA and return to zero. It wouldn't then invert the level with the negative portion of modulation signal. So it's not quite Ring Mod. And a half wave rectified sine has a load more harmonics than a pure one.
VCV Rack and Reason combined make a powerful sounding tool. I run them both on separate PC's and MIDI/Audio I/O from one side to another; You get the best of both worlds.. emulated Eurorack + emulated studio gear + DAW. However, I think Reason is on to something since this is the first time I see them cabling on the front... I can only imagine what they are thinking for in future versions.
Surely these sounds are easier to obtain from sound patches. Does the complexity of this syth really create anything Original ? What is the ultimate goal here ?
sound patches? What sound patches? Ultimate goal? ... well for one you could use this to really learn synthesis, un plug everything have nothing pre wired in terms of signal path and really learn synthesis. Which will ultimate lead to more interesting possibilities sonically and musically for you. If you understand all the tools and practice you can then exploit them, you can also get to the sounds and ideas in your head faster because you've studied and practice with sound and synthesis. If it's just flicking through sounds then that's cool too there's a lot of potential in the building blocks of complex-1.
This video really demystified Complex-1 for me. The most comprehensive and easy to understand tutorial I have seen on the subject!
What I like about this rack is that unlike a hardware modular synth, it stays in tune, doesn't need to be calibrated, and doesn't have to warm up for 15 minutes before use. Also, alot of these hardware synths barely sound musical. This is fantastic.
boss presentation from a charismatic chill dude with knowledge.talent!
I think Complex-1 is one of the best sounding synths I have ever heard!
It would be great to see a hardware controller for it
3:18 this tone is so satisfaying
thanks, lots to explore with Complex-1 I still enjoy it.
Instant sub for this tutorial. Thanks for peeling back the curtain mate.
thank you, appreciate that. I work mainly with Eurorack hardware, but it's all synthesis and applicable to lots of things so I try to give things an educational edge whatever I'm doing.
Ten minutes in and I can see I'm gonna have a lot of fun with Complex-1.
Thank you so much for helping de-mystify this incredible plugin for me while introducing me to the fundementals of synthesis. fantastic :)
Thanks for the supportive comment, enjoy Complex-1 :)
A really good tutorial on a really good synth. Thank you!
Thanks, appreciate that.
i bought the suite yesterday... and i think the complex is my new tool for single short sound fx
Thank you, I have a deeper understanding of what is happening now!!
Brilliantly paced and edited tutorial. Going into this I was worried it would be long and windy, but literally every minute I'm learning something completely new about this synth and modular synthesis I had no idea about. Thank you so much for a stellar tutorial. Subbed.
Great stuff Andrew, thanks. It's minimal in terms of software I cover here but I hope you can apply ideas from the other videos to gear or software that you do have.
Thank you for this video, very inspiring.
Glad you enjoyed it
this video is pure gold
I wasn't sure about Complex-1 judging by the demos on the prop shop. They didn't sound like anything I couldn't do with Thor or my hardware analog synths. But your video gave me palpitations and made my palms sweaty, and I bought it immediately 😅 Thanks dude ❤️
i am pretty new to synthesizers and overwhelmed by the possibilities, terminology, and effect of these tools, but following along and copying what you did each time was actually helpful to a degree. i can't wait to come back in a few years when i really understand and can visualize what each tool does and see how much ore value i get from this - and thanks for the patches!
Forgive me if this is already somewhere in the video (haven't watched the whole thing yet, but I don't see it in the chapter list either), but you can add another eight modulation sources by putting Complex-1 into a combinator and mapping its eight CV inputs to whatever you want, then connecting any external device to those inputs. Want eight envelopes? Add four SubTractors and use their mod and filter envelopes. Connect a Pulsar for two more LFOs. Anything is possible.
Thank you very much. I have wanted to explore modular snyth for a year and recently got Reason. After discovering Complex-1 I found this video and it helped so much.
Great tutorial! This was the Complex-1 tutorial I'd been waiting for :) Cheers!
glad to make something useful for you.
