500th PatchPierre Post

I never thought that this would happen when I started this blog to be honest, but my 500th PatchPierre post is a fact now... after almost 4½ years of blogging I finally reached this magic number.

Thank you all again for the support, especially

Dieter Doepfer, Raul Pena, Felix (TTNM), Tony Steventon, Matrixsynth Jones, Oliver Chesler, Intellijel, DivKid, Jon Adams, Marc Weerts, Steve Harmon, Malekko, ModularGrid, Eliazerk, techno-id.com and everyone who I forgot...

Via one of my other projects BrickPierre

First I would like to share a few PatchPierre numbers with you about the PatchPierre universe:
- PatchPierre blog has reached over 310.000 pageviews in 4½ year.
- an average of around 18.000 - 20.000  pageviews per month lately, and this number is still climbing.
- Over 3.200 people follow PatchPierre on Twitter

- Over 150 people already like PatchPierre on Facebook 
- Almost 350 people follow me on Soundcloud 

- Patchpierre.Net welcomed visitors from 144 countries so far

The most popular PatchPierre posts:

DIY Modular Case Ideas Jan 1, 2012, 

150th PatchPierre Post Dec 11, 2011, 

100th PatchPierre Post May 22, 2011, 

New Doepfer A-100 Case A-100PB Announced Oct 18, 2013, 

Vactrol Basics Feb 21, 2011, 

Finding new topics is getting harder as i have already reviewed most of the Doepfer modules i own, but i hope i can keep the blog interesting enough in the future with an even wider range of eurorack related posts.
If you have any suggestions / questions etc... feel free to contact me.

- Donations (big or small) are still welcome via PayPal
(info at http://patchpierre.blogspot.nl/p/patchpierre-donors.html)
Donations will keep PatchPierre ad-free

Sadly I am having technical difficulties in my studio, so I am not able to record new demos / tracks at the moment, and besides that I am a bit too busy with my own work so I can't write much 'original'content, but that will all return after the summer...

Thank you so much again for all the support and the positive feedback.  PP

PatchPierre Twitter Lists

Over the last few weeks I have been making various synth-related Lists on my PatchPierre Twitter account.

I personally think they are a great resource for synth-news and can be very helpful if you need a synth repair service or if you are looking for a new case...

These lists will be expanded over time, i hope you can help me by DM-ing me the Twitter accounts that I might have missed, or just leave a comment below...

Follow PatchPierre.Net on Twitter

So far I made 7 separate Lists containing:

Modular Synth Makers

A public list of mainly Eurorack module-makers. Feel free to DM me more suggestions...
Synthesizer Magazines
Synth mags... online or printed on dead trees

Synth Shops
Synthesizer- sellers from all over the world
Synthesizer Manufacturers
Makers of synthesizers and drum-machines from all over the planet 

Synthesizer Bloggers  
Synth fanatics who like to share... - list still under construction...
Synth Repair Services  
People and shops who might be able to help you with your broken synth 

Modular Case Makers
Makers of modular cases and studio furniture 

Please subscribe to the lists/follow and/or help me to promote them online.

Feel free to contact me for other list-ideas and if you have additions to existing lists.
Thank you in advance!

Using an A-174-1 Joystick for WobWob

I'm not sure how to name my latest collection of short basic tutorials yet, but i am considering the name "PatchPourri" for this weird collection of short basic patch-ideas.

My latest video shows how you can simply use an A-174-1 Joystick for dubstep-like effects.
The idea comes partly from blogpost i wrote about Dmitry Shtatnov's DIY-fader, but i used this patch before on several other occasions.

In the video a 2-note sequence from the MAQ16/3 controls a standard A-110 VCO.

I connected the X-output from the joystick module to the CV input of a VCA, and the Y-output controls an A-121 Filter (lowpass mode).

Very simple, very basic... off course you can expand this in all kinds of ways.

Have fun experimenting!

Video: Using an A-174-1 Joystick for WobWob by PatchPierre

" Short PatchPierre Tutorial
Equipment used: Doepfer A-100, Roland TB-303, Machinedrum "

Uploaded by PatchPierre (subscribe!)

Read how i removed the spring from the x-axis of the A-174 Joystick module at http://patchpierre.blogspot.nl/2010/09/happy-modding-ii-joystick-spring.html

PatchPierre Wishes you Happy Holidays!

From the bottom of my heart, i would like to wish all frequent and/or accidental readers of PatchPierre.Net very Happy Holidays!

Thank you for all your support throughout the last year.

