|
Dear AE Modular community, While so many businesses struggled during the pandemic I am happy to report that tangible waves has not just survived, but flourished. The demand for AE Modular systems and modules is steadily increasing and the business has now become “big” enough to not only pay for my own wage, but also for two employees. Both Benedikt and Antonia are now full time employees and are busy every day, assembling modules and packing and shipping orders. That leaves me some time again to design and build new modules and today I release another batch which you can read all about further below. We also work as hard as we can to shorten the long waiting times which have been exacerbated this year as global air mail services struggled to deliver packages in the usual time. Nonetheless, we have now reduced the wait times for most orders to between 6 - 8 weeks, which is an improvement, but of course we want to decrease this even further over the next few months as our processes improve. But it’s not all work and drudgery, as you can see in the photo below we also have a lot of fun while working. But as our business grows so does the community. It fills me with so much joy to see the AE system being used with so much skill and enthusiasm and very supportive messages from so many of my customers. Another, still incredible support I must mention here is Carsten aka “The 5th Volt”; without his incredible contribution to the forum, his demo videos, his tremendous organizational support -to name a few - AE modular wouldn’t be where it is now. THANKS CARSTEN! It’s this enthusiasm and positivity in our AE community that makes this my best job ever and I am so thankful to all of you that make it possible for me to live my dream! - Greetings from Robert, Antonia and Benedikt  Special Christmas Discount To celebrate the end of a difficult year and to reward all of you who have stayed with us and have encouraged us to keep going, we want to offer a special Christmas discount. Please use the following code XMAES-2020 to receive 10% off your order (does not include shipping). This discount code is valid from today the 18th through to the 31st of December! New Modules Amidst all the work of getting orders out of the door and into so many new hands, there was still time to design, prototype and finish many new modules just in time for Christmas. Some of those have been teased before on Facebook, but now they are here and you can order them from the online store! METER (scope) This module not only shows you the level of an incoming signal, but also serves as an oscilloscope which displays the waveform of a continuous signal, eg. from an oscillator. It’s perfect for learning synthesis and looks cool in your case. Beyond the oscilloscope function, it has a few other operation modes:
The METER module is now available here in our online store. PHASER Finally we can produce that sound of the 70’s with this module which gives any sound this unique phase shifting effect. The PHASER module is now available here in our online store.
MIXCONSOLE This module has been long anticipated and is a crucial piece for performing artists using the AE Modular in a live session or recording. This mixer has 4 channels with individual volume and panning. The 2 send and returns for effects can go out to external effect pedals and can be adjusted independently for each channel. This mixer is also a 4 channel VCA because the volume for each channel can be controlled via CV. The MIXCONSOLE module is now available here in our online store. MIXCONSOLE/3CH This is an extension module which connects to the MIXCONSOLE via a special cable at the back. It adds 3 additional channels to the MIXCONSOLE. The best part is that you can chain as many of these modules as you want! The MIXCONSOLE/3CH module is now available here in our online store.
OUTPUT This module has two unbalanced ¼ inch TRS sockets for sending audio out to a mixing desk or recording device. The OUTPUT module is available in our online store very soon! XLROUT This module is very similar to the OUTPUT module, but instead of unbalanced TRS jacks it comes with balanced XLR output ports. The XLROUT module is available in our online store very soon! 4ATT/MIX FADER For lovers of faders instead of knobs - this module has the exact same functionality as the 4ATT/MIX module but instead of 4 knobs it comes with faders! The 4ATTMIX/FDR module is now available here in our online store.  New Cases We now offer the rack cases of all sizes with optional wooden sides/fronts! You can choose between a dark Walnut or a light Bamboo. Availeble here in our online store.  4-row case Also, the 4-row case is now available! Room for 80 units of AE modules in one box. Available in the standard version with red sides and also in two types of wood. Availble in the shop very soon. Looonger Patchwires! As the AE systems are growing more and more, the longer patchwires are necessary. To take this into account, we have added a new type with 80cm length. now available here in our online store  And … New Knobs!! Some have complained in the past about the tiny, fiddly knobs and there were a few suggestions on the forum about knob cabs that can be found on ebay and other such places. Robert went on an exploration himself and has finally decided to design his own knobs which are now produced en masse in China especially for the AE Modular format!
From now on all modules will come with these knobs pre-installed! But you can also order the knobs separately and upgrade your existing system; available in packs of 10 or 50. Available in our store: pack of 10 KNOBS or pack of 50 KNOBS Faceplate Graffiti Tobias was helping me out with the fulfilment of orders last year and he has started to design hand painted faceplates, which will be available in very limited numbers in the shop. You can see some here:   Third Party Modules This year has also seen the first modules from independent manufacturer Wonkystuff. The matrix mixer mm33 and random sequencer rbss are two wonderful modules that should be in everyone’s case. John from Wonkystuff chose to make the faceplates from PCB material which allowed him to choose different colours.
