Advice on getting into BugBrand

[quiet_crisps]

Hey everyone! Long time lurker of these forums which have provided a wealth of information during my analog escapades (thank you all) so it's about time I made my first post.

Earlier this year I began selling some gear to acquire the elusive Cocoquantus and I found it so inspiring that I sold the rest of my gear and went all-in for the Plumbutter and Sidrax too. The expressiveness, playability and fine line between control and chaos is everything I've wanted from electronic instruments. Moreover, where I really enjoy the Ciat Lonbarde trio I have going at the moment, I'd like to add that extra bit of control and my own flavor to the sounds I'm making (and likely sell the Sidrax) and so I've fixed my gaze upon the world of modular.

As for format, Eurorack has never really appealed to me as I've a suspicion that I'll never be fully satisfied due to the sheer amount of modules out there, plus I'm a very happy inhabitant of bananaland. I recently happened upon BugBrand and have since been reading a lot of good things in these forums about its expressiveness and tactility so I'm really open to trying it.

I've been perusing the different modules available and where I think the SynthVoice layout is a good starting point, I wonder if I should be looking at other modules instead (of the VCOs), especially as I already have many voice sources from both the Coco and the PB2. I mainly enjoy playing experimental, chopping up field recordings, long drones and lush ambient pads

I'd be grateful for some advice and your experiences and initial explorations into BugBrand/modular -- thank you!

[arnoux]

Hi there

happy to help out, if I can, as I see we have similar taste, long time CocoQuantus user and very very keen to my BugBrand SynthVoice.
At one point I also wanted to dive into the Plumbutter drama drum goodness but then I decided to buy a row of 4x4 Serge, for percussion duties and as complement to the SynthVoice (along with a Cirklon for sequencing).

As you mentioned you like drones and lush pads I'd stay with the 3 oscillators, they sound so good I often just put two or three of them at the same frequency and slowly make them beating for my own private moment of euphonia. Sometimes I create chord progression with the Cirklon so I have all the three in use to create triads. One thing you can consider is having something like an Arturia Keystep to play/sequence/arpeggiate, definitely SV benefits from some external control (you also have PB Deerhorn).
+
Wavefolder is really amazing, filters are lovely (fantastic pinged sound, so it can complement the Plumbutter for even more drama drumming, also you can feed them with the 2 Coco out, as they are 2 you can preserve the Coco stereo field), build quality is ultra top notch, banana sockets are the best I have in my studio (better than C_L and R*S, the cable slips in and out in a very smooth way so it's a real pleasure to patch), last but not least Tom is a fantastic person to deal with, will take care of you like a true gentleman.

Here's some demos I made as soon as I received it:
https://soundcloud.com/arnoux/sets/bugb ... ynth-voice

If you have any questions I'm happy to help.

Bests,

Fabio

[quiet_crisps]

Hi there

happy to help out, if I can, as I see we have similar taste, long time CocoQuantus user and very very keen to my BugBrand SynthVoice.
At one point I also wanted to dive into the Plumbutter drama drum goodness but then I decided to buy a row of 4x4 Serge, for percussion duties and as complement to the SynthVoice (along with a Cirklon for sequencing).

Thanks a lot for this! Keeping the VCOs definitely sounds like the right idea then. It’s just as well because they sound lovely from the demos. One thing I did consider was to swap out one of the VCOs for a Quadrature Sine as I’m thinking it could be a sound source or used as an LFO.

You also mentioned that Coco’s outs can be fed into the filters — I’m guessing these are the grey plugs? Have you tried feeding in any of the quantussy oscillators as a sound source or LFO?

[shred]

can't recommend Bugs enough. adding some into your current setup sounds like it would offer you a really wide range of tonal and modulation options. To echo arnoux, I would keep the Compact VCO's, they're brilliant. And they function really well as LFO's also. But if possible, swapping in a Quadrature Sine makes a lot of sense as well.

I really love the Dual Envelopes and would look into those. They have a terrific range on them and can function as interesting/unique oscillators/modulators. Plus the option to gate them lends a lot of expression and movement in a patch.

I also love the Dual Preamp for bringing external sources in. The signal is converted to a 5v signal which can essential be a sound source and a control voltage, so functioning as an envelope follower of sorts. This works really well with rhythmic sources for controlling/gating related actions in the Bug system.

[batchas]

SynthVoice would add a lot to your setup
+1 for the quad sine.

And further: pt delay, joystick, matrix mixer, penrose quantizer***, divide...

***Never thought before and no time to try now, but I will for sure check it out with coco, sidrax and plumb...

BTW: all the red BugBrand line would go very well with CL stuff too!

[arnoux]

You also mentioned that Coco’s outs can be fed into the filters — I’m guessing these are the grey plugs? Have you tried feeding in any of the quantussy oscillators as a sound source or LFO?

Yes the grey banana is the output of the buffer, so only the recorded signal.
And yes, grey and orange quantussy are quite funny modulators indeed, the grey one especially is a ramp up / ramp down staircase stepped S/H effect, modulating a pitch or a cutoff freq. unveil its behavior, anyway, no problems interconnecting Bug and Coco, the only thing I ever heard that might be dangerous is that brown androgynous banana on the Plumbutter but I can't comment further, it's discussed somewhere in the forum.

[BugBrand]

Def worth having a read of this thread about CL vs Bug etc:
viewtopic.php?f=19&t=228222

Always glad to see users sharing all the tips - lovely!
Especially as I've still not plunged myself into CL land..

[quiet_crisps]

Thanks to everyone for the advice and insight into BugBrand modular, good to hear your experiences. I've decided I'm gonna go for it and have some fun exploring. I'll be sure to update the thread on how I'm getting on with my setup once I'm up and running for the next curious wanderer that passes this way. Cheers!

[batchas]

SynthVoice would add a lot to your setup
+1 for the quad sine.

And further: pt delay, joystick, matrix mixer, penrose quantizer***, divide...

***Never thought before and no time to try now, but I will for sure check it out with coco, sidrax and plumb...

BTW: all the red BugBrand line would go very well with CL stuff too!

In my comment I noted „Penrose Quantizer“ but I didn’t really took time to think about it. Not sure it’s really worth it in combo with Ciat-Lonbarde. But it’s for sure a cool module in the BugBrand realm. And what I show here is anyway a reduced version of the module, compared to what Tom made out of the Penrose Quantizer in blue. Pretty sure you can do more with the blue one cause you have more control over CV.
The result is more experimental than I thought, as the CV coming out of the Sidrax seems to variate a bit, hence the notes in between on the Penrose - not green, not red - which produce more noise than notes. But anyway I never use the Ciat gear to make „conventional“ melodies, tonal music.
And no matter how, it was fun to try out some ideas I had while posting my first comment. You’ll notice that there’s an heavy use of the Eventide H9 in these 3 videos cut out of the short session.