Love this video, for such a potentially complex subject, you broke it down really well so a n00b like me could get to grips with the basics. Well done sir.
Thanks for the great tutorial! Nice and in-depth look at what Complex-1 can do. Looking forward to trying it out for myself, and referring beck to this for tips. Cheers!
great stuff, cheers Todd.
What a great tutorial. I was on the fence on Complex but your video solved it. Thanks.
Happy to help Petri. Enjoy Complex-1 if you start to use it.
Ok, this is cool, awesome tutorial and awesome rack extension! Reason is becoming greater and greater
Thanks Marco.
Thanks, Ben. Great work - very welcome for those of us who don’t have as much hardware as we would like and those who use the software for ease and repeatability. This is good stuff.
Cheers, appreciate that.
very good tutorial ! Thanks man
Thanks
Perfect mate, buying Suite because of your review
Thanks for this video man. Not had a lot of hardware fully modular synth experience, so I was completely lost on what some the functions in this are. I have a much better understanding now.
Thanks so much for this - great walkthrough. I’m a big Reason fan but have held off from getting Complex 1 - may have to rethink that..... :)
ok cool, enjoy it.
Great I've been using complex 1 since it's release but I've learned some new things from your video. I'll be coming back to this video often to really digest everything thanks great work!
nice to hear, thanks
Fantastic explanation!
Awesome. Been hanging for this. Just off to work so will have to keep. Better than Netflix 👍
"better than Netflix" good quote for a T shirt.
ABS is "Absolute value" and not abstract. More info here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolute_value. Otherwise a really good tutorial for starting out with modular synthesis and you actually managed to do a deep dive in 45 minutes. Well done!
thank you, that's good to know. Always learning!
DivKidVideo Happy to help. I’ve learnt quite a lot from your videos so it’s fun to be able to give something in return.
appreciated, cheers!
Really useful vid' for me, coming back to Reason straight from Reason 6.
I was horrified to find out how much I'd been left behind.
I also wanted to get back into Analogue synthesis, which I left in the eighties.
This vid' was a great reminder / catch-up tool for me.
Thanks very much for the clip and the way you presented the Complex, quickly but thoroughly.
I can use this as a stepping-off point and leave out a lot of work I would otherwise have had to do myself.
:)
Brilliant walk through! ty
Nice video! Lots of new ideas. :-)
Also keep in mind that there's a 50 pages long manual for complex-1 that's worth reading and also contains tips&tricks on using the different sections.
Thanks for the in depth and educational video! Hope this message finds you doing well!
Marvellous tutorial. Really inspiring and amazing how you present all those topics by heart in a accessible way and in the right pace.
You are a absolute beast. 💕
Really helpful video. Thanks.
Excellent vid, thanks!
Awesome tutorial. Nice one.
Great tutorial, thanks!
Lordy! Thanks so much for this- really helpful and clear. Would love to see more Reason content! Thanks again.
Good explanation!
Surprisingly convincing sound, the Buchla stuff seems to be really difficult to emulate. I use Arturia's Easel V and it sounds great as a synth in general but really different from the original to my ears
Yeah the quality of sound and replication of those audio rate manipulations is really good.
very heavy video full of knowledge ! I enjoyed it a lot ! please make more videos aboyt anything related to Reason or its Rack Extensions , Im sure alotta Reason user are waiting and looking for people like you to make these :)
Thank you so much for this tutorial! Super great, will come back and reference this a ton in the future I believe
100 times thanks!
thanks chief, this helped a lot!
Great job! Really helping me understand this insane system.
Very well explained, exactly what I needed. About to dive into complex-1 now
Very cool! Thanks for doing this in-depth tutorial/review.
I wish I had the money (and to be totallly fair, a use for it), because that looks like a very interesting toy !
Yeah it's a nice it of software to play around with.
@@DivKid I already have way too many rack extensions and I recently was gifted the Arturia V collection so I'm in no hurry to get it, but it's on the wishlist :D
This was a great intro, very clear, great pace, and some great ideas to start exploring Complex-1 from. Will check out some more of your videos
Yeah, thanks a lot for this nice video. Really helpfull here.
