Exploring a New Modular Application: Bespoke

Tutorial | Wed Sep 15 2021 00:00:00 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

In this video, I showed off a new modular environment application that was released yesterday. It's completely free and works on all platforms. I explored the different modules and signals and explained how they are different from a traditional modular synthesizer. I also discussed the naming conventions and how the developer has a different mindset when it comes to the modules. I demonstrated how to use an LFO and how to use a VST. Finally, I encouraged viewers to download the application, try it out and leave a donation to the developer for his hard work.

You can watch the Video on Youtube - support me on Patreon

Questions & Answers #

Maybe you dont watch the video, here are some important takeaways:

What is the new door or application that was just released yesterday evening? #

The new door or application that was just released yesterday evening is a modular environment called 10 Years by One Developer. It is completely free, but donations can be made to the developer. It works on all platforms and provides a unique experience that is different from traditional modular synthesizers.

What are the differences between this application and traditional modular synthesizers? #

The biggest difference between this application and traditional modular synthesizers is the way signals are handled. All signals in this application are typed and include both gate and pitch information for each signal. Additionally, the naming of modules is different and there are no traditional concepts such as sample and hold or VCA. Furthermore, LFOs are not separate modules, instead you right click a parameter and enable an LFO to modulate it.

Is there any VST support in the application? #

Yes, there is VST support in the application. However, it is recommended to create a separate folder on your hard drive to store the VSTs and only scan that directory in order to prevent the application from crashing.

Transcription #

This is what im talking about in this video. The text is transcribed by AI, so it might not be perfect. If you find any mistakes, please let me know.
You can also click on the timestamps to jump to the right part of the video, which should be helpful.