You can buy those modules directly at the Wonkystuff website: https://wonkystuff.net/product-category/hardware/ae-modular/ 2nd Community Album - AEtherwaves vol. 2 After the success of the first community album in 2019 the community made it happen again and released AEtherwaves vol. 2, this time with only 100% AE Modular sounds and a whopping total of 26 tracks. It’s amazing to hear so much talent on one album. Big thank you to everyone who participated! If you haven’t heard it yet, please check it out at https://aetherwaves.bandcamp.com/ Again all proceeds from sales to a not for profit organisation. This year it goes to Musicians without Borders, a fantastic group that organises youth music programs in regions that are dealing with the aftermath of war and violence, Rwanda, Palestine, Northern Ireland, Kosovo. The vision is to heal the spiritual wounds through music! Please visit their website to learn more about their programs and how to support them: https://www.musicianswithoutborders.org/ AE Modular at Synthbooth 2020 While tangible waves couldn’t be at Superbooth this year we were really happy to be invited to the all virtual online SynthBooth 2020 event in October. It was superbly organised with a host of very informative and engaging online discussions, online performances and times for chatting with people on the built-in chat rooms. We also streamed a live presentation via Zoom which was well received. You can watch the recording here: News from the AE Modular Community The AE Modular community is just amazing! Not only is the forum growing every month and new and regular members come and share their thoughts, their ideas and their music, but two other communication channels became really busy as well, the Discord channel and Facebook, but more about those further below. A huge THANK YOU to everyone who has been part of the AE community, however long or short. Your presence and participation, your ideas and enthusiasm is what makes all of this so special. The AE Modular system would not be where it is today without you! DIY We thought and hoped that 2020 would be the year for DIY with the introduction of the BRAEDBOARD and the DIY module. While these modules did see some sales throughout the year, we haven’t yet seen anyone do something with it. Probably next year we’ll kick things into gear with a competition to get people thinking about cool circuits that can be implemented with the BRAEDBOARD. However the AE community has always been fond of tinkering and DIY and the corresponding sub-board on the forum is abuzz with crazy and beautiful ideas:https://forum.aemodular.com/board/8/diy-building Faceplates decorated with paper are taking us back to the 70’s where the early Serge systems used this cheap and easy method. But these designs look really beautiful: https://forum.aemodular.com/thread/1104/customizing-front-panels-paper  This total conversion project by Bradaddle has been going on for quite some time, but it is now relatively complete and looks absolutely amazing, again with some very special faceplate designs: https://forum.aemodular.com/thread/1019/banana  Simple DIY Low Pass Gate - User tarcreeper has shared the prototype of his design which might be a cool idea to try with the BRAEDBOARD module: https://forum.aemodular.com/thread/1130/simple-low-pass-gate A very accurate BPM clock - this was just posted yesterday by new forum member Onkelhoste. It is a BPM clock run by an Arduino which gives out clock speeds from 20-400 BPM! Check it out: https://forum.aemodular.com/thread/1132/bpm-masterclock  Tea-Light controlled randomness - this looks like a fun project that turns the AE Modular into a light show just in time for the season: https://forum.aemodular.com/thread/1099/flickering-led-candle-random-generator  New Talent and Music So many new artists have emerged on to the AE “Scene” with new Youtube videos, hour long live sessions and full albums .. all done with the AE Modular. New music is now being published daily and it’s hard to keep up as it’s being released on Instagram, Facebook, Discord and the Forum. Here is a selection of recent releases, in no particular order and as always, this is really only a small collection and I leave it to you to discover the other many great contributions that have been advertised on the forum.
Please visit https://forum.aemodular.com/board/5/ae-music-performances to see and hear more of the incredible talent that is present in our community! Discord and Facebook Slowscape has set up and is now managing the “official” AE Modular Discord server and it is growing daily. There are now many different sub channels to cater for topics like DIY, Inspiration, General Chat and also a Sell & Trade channel.  It is much faster paced than the forum and if you’re not participating daily you may miss out on a few discussions, but it’s a great place to hang out and chat or get answers quickly. To everyone who’s on Discord I would like to ask you though, please also post your creations or cool things that you do with the AE back in the forum. Discord is not for everyone and the forum is a more permanent medium with a wider reach. You can join the Discord channel by following the invite link in this post: https://forum.aemodular.com/thread/752/discord-chat-aem-community What will 2021 bring? The AE System is now entering its 4th year of existence and is slowly “growing up” to become a “proper” musical instrument which can take it up with Eurorack and other modular and semi modular synthesizers. Although there are now almost 60 different modules available and the first third-party modules appear on the market, there is no end in sight of what needs to be developed. It will take years before all the modules are built that we want to build. Hopefully the pandemic will be reined in with the availability of a vaccine and live meetups will be allowed again. It would be fantastic to meet some of you at Superbooth 2021, if this will actually happen! Whatever happens, please stay safe, stay healthy and keep patching! All the best, Robert and Carsten. Comments are closed.
|
AuthorRobert Langer, founder of tangible waves. Here, I will share some thoughts, background infos and news about AE modular and tangible waves. Archives
May 2024
Categories |
RSS Feed