More control over the Eurorack

Hello, everyone,

I have a question about the different types of euroracks or how you set up your racks. I have a guitar background and have played in different bands. I have always been very enthusiastic about experimenting with effects pedals and different sounds. The entry into the modular system has always been a great wish of mine. I am currently playing with Mi Marbles, various oscillators and effects. Often I sit there for an hour and build a song on which steadily rises and varies. It's a lot of fun and you get to know the functions of the individual modules more and more.
Now to my real problem. When I play with other people, of course, my approach doesn't work. I would like to jam to songs or loops. To do this, of course, I need full control over my system. For example, when which tones come. Would intellijel scales be an option in combination with marbles? Or are there other modules that can control my system or a patch? Sequencers are a great thing, but I only want to program things to a limited extent beforehand. I would like to control everything only with modules,without an external controller.
The system should serve as an instrument rather than a workstation.

I hope I was able to explain my problem well and I am grateful for all answers

By the way sorry for my bad English

This might be helpful:
https://forum.mutable-instruments.net/t/marbles-new-alternative-firmware/17905

Thanks for the link. These features of the firmware sound very good.
I would be interested in how others from the forum build their rack if they want to play it completely live. Do you have a central module with which you control your system or do you have ready-made SEQUENCES? For example, melody, bass and drums? Before I invest in various modules, it is important for me to have a concrete plan for what I want to do. I think randomes is very interesting, but I also want to be able to implement specific ideas

Here's my take on utilizing random within pitch sequencing.
While it's great to have a source of random cv that can loop within a boundary of 8 or 16 steps (like marbles or turing machine) the actual listenability of those sequences can be hit or miss (and you don't want to take the potential 'miss' when you are jamming or god-forbid performing). I personally use an O_c for my turing machine purposes, and instead of sending the random sequence straight to an oscillator, I use it to address inputs on my sequential switch (plenty of sequential switches can do this), which all have simple cv sequences coming from my sq-1 or digitakt via midi-cv. This way there is still an element of unpredictability, but I am able to prepare sequences beforehand (on the sq-1 and digitakt) that will sound good when spliced together.

I find that this technique works really well for acid bass lines, but depending on the style of music you are trying to make, you might want to add your sequences together instead of swap between them. In my mind this is a good way to make long and virtuosic ambient stuff, where you have multiple sequencers clocked at different speeds that are then summed with a precision adder.

Take a look at sequential switches and matrix mixers. Some let you create presets for recall. I’m having a blast right now using Livestock Electronics Maze that lets you build and save presets of cv control for recall later. So you can do cool stuff like fade in and fade out with patterns.

There are some nice "performing" sequencers. Or you need a keyboard and play live some root elements.
I think you can't avoid one of these two approaches if you want to improvise with others...

I would be interested in how others from the forum build their rack if they want to play it completely live. Do you have a central module with which you control your system or do you have ready-made SEQUENCES? For example, melody, bass and drums?
-- FWGW

I don't think you're going to find too many people using "canned" sequence tracks or prepacked libraries around here...

As for how to play a modular "completely live", there's literally no guidebook to that process. A "live" system is just as likely to have some type of MIDI interface as a "studio" system. Plus, that's not the only way to control a modular via some sort of computer interface...you can use a DC-coupled digital audio interface or a purpose-built DAW to Modular module such as the ones Expert Sleepers makes.

As for my "modular sandbox"...there's no real "central module", either. That part of the studio is set up so that pretty much anything goes, given that modulars ALSO tend to fall into the "anything goes" zone as well. Sometimes I'll use some ad hoc clock distribution, but that's about the only "typical" thing I do.

A dedicated quantizer or a sequencer with built in quantization will help keep things in tune. Ornament and crime is great value with a quad quantizer built in, scales is a dual quantizer, but you have less control over the notes available to each channel. When paired with a matrix mixer and/or an a*b+c polarizer you get a lot playable improvisation. Now this helps with the no wrong notes, controlling dynamics and when voices play is a topic in and of itself and the options here are many, mutes are a easy cheap option to switch on and off voices during live performance.

A dedicated quantizer or a sequencer with built in quantization will help keep things in tune. Ornament and crime is great value with a quad quantizer built in, scales is a dual quantizer, but you have less control over the notes available to each channel. When paired with a matrix mixer and/or an a*b+c polarizer you get a lot playable improvisation. Now this helps with the no wrong notes, controlling dynamics and when voices play is a topic in and of itself and the options here are many, mutes are a easy cheap option to switch on and off voices during live performance.

Intellijel Scales is part of my setup because it allows me to constrain pitches to pre-set groups (e.g. "pitch class sets" or "PC-sets").

The basic setup is like this:
1. get a Scales unit
2. read the manual to know how to program your own pitch selections (PC sets) into Scales
3. use "Pitch B" to SELECT WHICH of up to 7 PC sets is currently active
4. use Pitch A input as the pitch signal quantized to your selected PC set
5. use Pitch A output as your quantized pitch signal to send to any units needing it

I send a sequencer signal to Pitch B to pick a PC set on a defined rhythmic plan (e.g. I'm setting the "harmonic rhythm") of the song, then I send any signal to Pitch A to pick pitches from the active PC set.

This setup allows for huge flexibility while at the same time constraining output pitches to a desired sequence of PC sets. Super useful for my purposes. It lets me do things like:
-- I find 3 chords I like in a sequence. I program those 3 chords into Scales. Then my modular can jam / riff / do arpeggios in ways that exactly fit that chord sequence.
-- ditto but programming in scales that fit with a chord sequence (as suggested by the "chord-scale theory" common to Berklee books)
-- I will be evolving this technique to allow "auto-counterpoint" though that is trickier in practice.

In summary, I think Scales could be a good fit for your need, specifically because you can change the active PCset via PitchB input. In a guitar analogy: in Scales used this way, PitchB is like the fretting hand, PitchA is like the strumming hand.

Good luck, enjoy!

That’s a great tip on using scales, I will have to give that a go. I’ve been a more plug and play user of quantizers, select scale, use attenuators and mixers for stepped random voltages and let it run. I almost picked up the Addac quad quantizer but it is so expensive I used ornament and crime quad quantizer to program separate chord tones and switch between them, but I like this approach as well, solid.