I will take a break until the 1st of January 2013, and hope to return with my regular 1-post-every-3-days schedule.

Is Christmas the season of sharing for you?

Feel free to donate any amount to PatchPierre by clicking HERE

and/or visit http://patchpierre.blogspot.nl/p/patchpierre-donors.html for info.

Thank you very much in advance!

Doepfer's Christmas wishes from their website

Nokia App-Update

Although the platform seems to be slowly dying (i recently made the last changes to it...ever) my FREE PatchPierre app for NOKIA phones ( S40, S60, Symbian ) is still available.

Basically this PatchPierre Mobile application is an RSS-feed(s) reader plus NetPierreTV YouTube videoplayer.

Over 6600 downloads/installs already in 157 countries...
(and more than 1000 downloads of the latest version in the last two weeks)

The app will soon be available for the latest NOKIA Asha Touch devices; the Asha 305/306/308/309/311

You can find all versions of the PatchPierre app in the NOKIA store at

http://store.ovi.com/search?q=patchpierre

Screenshot small

N8 Screenshot by @wonderhelm

Don't worry if you don't own a NOKIA device.

PatchPierre.Net also looks good on your Android, iOS and Windows phone or tablet via the special mobile version of the app at http://oviappwizard.com/mip/plus/list.jsp?&id=184288 (for as long as it lasts), 
or the original mobile version of the blog via http://patchpierre.blogspot.nl/?m=1 , or keep on track with the the RSSfeed in your favorite RSS-reader or applications like Flipboard.

Re-arranging my A-100 System

Last weekend i finally had some time to re-arrange my A-100 system.
I seems like this just has to happen every  few years...
It's was dirty job... a lot of screwing had to be done...

The main problem was the (old) location of my vocoder system, i had it in the middle of my rack.
That meant that i had a lot of wires hanging over the modules in the row below it.
I took out the vocoder modules and placed them at the bottom row.

My Joystick/Voltage inverter combo, the Modulation Wheels and the Manual Trigger modules were replaced to where the vocoder used to be, for maximum real-time control from the center of my setup.

The top three rows stayed the same, with mainly oscillators, noise mixers and filters (plus the 2 Theremin modules).
In row 4 i placed an extra A-180 Multiples next to my Quad ADSR so i can easily send multiple envelopes through my rack.
The rows below that have an assortment of various modules; LFO's, Distortion, Waveshaper, BBD and Frequency-shifter, to name a few... and my Trigger Sequencer, Divider, Inverters and Logic Modules.

At the lowest two rows on the left you'll find my inseparable section of modules from where i can switch playing-modes between Ribbon Controlled or by Keyboard (MIDI)-controlled... find and extensive post about this section HERE.

The Vocoder and its cables that were causing the main problem.
Note the frequency displacement

150th PatchPierre Post

Woooooot! ...all over again. :-)
My 150th post already, who would have thought that?
I didn't expect to still be able to post every 3 to 4 days, because i thought there wasn't much to blog about anymore, but it looks like i was wrong...
Okay, my posts are not always very long and pretty basic (so far), but that is the whole point of this blog; 'basic A-100 -news, -tips, -patches, sound-examples and other general (Eurorack analog modular) synthesizer info', for all modular synthesizer enthusiasts...

I found a good schedule to write now; when i am in the mood, a good part of my Sunday afternoons is spent on writing 2 or 3 posts and if there is any news (new video's / news from the forums / new thoughts) i try to fit them in between the 'regular' posting schedule.

The traffic-numbers are still going up, but slowly; I expect to reach 3000 page-views this or next month (was around 1700 last May, at the moment of my 100th post, and around 1000 in October last year).
The visitors come from 102 different counties, and it feels like my blog is slowly changing into some kind of Doepfer A-100 archive, which is also very cool.

I hope my numbers will keep on growing, but i'm not yet sure how to do that and where i could promote my site some more.
If you have an idea on how i could do this feel free to let me know, and feel free to let the whole world know about my blog... of course...
Spam it where you can ;-)

I must say i was very pleased to see Raul Pena's amazing A-100 tutorial video's popping up this summer.
Great video's that were very informative and clearer than i could ever have written for you in English.
It did save me the time to write about some hard to explain modules, like the A-188 for example...
Also check out his 12 days of Modular series HERE

So what can you expect in my next 50 posts?
I haven't even written about all the modules that i own, so you will see a bit more of that, even some more short reviews of the simple basic modules.
Sadly i don't have a big budget to invest in new modules at the moment.
A few more synth-books are on my book-shelf that i will write about.