Thanks, very thorough
Thanks Paul.
Thanks so much for this video, I've been wanting this and it's on sale this week and I learned some things watching your great video.
Just had my first play around today, I’m used to other modular synth stuff. But something I found weird was I plugged something into the audio in on the back and it changed the sound without being routed anywhere in the front, any ideas? Also I wish there were more cv in and outs on this so you could more easily daisy chain together to make giant modular synths with many parts etc
great video thanks for walking it through - I'm in!
This was a really informative and so well explained overview complex-1. Cheers :)
great, thank you Paul.
Very well explained. Thank you 👍
Thank you so much for this! Extremely useful!
Glad to hear it, cheers Greg.
Thanks so much for this video. You're very good at explaining things. Can't wait to jump in!
thank you
really useful tutorial - many thanks for this.
thanks Bill.
Brilliantly informative for the robotic digital nerds, but for me as a human. Gosh!
Seems a good way to traverse retirement.
WANT ! Really nice rundown. I wonder if this will ever be a VST... or even just a standalone program, it sounds niiiice.
Yeah would be cool and nice to have for other programs too. I do like Reason though.
Thks Ben!
Cheers Jeff.
Greetings from London! Thanks for the comprehensive video brother! Appreciate you taking the time to share you knowledge. Would be great if you could show how to automate functions in a DAW (Logic) for the C-1 as well. Have you done any other vids for the Rack plug in version for Logic? I'm particularly interested Dr. Octo Loop Player, Grain Sample Manipulator and the Advanced Sampler. Thanks again.
This is an awesome video, thank you so much!! I've used Reason for years so sorry for this basic questions but I cnat figure out how to get my SEQ from Complex-1 into the Reason SEQ as MIDI notes. There is no copy pattern to track type of feature, i've tried hitting Record on Reason and letting Complex-1 playback my SEQ (it doesnt record the notes). Does it just have to RUN the whole time and automate when to turn ON Complex-1 and Off? I know im missing something simple. I'll reach out to Reason if I need to. Thanks again!
This is awesome.
Reason is awesome! :-D
awesome comment, cheers Jack.
Thank you so much for this tutorialwalkthroughdemo! Learned a lot!
Great tutorial. thank you
Thanks David, appreciate the comment.
Would love if you would do a Bazille (U-he) mega tutorial
Would be cool to work with U-he
Excellent Video!!
cheers
Thanks for the great tutorial and explanation of Complex-1's modules and features. I am not seeing a link to extra patches anywhere. Will you be adding this to the description? Thanks!
Hi Philip, yeah I realised that, they're on my other computer and just moving somewhere where you can grab a link which I'll do soon. The next video will be all about those patches though with everything shared properly then.
Is there a way to make the pitch of the oscillators randomly drift like true analog VCOs?
Looks fun, even though I don’t use Reason.lol Great demo/tutorial.
Thanks Nathan, should be useful for people to get a feel of what these functions do
Nice explained, Man. Do I need a MIDI-device for this? Would I then be able to use an Arpeggiator connected somehow to change frequency (&) modulation at the same time?
HI Norten, thanks.
As this is a device in the software Reason you have all the tools in the software to make music as you like. There's arpeggiator devices and the piano roll style note MIDI internally to sequence and make patterns.
@@DivKid No MIDI
Hi, excellent demonstration. You did some patches for the new valhalla supermassive plugin, if you did a bank for complex 1, I'd pay money..
You're in luck - There are DivKid patches included w/ Complex-1!
Nice basic tutorial on the Complex.
Too bad most Reason instruments are impossible to use when zoom in more than 100%. All gets blurry and pixelated.
It's why I stopped using Reason years ago, most of us have 2k or 4k screens, so using software with high resolution graphics is a must!
Still hoping to one day go back to using Reason?
@@DivKid Not really, Cubase it's my Daw since Atari days. I use the Reason rack as VST from time to time, but the fact it's low resolution UI, that's what turns me off.
