Amazing Tiny Modulars: The World of Tangible Waves

The AE Modular format by Tangible Waves may be tiny in size, but they pack in a huge amount of functionality. A growing range of around 150 modules offer both functional building blocks (oscillators, VCAs, envelopes etc) and exciting, experimental designs (byte-beat algorithmic drone modules, granular synthesis, sample manipulation, etc!)

Their latest design, the WAEVE82 - is a PPG-inspired 8 voice wavetable module, packed with exciting features like 4 LFO's, looping envelopes, ring modulation and user wavetables - there's also 6 CV inputs on small dupont connectors. Adapting to a new modular format can bring it's own barriers - so Tangible Waves offer the WAEVE82 - essentially a standalone synth where the wavetable module is paired with a MIDI & audio interface, plus an optional multi-FX module that looks pretty interesting on it's own!

Anyhow, time to meet the man behind this modular magic! Thanks for chatting to us Robert, I'm going to have to admit that I'm a complete newcomer to the AE Modular format. I've seen your modules a few times online, but haven't gone further. Could you tell us about how Tangible Waves began, and why you decided to create your own modular format - a daring move!

I have to start a bit earlier; my journey with modular synthesis actually started around 1983 when I discovered my love for creating sounds. The initial spark was my father who built an electronic organ from a kit (In Germany, there were two companies offering kits for electronic organs back then); I started learning to play, but very soon found that it's much more fun to tweak sounds, and as the possibilities with an organ are limited, I discovered this magical thing called "synthesizer". I already was into electronics (also due to my father) and around this time, a German electronics magazine, called "Elektor", published a series about a modular synth, the "Formant" (currently reissued by Erica synths, btw!), and naturally, I had to build it! I then worked with a music producer as sound designer, especially for the then-new DX7 - for me, understanding FM synthesis and finding creative ways to use it was great fun! After a few years, I dropped the electronic sound thing completely, it was kind of a "back to nature" move, I started building acoustic instruments which I did for a few years, mostly for myself, but also as a very tiny business.

Then, a longer period without music activity started, no playing, no building, until around 2010 when I rediscovered electronic sounds again, suddenly finding myself in a completely new era, as I hadn't followed the development for several decades. Now, everything was digital, I could have as many reverbs as I liked (A proper reverb was a dream in my first electronic music phase), I started using Ableton Live, everything felt incredibly exciting, especially Max for live, which I used to create several devices. With a friend, we were running the Ableton user group in Munich, and one day, the topic "modular synths" came up and I learned, very much to my surprise, that there is a lot of interest in it - I had considered modular synths as something from the past. So, I asked Dieter Doepfer (which I had known from back then, we were living in the same city) if he could lend me a system to show it at one of the Ableton user group meetings. Then came one of those defining moments, when I had set the box up, just an oscillator into a filter and turning up the cutoff - I was completely blown away by the sound! I couldn't believe it could sound THAT different than the digital stuff; honestly, I was smirking a bit when hearing "analog sounds sooo much better" before; but in this moment, I knew what they meant. With this experience, I started to tinker around with synth circuits again, just for personal fun; and regarding your question "why create my own modular format": It was purely based on my personal taste. I like tiny, compact stuff, so I combined small potentiometers without knobs with the tiny sockets found in electronics prototyping, where also the idea of using the single-pin cables comes from. To my surprise, I found that nobody had taken this (in my opinion quite obvious) approach to modular, so in the end, I decided to do it myself.

I brought my first module prototypes to the Ableton user group and people genuinely seemed excited about it and told me, "Make a Kickstarter project out of it!".  This was appealing for me and fit well with my personal life at this time (in 2016), so I pushed ahead and completed the development to have a set of basic modules to make a complete, basic modular synth for a Kickstarter campaign. And I realized, that with my approach, it was possible to make modular gear at a much lower price point, which was attractive for many people who are interested in modular, but the cost of getting into Eurorack can be prohibitive. The Kickstarter campaign end of 2016 was successful, and since then, I'm a modular manufacturer. 

