Share your AE Modular Story

Here's my story.

I bought my first synth back in 1988 - a Roland Alpha Juno 1, which I still have and love. From there I ended up (thanks to the recession at the time) going back to college to learn audio engineering. Got to play around with some truly great equipment, and not only that but in Manchester at the very time rave was in it's prime! Great times.

I became disabled about 25 years ago, and gradually my left hand side has got weaker and more erratic. I can't work and am housebound (Mostly bedbound to be frank). In recent years I'd still dabbled with messing around with synths, using the magic of Ebay over the years I've picked up an Akai S3000 sampler, a couple of cheap Yamaha SQ sequencers, A Novation Xiosynth (nice but an AWFUL layout, unreadable display and labelling), and a few other bits of stuff like Behringer FX and Alesis mixers.

But it's really been a golden age in the last few years for me, with limited income but lots of time. So, I've picked up an Arturia Minibrute 2S (as I wanted to dip my toes into trying a semi-modular - you can tell how well that affected me for the reason that I am here!), then a Microfreak, and an Elektron Model:samples to replace the dated old drum machines I had.

The Minibrute pushed me into wanting to go modular, and when I heard of the AE modular, I couldn't wait. That was right up my street, and I've not been disappointed. In fact, that in turn has pushed me into buying a couple of Arduinos and getting off my backside to dig into that more.

And my setup largely consists of this - all sat on or around me in bed, for convenience:

Minibrute next to the AE modular to make patching between them easier.
Microfreak as both additional synth and a simple keyboard controller (gotta love that capacitive keyboard for expression).
Trigger outputs of the TRIQ164 sent to the Elektron Model:Samples (or just the Samples running along on it's own with it's clock controlling the AEM).
When writing or experimenting, I have a Yamaha QY doing the multitrack sequencing (just for ease of use, as I vastly prefer using physical equipment than PC software).
Eventually if I do anything worthwhile, I can then record it to DAW.

I also have a couple of Volcas and Teenage Operator POs which I mostly use for embellishing as and when (the PO 12 is great for adding percussion to the Elektron Sample's rhythm).

And that's about it. I'm rather lazy, so this is what works for me as it's small enough to sit in bed using this all, and I don't have to move around to get to it all.

I tend to venture into electronic dance and pop more.