Starting next year the CD-Tip section of the blog will include some more 'classic synthesizer albums', instead of the how-to-, sample- and more off-beat CD-tips i posted so far.
Although i am not a professional CD-reviewer i would like to let you know what CD's i find worth listening to.
Think of 70's and early 80's albums like "Cyborg" by Klaus Schulze, "Switched on Bach" by Wendy Carlos and Tomita's "Pictures at an Exhibition" or "The Planets".
I guess i should not name more now, but if you have any suggestions please leave a comment below.

Thank you all again for your feedback / re-tweets / +1's and Facebook likes so far.
I'm looking forward to write my next 50 posts...

(also check my 50th post from December 7, 2010,
                                          and my 100th post from May 22, 2011)

SiteTip V : PatchPierre Facebook Page

Time for a shameless self-promotion post;

In case you didn't know already, the PatchPierre Facebook Page is live since the end of august.
Feel free to follow me there too for the latest blog updates, extra video's, links and (perhaps) more in-depth information and discussions.

You will also find my modification pictures, neatly organized in a special Module Modification Folder. More pictures will be posted soon...

If you have questions, suggestions or other remarks you may also post them on my Facebook page.
( Your comments on the blogposts below are still welcome too )

Find it HERE

100th PatchPierre Post

Woooooot! ...again. :-)

My 100th post already (the 50th was on December 7, 2010), and the blog is still going strong.
With fewer posts though, but the viewing rates are still slightly growing every month.
Thank you all again for regularly visiting this site and for your valuable feedback.
I hope my blog can still please the people who just got into analog (modular) synthesizers, and also provide the more advanced users with interesting links and different insights.

In this post i would like to take a quick look into the most popular of my first hundred posts.
Although i cannot exactly tell how many people read each post (many of the visitors land on the main page, where they might read multiple posts at once), i can tell by the individual clicks what the most popular posts were and tell a bit about their traffic sources.

By far the most popular post was my Busboard Access post from November 17, 2010.
I guess struggling for hours through the manuals for a complete overview of all modules that are capable to read or write to the A-100's busboard was worth it.

Also still very popular is my PatchPierre Mobile App for Symbian post from December 8, 2010.
I am still very proud with the almost 5000 installs of the application on Nokia Symbian and selected S40 devices. I do hope Nokia will find a way to port these kind of self-made apps to the Windows Mobile platform and Market too. The more installs, the better... :-)
I did get an email from OVI that my App will soon be updated with some new extra features and an 'enhanced user experience'. A blogpost about that will follow...  (meanwhile the app is still available HERE)

The A-101-2 Vactrol Low Pass Gate and  A-156 Quantizer Follow Modification posts were also quite popular, together with the various other DIY and Modifications posts that i did.
The Book-tips and the CD-tips also seem to be of your interest. I still have a few book-tips on the shelve, and i will try to post some interesting (synthesizer-related) CD-reviews in the near future too.

And... where did all this traffic come from?
Well, Google's search in all its varieties ( .com /.co.uk /.fr / .de / .nl ) was by far the #1 top referring site, but that is hardly a surprise.
Social Media-sites like Twitter (#2) and Facebook (#4) also proved to be very useful to attract readers to the site, and  a lot of viewers came from the Nokia/Symbian mobile application referrals ( #5, but not as much visits as i expected, a lot of people still seem to only read my blog in-app, thus still missing out on a lot of the links ).
More surprisingly was the #3 spot, because Tony Steventon's Synovatron.blogspot.com seems to have been a true link-farm for links to my blog. Thanks for that Tony ;-) Keep up the good work with your interesting projects!
The link to my site on the Doepfer A-127 webpage has also attracted quite a few (new) readers, i'm pretty proud with that one and it looks like the MuffWigglers have (re-)discovered/ finally found this blog too. ( thanks to THIS post ) I have seen a lot of traffic coming from there in the last month... Welcome!

I hope i can serve all of you with at least 100 more posts in the future, but it might take bit longer than the first 100...

One Year www.PatchPierre.net

Wow... time flies.

Today exactly one year ago I started to write this blog, mainly because i could not find a lot of Doepfer user-info on the web. I was looking for a way to share my adventures in analog sound with others, and i looks like i found the right spot.
Sadly i don't have any budget for a give-away (like the wonderful Din Sync blog did) to thank you for visiting/ commenting/ interacting but i do appreciate all your input in this first (and certainly not last) year.