[00:00.000] Hey folks, welcome back to another video.
[00:02.040] Today I want to show you this new door or application
[00:05.880] that was just released yesterday evening.
[00:09.200] And it's in the box for 10 years by one developer
[00:12.200] and it's completely free.
[00:14.040] Of course, you can pay something or donate something to him
[00:17.000] if you want.
[00:19.240] And I drop you the link down in the description
[00:21.680] so you can check it out for yourself.
[00:23.080] It works on all platforms
[00:24.920] and it's a kind of a modular environment.
[00:27.800] But there are some things you have to know
[00:31.400] before you start dive into it.
[00:33.760] So I was playing around yesterday evening
[00:37.400] I tried to get something done
[00:39.360] and I did this here 10 minutes ago.
[00:44.680] And it's not a modular environment
[00:48.800] in a traditional sense.
[00:50.040] So there are some differences here.
[00:53.160] But one, all these signals
[00:55.160] as you can see you're floating around are typed.
[00:58.040] It's not like a Eurorack system or the grid
[01:01.280] or anything else where you can just put any signal
[01:04.240] into any input check and you get something out of it.
[01:08.000] These signals are typed.
[01:09.200] For instance, this brown, brownish line here
[01:12.240] is basically a node signal
[01:14.000] and the node signal transports pitch
[01:16.280] and gate information at the same time.
[01:18.920] It's not like only pitch or only gate,
[01:21.200] it's gate and pitch at the same time.
[01:23.600] So it's like a MIDI signal or yeah,
[01:26.040] just a node signal, node on, node off and so on.
[01:30.200] And then you have these pooled signals here
[01:32.360] which are basically gate signals.
[01:34.680] And there are some,
[01:38.120] this is where basically it starts to get hard for me
[01:42.960] to wrap my head around because the developer said himself
[01:47.760] that he never actually used kind of a modular system.
[01:52.760] So this is more like an imagination of him,
[01:55.760] how a modular system could work.
[01:59.600] So if you're familiar with Eurorack or with the grid
[02:03.360] or with any other modular system,
[02:06.320] this works completely different, in my opinion.
[02:09.400] Also some of the naming, some of the modules are very different.
[02:14.600] So for instance, where if you're a signal generator,
[02:17.600] as you can see here, we can actually zoom in here
[02:21.040] at the mouse.
[02:23.160] This signal generator is at its heart or at its core.
[02:28.640] It's an oscillator, but it's named signal generator.
[02:32.320] You can change here also the waveform of this oscillator.
[02:38.680] You have pools with, you can change the frequency here.
[02:43.000] And then you input here a node signal coming from this
[02:46.960] this node sequencer here.
[02:48.560] You trigger the frequency to the right frequency
[02:53.040] of the node of course.
[02:54.920] And you can also get basically the envelope.
[02:59.600] You don't need to use an envelope here with the gain
[03:02.280] and then modulate the amp basically.
[03:04.720] So in a Eurorack rod, this would be an VCA.
[03:09.800] And this is an envelope here triggering the VCA.
[03:13.000] You don't need this because the node sequencer delivers
[03:15.920] node and pitch at the same time triggers the signal generator
[03:19.160] and outputs here a node.
[03:23.920] So that's that.
[03:25.680] Then we have here, the pools are like I said,
[03:27.840] pools are basically a gate generator or clock signal.
[03:32.120] And it can trigger only devices that or modules
[03:37.800] that have a pools input like this one.
[03:40.600] As you can see on top, it's yellow.
[03:42.320] Yellow, you can, we can use this.
[03:44.120] Yeah, this input here.
[03:47.840] Sometimes you can also input things into,
[03:52.880] as you can see, this doesn't work here.
[03:55.040] I can probably put this into volume here.
[03:58.200] No, it doesn't work.
[04:00.200] So you can't connect certain combinations here.
[04:03.280] You have to find this out or read the manual
[04:05.920] or the documentation.
[04:07.480] What kind of signal you can put into
[04:09.520] what kind of input check.
[04:11.160] So this is a bit different.
[04:15.520] Then we have also the naming things,
[04:18.240] like I said, you have the pools,
[04:19.520] which is simply spoken just a gate
[04:22.640] or a clock signal generator.
[04:25.360] And we have something like the signal generator,
[04:27.280] which is oscillator.
[04:28.720] And then we have the oscillator,
[04:31.160] which is a signal generator here at the front.
[04:34.960] And I think there is here an envelope
[04:38.520] integrated in the filter, which is basically a synth.
[04:42.680] So it's not like an oscillator, it's a synth.
[04:44.680] This is the oscillator, in my opinion.
[04:47.920] And this is already a synth,
[04:50.520] which is strangely also organized here
[04:54.680] under the synth category as not an oscillator.
[04:58.640] So this is a bit sometimes confusing.
[05:01.400] And this is throughout the whole thing here,
[05:06.400] and the whole DA, where you have these names.
[05:10.040] And they're actually not correct, in my opinion.
[05:13.720] So it's a bit confusing if you're coming.
[05:16.000] It's not wrong, it's just confusing
[05:18.360] when you are coming from a traditional
[05:20.520] modular synthesizer.
[05:22.680] And then you have concepts like
[05:24.800] where you don't have a connection.
[05:27.120] There's no sequence as putting out notes,
[05:29.920] but you can also change the scale in here.
[05:32.320] And there's no connection between these two.
[05:34.600] But this one here changes the scale
[05:36.600] for all note sequences in this current project.
[05:41.520] So you can change here completely the scale
[05:48.360] and change everything, basically.
[05:50.720] Okay, so this is something you have to keep in mind.
[05:55.720] Then there's this concept of LFOs here.
[05:59.720] LFOs are actually, let's delete this,
[06:02.720] or not separated modules.
[06:04.720] I think you can't input them here just like normal.
[06:09.720] And then there's this concept of LFOs here.
[06:13.720] LFOs are actually, let's delete this,
[06:17.720] let me just like normal modules.
[06:25.520] So under modulators here, I think there's no,
[06:29.120] you can't find an LFO, maybe there is one
[06:31.880] with a different name, but I haven't found it yet.
[06:35.320] But instead here, you right click a parameter,
[06:39.360] you get this overlay here.
[06:44.160] And this gives you basically an LFO
[06:46.160] modulating here the low, let's select here the low part,
[06:51.560] maybe here, and the high part.
[06:53.240] So we want to modulate between these two parameters here.
[06:58.160] And then you can pin this down
[07:00.040] and you get a separate module now.
[07:06.440] And there you have it.
[07:07.720] And you can do this with all kinds of things here.
[07:18.720] And you can also modulate here,
[07:19.920] modulate us which is just nice.
