Our first public North Coast Modular Meetup took place on Saturday, March 10, 2018. It was held at A2 STEAM in Ann Arbor. The theme of the meet up was Maker/SDIY (Synth DIY).
Presentation/performance #1 – Joe Bauer
Joe Bauer of North Coast Modular Collective presented his DIY Challenge rack, which is a 2-row system of all modules he either built or completely designed and built himself. Joe gave a short overview of why this system is conceptually interesting, gave a short performance, then spent time answering questions about the system and how he used it.
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Links & Resources mentioned:
- Mutable Instruments (a great source of inspiration & knowledge for DIY)
- Ornament and Crime Quadrature LFO
- Mutable Instruments Branches module for probability routing
Presentation/performance #2 – Steven Curtin
Steven Curtin showed and talked about his “Drone Boat” system, which he has been developing for a number of years. Steven talked about how his system is “post-modular”, in the sense that it took a patch idea he had been building for years in his Serge, Buchla, and other modular system, and “froze” it as a fully-realized system, which includes custom built PLL circuits, a Moog Werkstatt, and more.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BgJ4czRjgxz/?taken-by=northcoastmodularcollective
Links & resources mentioned in Steven’s presentation:
- Steven’s SoundCloud page
- Harry Partch (the “Hobo Composer”, inventer of a 43-tone scale and creator of unique instruments)
- Grant Richter (founder of Wiard synthesizers, and original designer of the WoggleBug random voltage generator)
- Tom Erbe (creator of SoundHack and co-designer of several Make Noise modules, including the Telharmonic, Echophon, and Erbe-Verb).
- David Behrman – On the Ocean
Around the room & Social Time
After the performances, attendees had a chance to introduce themselves and shout out their projects, upcoming opportunities, and more.
Links & resources mentioned:
What’s next?
We are gathering topics & ideas for future public meet ups, and will be announcing our next meet up soon. Join our email list to stay in touch!
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