Living the dream! So what do you consider to be the special or distinctive features of the format?

There are two primary aspects of AE modular that are distinctive from other modular formats: First, the price. As already mentioned, I saw a great interest in modular synthesis from many people who couldn't afford Eurorack. From my electronics background, I know that the price of the bare components of a module is not that much, and my approach was and is, to simplify everything around these components to make a module out of it as much as possible - no fancy aluminum front panels with complex printing, no mini jack sockets with coloured nuts etc. In the beginning, I had the crazy idea of "every module should cost 29 EUR" ; of course it's above this in most cases (although there are still a few utility modules at  this price or even lower!), but in average, AE is roughly a third of the price of Eurorack.

The second key feature of AE modular is it's compactness; a case with around 25 modules is 41x21cm in size, and a third important aspect is the low energy consumption of AE, so that a rack of the mentioned size can be run a few hours from a powerbank.

Another specialty is our line of Quickswap cases in different sizes; here, modules can simply be plugged in without screws, so rearing the system for a certain purpose is as easy as never before. They are more costly than the standard ones, but are really sturdy plus this special mounting comfort.

Another "feature" of AE, but a non-technical one, is the awesome community that has formed around the AE modular system; something I really appreciate. There is a great forum, welcoming newbies as well as experienced modular users, a Discord chat, and a monthly Zoom meetup to talk directly to each other. For the community building, I must highlight Carsten Eckelmann, who had contacted me in the early AE days and offered to help build such a community - and he has done an amazing job ever since. As we know, the modular scene in general is a really friendly and cooperative one (this is one of the main reasons why I love to work in this field), and the AE community joins in here in in an exquisite way.

Community is definitely key, and it's heartwarming to hear about the one that has grown up around your format. What are the workflow differences and similarities between your system and say, Eurorack?

Fundamentally, AE Modular works very much like any other modular synth format: You have modules with inputs and outputs, you can patch them freely, there are CV / Gate / Audio signals, so there is not really a fundamental difference. Even the "holy" 1V/octave CV standard for pitch control is applied in AE modular. Modules can be arranged and combined as desired, as it's mandatory for a real modular synth - in contrast to semi-modular synths that offer only patching, but no extensibility.

There are options for bringing in external audio, CV or MIDI, correct?

Yes, interoperability between AE and other systems was an important point from the very beginning; it would have been naive to assume that people are happy with a "closed" system. So every AE system has a number of mini jack sockets for CV and audio that translates to/from the AE patching system with some protection and adaption, and this can be extended with dedicated I/O modules. Mentioning MIDI: We have MIDI-to-CV of course, but a while ago we introduced IMDI, which can be seen as kind of "patchable MIDI". It's simply MIDI data, but transferred via the regular patch cables between modules. This makes especially polyphonic modules super convenient, no need for bundles of patch cables for each voice! And also DAW integration becomes easier.

The approach with IMDI is, to use MIDI signals as easy and immediate as CV / Gate, just with a little more sophisticated information in the wire. The concept also avoids complex configuration on the receiver side, as the splitting by MIDI channel is done only once. So you simply have a patch cable and know "in this cable, I have all information from MIDI channel x" and can patch it to whatever module does something useful with it. Splitting by multiples is also possible, exactly like with the other modular signals.

Wow, that's such an elegant solution to combining the worlds of Modular and MIDI. I see that over 100 modules are available, everything from oscillators & filters to sample players and granular processors. Could you pick 3 killer modules that you'd like to highlight?