[07:29.520] So you get that.
[07:30.760] So this is also something you have to keep in mind,
[07:34.280] the LFOs.
[07:35.800] And yeah, there are also no traditional things
[07:40.240] like in the U-Rike work, there is no sample and hold.
[07:44.320] For instance, this was something I was searching yesterday.
[07:48.640] And I brought him on his Discord,
[07:51.520] so you can check out his Discord.
[07:54.520] I brought him this here,
[07:55.680] concretes to the release looks interesting so far
[07:57.920] is there actually some kind of sample and hold module,
[08:00.200] holding a pitch while gate is high.
[08:02.160] I'm struggling a bit with the abstraction level
[08:04.480] of the modules as far as I'm loading him yesterday.
[08:09.080] And he wrote back, I'm not sure,
[08:12.640] I know exactly what you're asking for.
[08:14.280] Ironically, I don't have much of a hands-on background
[08:17.640] in physical motor law since.
[08:19.480] So the developer never used something like U-Rike
[08:22.440] or the grid before.
[08:24.680] So you have to keep this in mind that it's completely different
[08:28.200] or the mindset is different from the developer.
[08:33.200] So you have to keep this in mind.
[08:34.760] It's not bad, it's just like, you know, it's different.
[08:38.320] One potential answer,
[08:39.200] you could use a node sequencer module
[08:40.960] and a patch, and patch a pull-saw module into it
[08:43.600] to drive it and then you enable this able to pull-saw.
[08:46.920] And at this year with the cord holder,
[08:49.360] it kind of works in, but not really like I wanted to have,
[08:54.760] like, you know, I want to have straight only pitch
[08:58.080] from the node sequencer.
[09:00.560] And then I use a different signal,
[09:02.240] which is the pull-saw here, which gives me different rhythm.
[09:05.240] And then I get the current pitch here
[09:07.320] from the node sequencer, hold it and play it as long
[09:10.800] as the pull signal is.
[09:12.880] But this is not how it works
[09:14.520] because the node signal is gated and pitch at the same time.
[09:18.960] So it doesn't make sense here.
[09:26.000] As you can see, I don't need the pull-saw at all.
[09:28.520] Then you have also a couple of strong thing here for volume knob.
[09:32.520] So there's also amp included into this,
[09:35.520] which is basically just a synth here.
[09:39.520] Also something which is nice is that you have also VST support here.
[09:45.520] I made a special folder on my hard drive
[09:51.520] only to put there the VST from the node sequencer.
[09:55.520] Because I have so many VSTs in my VST folder
[09:59.520] and the scanning basically crashed the whole app.
[10:04.520] So I made a special folder with just the VST in it
[10:09.520] and scanned only this directory to have it here
[10:13.520] in this application available.
[10:26.520] So yeah, maybe this is interesting for you to try out
[10:29.520] because it's completely free.
[10:32.520] It's fun to play with, at least.
[10:35.520] It's a bit rough around the edges, like I said,
[10:38.520] in the interface wise and sometimes it crashes
[10:41.520] but it's not a big problem, I think.
[10:45.520] And some of the concepts are not like you're used to
[10:50.520] when you are coming from the UREC world
[10:52.520] or when you're coming from the grid.
[10:54.520] It's a bit different.
[10:55.520] It's a learning curve and you have to find out
[10:58.520] what some of these modules are doing.
[11:02.520] Some of them are very high-level concepts.
[11:06.520] For instance, here also the drum synth was something.
[11:10.520] Let's see, we have here.
[11:13.520] Under instruments, you don't find synths.
[11:15.520] It's like you find sequencer.
[11:17.520] So it's also, namely, strangely named.
[11:23.520] Let me see, note synths.
[11:25.520] We have a drum player here.
[11:27.520] It's not what I want.
[11:29.520] Drum synth, yeah.
[11:31.520] So the drum synth is basically signal generators.
[11:37.520] And each signal generator has an envelope and a filter.
[11:44.520] It's also a combination of these low-level modules here.
[11:49.520] In a kind of way.
[11:51.520] So you have low-level concepts in here
[11:53.520] and also high-level devices that combine
[11:57.520] some of these low-level concepts into one device.
[12:02.520] And there are so many of them here.
[12:04.520] You have to learn or have to look up what each of these modules are doing.
[12:10.520] It's not like in the grid where you have small modules
[12:12.520] that do just one or two things
[12:14.520] and then you combine it to much larger devices.
[12:17.520] You have small devices that you can't combine sometimes
[12:21.520] and you have to then use higher-level modules
[12:25.520] or higher-level concept modules
[12:28.520] to do actually what you want to do.
[12:31.520] So this is a bit, yeah, you have to learn it basically
[12:35.520] or you have to find your way around it.
[12:39.520] But nonetheless, it's a fun thing.
[12:41.520] It works for me very well.
[12:43.520] It sounds also good.
[12:44.520] And I think I really like this one here.
[12:47.520] I want to see in the grid of Bitwig Studio.
[12:49.520] You have something like this where you can see
[12:51.520] how the signal flows and what kind of signal you have.
[12:55.520] As you can see here, when it changes here for square wave,
[12:59.520] you can see the line also becomes a square wave,
[13:04.520] or saw, which is neat.
[13:07.520] It's not really neat, but it's a small little addition,
[13:10.520] which I think enhances the experience pretty much, pretty nice.
[13:17.520] So yeah, I think I'm playing around with this today.
[13:22.520] This came out yesterday.
[13:23.520] I want to show you that it's on the market
[13:26.520] to give you a small little tour.
[13:29.520] There's also a nice video on YouTube,
[13:32.520] which I link you on the description.
[13:34.520] Or maybe you go on the homepage.
[13:35.520] There's also the video to it from the developer,
[13:38.520] showing you how often all of this works.
[13:42.520] And yeah, have fun with it.
[13:45.520] That's it for this video.
[13:46.520] Thanks for watching.
[13:47.520] I want to encourage you to go to the webpage,
[13:49.520] download the application, try it out,
[13:51.520] and maybe leave a small donation to the developer
[13:54.520] because it's actually a hard work
[13:56.520] to get something like this off the ground.
[13:58.520] And he developed this over the course of 10 years,
[14:02.520] so he probably invested a lot of time
[14:04.520] and sweat into this.
[14:06.520] So yeah, just do it.
[14:09.520] Donate something.
[14:11.520] Download the application.
[14:12.520] Have some fun.
[14:13.520] And yeah,
[14:14.520] wrote me in the comments how you like it.
[14:16.520] And if you have problems at all,
[14:18.520] or if you found it pretty easy to use,
[14:21.520] let me know. Also, leave me a thumbs up.
[14:24.520] If you liked the video, subscribe to the channel.
[14:26.520] And I'll see you in the next video.
[14:28.520] Bye.