A few statistics:

- A total number of 1000 unique visitors have visited this site so far
- Those visitors came from 77 different countries

- Coincidentally today the site passed the 6000 pageviews too.
- Last months the site has an average of 1000 pageviews per month (but that includes my own too)
- About 30% of the unique viewers are from the USA, The Brits and the Dutch share a second place with around 10% of the total unique viewers each.

Very different are the numbers of my PatchPierre Mobile Nokia application users. Sadly this app doesn't generate an extreme lot of traffic to the actual site, but it did generate around 5% extra visits.

4592 people have downloaded and installed the application so far.

Most of the downloads happened in the counties where Nokia Symbian is a big platform, so most of them happened in India (1067 downloads - 23%), Saudi-Arabia (274 downloads - 6%),Turkey (5.3%),Brazil (4.7%) and Italy (4.3%).

Interesting to see that counties like the USA, Great-Britain and the Netherlands even had less installs than countries like Egypt, Thailand, Indonesia, Russian Federation, Libya, Vietnam and Mexico, to name a few 'odd' ones.*

A lot of them probably used it only once to try it out, but there is a steady group that keeps using the app., around 75 people each month.

So, if you read this blog on your Nokia app, feel free to click through to the real site if you don't want to miss any of the links.
Let me know if you would like to have a Nokia app for your own Blogspot blog... I have two apps in the OVI appstore already, and it is definitely worth it.

There will be a couple of changes to the blog in the next few months. Due to my work i will have less time for the blog again this spring/ summer. I will not post every three days, like i did last 4 months, but i will try to post more than weekly. There are still plenty of modules to write about, and i believe i can't really write about the ones i haven't tried out by myself, but there's still enough stuff to come.
Let me know if you have special requests of topics that you would like to see discussed on the blog. Your input is always welcome, and i hope you will enjoy reading the blog in the next (few) year(s).

My Wordle of one year in Tweets, via http://tweetstats.com

* PatchPierre Mobile stats provided by @wonderhelm

PatchPierre Mobile Template (beta)

Good news for PatchPierre.net visitors on Android, iPhone and other mobile devices. As of now the site is visible in the mobile template, with quicker loading times and easier browsing through the posts.
The site now automatically  changes into the new template when you visit it, but you can also get there by scanning the QR code or following this URL:
http://patchpierre.blogspot.com/?m=1

Nokia / Symbian users can still download the
PatchPierre Mobile App HERE ( 3500+ downloads already )

UPDATE December 25th 2010:
Thanks to the OVI-store, people on Android,iPhone or other mobile devices can also use the OVI-Template of the PatchPierre site... it even looks better than Blogspot's own template.
Try it out and point your browser to http://tinyurl.com/PatchPierreMobile 
( Don't forget to bookmark it! ) 

PatchPierre.Net is live

Another small but important step in PatchPierre history;

www.PatchPierre.Net is claimed and live now... easier to remember if you are 'on the go' and want to check out the latest posts.

Service provided by http://www.simpll-solutions.nl/ in Sassenheim / The Netherlands.

SimpLL Solution offers IT-products and -services for businesses

A-100 Module Circuit Board (Picture)

Most of the Doepfer A-100 modules' circuit boards are really pretty. It is almost a shame to build them into a case...

They almost look like a well-architected mini-city on a tiny Doepfer-board, almost like LEGO- miniature-city.

Patchpierre MiniQuiz:    What A-100 Module is this?*

* Answer is HERE - feel free to take the short Poll; "  Analogue or Analog?  "

PatchPierre Mobile App for Symbian

Good news for all Nokia owners and followers of this blog.

The official PatchPierre Mobile app is out, for all Symbian and selected S40 devices.

A few screenshots:

NetPierre presents the PatchPierre Mobile app. The ultimate way to watch PatchPierre's content on your Nokia device. PatchPierre provides (basic) A-100 -tips -patches sound-examples and other general (analog) synthesizer-tips for those of you interested. The app enables easy browsing through the posts and also gives links to the original articles

Click HERE for a direct link to the OVI Store

*Update: Version 2 is out now... with better design, and a feed to the comments

Hello World!

Dear Reader, welcome to PatchPierre

PatchPierre is NetPierre 's new project, a site dedicated to everything around my Doepfer A-100 Analogue Modular Synthesizer.

My plan is to post (basic) A-100 -tips, -patches and sound-examples here, for those of you interested.
I am still learning more about analogue synthesis every day, and i thought it would be a good idea to share my 'adventures in analog synthesis' with others...
( and also as a reminder or sketch-book for myself )

Enjoy the blog, just follow the feed and feel free to comment anytime !

Pierre


Picture: Wireless A-100 © NetPierre 2010