Well, the magic always lies in the patch, in the combination of modules, rather than in any single "magic" module; but nevertheless, I have some modules I'm happy to have and like very much: First, some Mutable Instrument clones, like CIRRUS and RAINS, which are clones of Clouds and Rings. Great to have these classics in the AE ecosystem too! Second, the BOB FILTER, which is the classic, legendary 24dB transistor ladder filter developed by Bob Moog decades ago and the core of "the Moog sound". So we have this in AE now too! And third, the new version of our string machine synth, the STRING ENSEMBLE. I've always loved this sound, especially combined with a slowly running phaser, and this module brings this sound to AE modular as a polyphonic instrument. Admittedly, this is not "true modular" as it's actually a full synth as a module, but I'm not that fundamental. Same goes for analog vs digital; if it makes sense for me, digital is fine. Another example for this approach is the WAEVE82 module, a complete polyphonic wavetable synth inspired by the PPG Wave 2.

Are there other manufacturers that make modules for the AE format, or are you the only one?

There are several other manufacturers that also develop and produce modules for the AE format, something I really encourage and I'm happy about. I remember joking at the beginning of AE modular like "ok, I do it like Doepfer; I'm creating a new modular format that is adopted by other manufacturers then and grows into something huge", not expecting this could really happen, but here we are! It's not huge yet, with a handful of manufacturers currently, but it's evolving. And the 3rd-party modules are great!

I'm keen to try WAEVE82 - and it's nice to see that you offer not only individual modules, but complete systems - including Volca-sized self-contained mono synths and drum machines (each made out of 6 or 7 modules in a small case). Do you find that these are amongst the most popular items?

The complete systems are of course a great gateway into modular synthesis e.g. with our STARTER SYSTEM; having all basic modules plus patch cables plus power supply in a case together, for a medium 3-figures price, is definitely attractive. But also the smaller, Volca-sized systems, which are more focused on a specific purpose, have their fans. Although, in general I see a shift towards individual systems; in the beginning at least half of the orders were STARTER systems, but in the meantime, most orders are ones with a specific module selection.

One such self-contained system is the very blue "WAEVE82-VF", an 8 voice polyphonic wavetable synth with optional FX. Please tell us more, are you a vintage PPG Wave fan?

The WAEVE82 module is a bit special; in contrast to all other modules that I have developed myself, the WAEVE82 is a collaboration project with Mathias Brussel, who came up with a prototype of a wavetable synth he was developing just for fun. But the first sound demos he sent me were so impressive that turning it into a module was an absolute no-brainer! Mathias made basically the complete audio engine, and my contribution was the whole user interface part, the sound randomizer, SD card storage etc. It's not intended as a PPG Wave clone, but was admittedly inspired by the Wave, and also contains the wavetables of this iconic machine. With its unique feature set, it definitely has a character all of its own.

The WAEVE82-VF has a bunch of cool modulation (LFO's, envelopes) on board, right?

Yes, the WAEVE82 is a real modulation monster, with 3 envelopes (that can be looping too), and four LFOs, so quite complex modulations and movements can be applied to the sound. What I personally like most are the slowly evolving textures it can create, and with the powerful randomizer / mutator it's endless fun!

It sounds it. Plus there's an optional bundled blue FX module - with CV control over the effects parameters and "exotic algorithms", please tell me more!

The MULTIFX is a well-established module in the AE line; it's based on the FV-1 signal processor chip which is used in many other Eurorack FX modules too. The MULTIFX offers the 8 internal FX programs (reverbs, delays, chorus, flanger), but I also created some of my own ones, like a pitch-shifter-and-delay combination; "glitch delay" and "ring crusher" bring some creative destruction, and also onboard is a Shimmer FX. Each of the three parameters can be controlled by a knob plus a CV.

Wow, sounds really powerful, so where can people go to find out more about your wonderful creations, or get in touch - you have a forum, right?

Yes, I had mentioned the forum, the Discord channel and the monthly Zoom meetings already; for any info, go to www.tangiblewaves.com, here you find the links to everything and of course the products themselves. And I'm always happy to hear from people via email. I see myself more as someone making things for friends than as a traditional business, although it's my full-time job.
 

https://www.tangiblewaves.com

https://www.tangiblewaves.com/store/p241/WAEVE82-VF.html

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