It's 2024, most people stopped using 720p screens more than one decade ago
it might have been addressed in more recent versions (I can't say, I don't have the later versions). Vector based graphics you can zoom and re size are a lovely thing.
Can you patch between 2 complex-1 instruments? Let's say if I wanted to patch the ADSR of one complex-1 to the filter or pitch of another complex 1. Can that be done?
There's 2 CV outs, 2 CV ins and 2 audio outs on the back of the module for patching around "the rack"
god this looks comlex, hence the name - complex 1 haha, great tutorial, the manual doesn't explain almost anything, but can you actually make any sounds you can use in your music, only sounds i've made sounds like they're made for an old school video game like mario
BTW it doesn't map to Nektar Panorama series. But the cabling is probably the issue :/
Great run down. Do you think they'll be any video focusing on patch creation?
17:09 That kinda sounds like the intro to Deep Purple's "A200".
nice reference.
Is there really no Keyboard Mapping for the knobs on C-1??? I neeed this.
How are you,,,,I love all of your videos but what you did not show is after you create all this sounds then how would you trigger from a keyboard,,,,,what I mean is hit any key on the keyboard and the sound play,,,,,cause when you create the sounds patching cables the sound keeps going ,,,,I want to be able to hit any key to control it with a midi keyboard
I recommend initing the device and looking at the cable setup. Its default is to be used via keyboard and so you can see how to do that
awesome thx! (:
nice one
More of this
@DivKidVideo is it possible to route cables from one complex-1 to another, or to connect multiple Complex-1's?
Yes you patch the cable into the external ins/outs and then flip the rack around with the tab button and patch them into each other.
at 43:14 R2-D2 speaks
I try not to be a yank all the time, in that I try to recognize different uk accents... Liverpool? Most americans think NI actors are scottish and wouldn't understand a Welshman, but I'm pretty certain that is Liverpool. Also, thanks for the vid. I'm using complex as my entrance to modular.
Waiting for the VST version. Will they release it ?!
standalone and plug in would be cool definitely.
Awesome intro to Complex-1, cheers! But is it just me, or is there a certain "oops, running out of time" vibe from around 30 minutes onwards? :D
do feedback loops next time
AM *is* RM
well ... not really. VCAs control volume in one direction. Ring modulators are balanced modulators that would invert the signals too.
Take a sine wave as a the modulator. In a VCA it would half wave rectify the signal, as the positive part of the modulation would open the VCA and return to zero. It wouldn't then invert the level with the negative portion of modulation signal. So it's not quite Ring Mod. And a half wave rectified sine has a load more harmonics than a pure one.
for some reason even when I intialize the patch it still has 4 wires pre patched in?
Yes that is the default so you can play notes via keyboard/midi quickly
wow, software? come to VCV Rack side)
we have both bitch vcv and complex 1 ;)
I like VCV, I thought about making videos at one point but haven't got round to it as there's too much other work in the queue.
@@DivKid ok! I will continue to cover topic of VCV Rack by my videos but I hope to see your experience in the future as well!
VCV Rack and Reason combined make a powerful sounding tool. I run them both on separate PC's and MIDI/Audio I/O from one side to another; You get the best of both worlds.. emulated Eurorack + emulated studio gear + DAW. However, I think Reason is on to something since this is the first time I see them cabling on the front... I can only imagine what they are thinking for in future versions.
@@DivKid please do!! v1 just around the corner also!
Surely these sounds are easier to obtain from sound patches.
Does the complexity of this syth really create anything Original ?
What is the ultimate goal here ?
sound patches? What sound patches? Ultimate goal? ... well for one you could use this to really learn synthesis, un plug everything have nothing pre wired in terms of signal path and really learn synthesis. Which will ultimate lead to more interesting possibilities sonically and musically for you. If you understand all the tools and practice you can then exploit them, you can also get to the sounds and ideas in your head faster because you've studied and practice with sound and synthesis. If it's just flicking through sounds then that's cool too there's a lot of potential in the building blocks of complex-1.
It's amazing: you're speaking English, but it's all Greek to me.