Don’t bother with VCV and interface modules and all that crap. Just accept you’re gonna spend several thousand £s and it’s gonna be fucking amazing.
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I recommend people put modular clauses in the prenups.
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Are the clauses themselves modular?
“You see, my love, after where it says ‘I only promise to spend $500 a year on modules’, I put a logic gate there and it evaluated to ‘only $500 a paycheque’”.
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I mean, technically getting into modular is an illness.
It should be covered under the “in sickness and in health” part of the vows.
Uh…VCV/Reaktor Blocks + Midi2CV or something like an ES-8 or 9 module is awes way to save HP on some stuff that can be done just as well. LFOs are expensive. But with the above, you can have tons of LFOs etc while filling holes with more interesting modules. Just a suggestion.
Hybrid is just as fun. 
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Probably the best advice in this thread.
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It only took me 12 years, 2 synthesizer.com cases and 9 Eurorack cases to feel like I finally have everything I need for modular fun. My advice to any beginner, start with an affordable hybrid like an Arturia MiniBrute 2S or one of the Behringer units, a 6U case, and then buying 1 piece at a time and only when you feel like you are missing something you really need.
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Yes, this is basically what I want to do.
For instance, I already have a few hardware synths that have some CV capability that I’m not using, so getting VCV out of the computer will already help me get more out of them. That’s why I want to start there.
I just want a rack big enough to host some kind of MIDI-CV deal and a couple of modules. The rest will probably just be semi-modular. I’ve been looking at the MiniBrute 2s and Pittsburgh Microvolt 3900 anyway. This would just be icing on the cake.
I might dump one of my polys to fund this so the capital expense will be minimized.
Thanks, I’ll check it out.
Can you elaborate on this?
This is kind of my plan, I’m not buying a whole modular rig next week, lol.
I’m actually starting a scoring gig in a couple weeks that will tie me up for a few months, so I’m just doing some research while I have time.
I just want the benefits of VCV for things like sequencing, LFO, routing, etc…and the sound of my analog stuff. I feel like the level of sequencing available in VCV is just insane. And having more tempo synced LFOs for anything I want would just be great as well.
DC coupled interfaces allow the interface to hold a constant voltage for an arbitrary duration. This isn’t desirable if you are outputting audio for speakers, so most interfaces are AC coupled instead.
MIDI gives you 128 values unless you are willing and able to combine bytes in a LSB/MSB scheme. CV through an audio interface running at only 16 bits can take on 65,536 different values resulting in far smoother curves than 128 step MIDI.
Conclusion: if you want to do something like CNC music, where the computer is directing some or all of the controls on the synth, then ES or a DC coupled interface will give you smoother results than MIDI.
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I must be misunderstanding what the Poly 2 does then. My understanding was that it would connect to VCV rack via USB and output CV from the CV outputs based on whatever I send to it from VCV, kind of like the Expert Sleeper stuff.
I assumed they’re DC coupled, but I can’t find that explicitly stated anywhere online, so maybe this isn’t the device I thought it was.
Anything that takes MIDI as input and produces CV as output can only output CV quantized to 128 values. MIDI is perfect for gates, though.
If I was getting back into modular today, I might start with the Poly 2 and fast follow it with a used MOTU 828 mk2 if I find that I want to do a lot of high resolution modulation from within the DAW.
absolutely, Ok, I get it.
So, really an audio interface and the “Audio” module in VCV is totally the way to go. Assuming that’s the way it works in VCV and those audio inputs will output the CV to an interface.
In that case, I don’t even need a Euro rack. Just some MOTU audio interface and semi-modular synths.
That works just dandy for me, thank you!
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Actually, a little more digging revealed an Expert Sleepers module in VCV called “AC Encoder”. I just have to make some custom cables and I have an old Behringer ADA8000 that will give me 8 CV outs right away with an ADAT out on my Apollo.
Done. Yippee
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And here I thought I would have to have some professional modify my ADA8k to be DC-coupled. Will look a lot into this. Thanks for sharing!
Btw I have a Pittsburgh Microvolt up for sale (EU). PM me if you’re interested.
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Plan, plan, plan and go easy on your wallet 
. Seriously, don’t jump in and buy a whole case full of modules and then be like, this is not it and sell everything.
Semis are a great way to start. I’ve got a Moog Matriarch and I can highly recommend it. I also got an Expert Sleepers ES-3 and a ES-6. That’s a budget tip, if you already have a sound card with ADAT on it compared to ES-8 or ES-9. The modules are a great way to use VCV Rack with real modules and as someone said you can for example use it with Abletons CV tools which are a biggie for me as I for example want tempo synced LFOs. That’s something that analog LFOs can’t do. The only negative about the ES modules is that its ADAT port is not the best and mine broke after a while. But I got a new one within warranty, but it’s a known issue.
I think if I were considering the Polyend Poly 2 I’d read this thread pretty carefully… (as well as consider what happened with the original Poly).
https://modwiggler.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=221437&start=50
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Do you really want to mess with all this cable chaos and tiny knobs? And the money black hole???
Add: I love MN math and intelijell metro and valhalla/tiptop dsp. I SHOULD NOT stay around here 
Btw, I have the Ferrofish 16 pulse, bitwig and dark energy 2 , This is a great combo
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