Make Noise 0-coast + Elektron Digitakt
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Finally bit the bullet and got a 0-coast. Not disappointed 
Beautiful piece of work. And great manual.
And manā¦ that dry square wave is brutal 
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Coasty making friends in the studio 
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Thatās pleasingly throaty.
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Came across this nice video on sound design for games using the 0-Coast (and Strega), which also gives a little overview of how the synth works for those in need of a refresher (probably me):
(The game looks quite fun too!)
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I picked up a 0-Coast a month or so back. I personally find it one of the most frustrating synths Iāve ownedā¦although not necessarily in a bad way. Iāve found myself repeatedly looking to move it on as I really donāt find it fits my normal sound or workflow very well. That said, every time I sit down with it I find myself recording layers of it with effects and actually having something to show for it at the end (unlike my Elektron boxes). I travel a lot and Iāve sort of ended up putting together a load of droney noise/ambient jams layered with bits of location recordings from the places Iāve been to and noise captured with the SOMA Ether. Itās sort of forced me into doing something I wouldnāt normally do, and making music that I wouldnāt normally makeā¦which (as someone with very little musioc making time) is both awesome and really annoying.
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Can you expand on how it didnāt fit? Not doubting you ā itās a limited device in many ways ā just wondering what you had hoped for from it.
To be honest Iāve found the most interesting patches to be the most unpredictable ones which leads it to be very hard to recreate things. Everything sort of feels accidental and because of the raw sound doesnāt necessarily sit well in a mix for me, so it kind of leads me the specifically sitting to focus on doing something with JUST the 0-Coast.
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I had an 0-Coast for about a year and during that time I tried a bunch of the example patches on the Make Noise YouTube channel, read the manual a few times, read forums and comments, etc. etc., and I just couldnāt wrap my head around it. When you say āEverything sort of feels accidentalā ā thatās how I felt too.
It wasnāt until I spent some time learning modular more broadly and messing with a bigger system that I started to understand the parts of the 0-Coast, the functions it offered, how they fit together and how they could be used in different ways, etc. etc. Thatās when it finally really clicked for me (though, sadly, I had already sold it on at that point).
Now I look at the 0-Coast as the best semi-modular on the market and an extremely capable modular synth environment all its own. I used to love pairing it with the Octatrack for sequencing, effects, and looping. It really offers so much in such a small space.
Anyway, just sharing this mini story to say ā the 0-Coast can be confusing as hell, but if it does click for you, itās a magical little machine. For me, 0-Coast was not a gateway to modular, but rather the other way around: Once I learned more about modular, I could really appreciate the 0-Coast.
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My little part of the above story is that @your_lamp lent me that 0-coast for about a month, when I was researching modular and trying to decide whether or not to commit. I had already been applying my usual intellectual approach, which was to break things into functional components and their interactions, and that may have helped me with the 0-coast. I rapidly hit up against limitations ā I wanted more of this, I wanted to be able to do that and the other thing at the same time. The left centimetre or so of the device is a hot mess. So it ended up confirming my decision to commit, which I do not regret.
@your_lamp and I kick around the topics of semi-modulars and pathways into modular on a regular basis, and I have reluctantly come to agree with the conclusion stated above (ābest semi-modular on the marketā), while believing that it says more about the market than about the 0-coast. Everything between it and Cascadia (four times as expensive) has enough caveats that I would hesitate to recommend it.
In terms of re-creating things, this is an issue with modular in general. I think it is possible to combine modular or semi-modular with other devices, but it doesnāt necessarily come naturally. The 0-coast would combine well with percussion, polyphonic pads, and effects, but, yes, youāre probably better off making it a major participant rather than one in a crowd, and going with what it does rather than what it did last time.
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They cram a ton of features and itās not clearly labeled which can lead to the accidental feeling in the beginning.
The dynamic low pass gate is interesting for shaping sounds and itās not immediately clear how it does it and that can be frustrating in the beginning.
Likewise, overtone and multiply can be unfamiliar, but central to the no-coast concept (non east or west coast styles). This is especially true if someone is coming from analog synths or virtual analog where much of the shaping is done by removing harmonics. overtone and multiply shape sounds by adding harmonics, and then you can still use the Dynamics output to further shape by removing harmonics, though you can lose some gain in doing that.
You can swap out the triangle wave and use just the Square wave by patching it in and of course changing the balance knob to the left making it more familiar to use like an analog mono-synth (or virtual analog synth). This bypasses the overtone/multiple section and and only introduces the harmonics of a square wave.
That leaves you with two sections, a dedicated envelope under Contour or the mini-maths section under Slope, which both can be used as envelopes for shaping.
Sorry @your_lamp I meant to respond directly to @Be1t0n
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Thoughts on the Moog Grandmother? I would say thatās the other great commonplace semi-modular on the market (Iād agree the 0 Coast is more eurorack and so feels more modular today).
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Not for me. I donāt understand the appeal of anything Moog makes currently; it all seems overpriced for what it is. But thatās just me. I know there are a lot of fans.
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East coast only.
A big reason I think 0-Coast is a great gateway is because it features a tiny bit of many things youād explore/encounter in Eurorack/modular without breaking the bank.
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0 Coast was totally my gateway to eurorack (and make noise fandom) and if I had to recommend one synth as an intro to modular I would most likely pick it. Yeah Moog modular/East Coast seems a bit meh or basic and modular is almost a synonym for eurorack nowadays but personal preferences aside, having owned both, I think they both offer great intros to modular patching even if Moog isnāt quite as relevant to what modular is today.
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Definitely not picking on Moog! Iād love to have the Dark Grandmother here. As close as I can get is the Moog trio and thatās keeping me happy (except the strangely arranged patchbay which Iāll likely never memorize).
Ultimately, I think any argument can be made about which semi-modular to start out with, but Iām guessing @plragde and @your_lamp likely looked at the utilities as being the biggest reason why 0-Coast is an easier recommendation over others.
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I feel like we all forgot about the Erica Bullfrog, which has a clock divider and a nice big clear layout. Thereās also the Minibrute. Itād be nice if the patch points were near the things they affect, but itās a good combination of things (especially in the 2S) and not super expensive.
Iād love to see more explicit routing and envelope diagrams on basic monosynths. Old digital synths seemed to have these more, but they usually had more empty space on the panel and a more confusing means of programming. (Hmm, a patch your own algorithm FM synth would be kind of funā¦)
For me it was more that a lot of semi-modulars provide the expected VCO-ADSR-VCA-VCF recreation of a classic East Coast monosynth, while 0-coast is much more faithful to the modular spirit ā as you said above, a tiny bit of a whole bunch of things.
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Yeah, as @plragde said, to me the appeal of the 0-Coast is that it feels like a collection of multi-purpose building blocks rather than a pre-defined synth structure that happens to include patch points. This is also the same reason why 0-Coast can seem so obtuse, and of course itās all personal preference, but in my adventures with modular, Iāve found the most enjoyment and satisfaction from patching simple pieces together. Gotta get me a Serge system somedayā¦
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I highly recommend Walkerās videos on YouTube for anything Make Noise related (Walker is the guy on all Make Noise videos on their official YouTube channel). He very much takes a what if we do this approach. And for me, I took to 0-Coast like a duck to water. I find subtractive synths kinda boring. 0-Coast is anything but boring ā itās refreshing. And now Iām considering another as my main bass synth in a live setup, but I may need a tuner pedal to ensure itās hitting the right notes because room temperature changes can affect it and I donāt have perfect pitch. That aside, it sounds monstrous!
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