Quad tomorrow

[thumpasorus]

I’m going quad tomorrow. Picking up a starter 5.1 channel receiver mostly to listen to DTS mixes of Marvin Gaye on Forever Yours. Done in the late 1990s by Robert Margouleff, who programmed synths and mixed for Stevie Wonder and Devo. Great recent interview by him on Anthony Marinelli’s YouTube channel with a bit toward the end about synths in quad space. (This is my first post, so linking may be iffy - - quad stuff around 85 min in)

Hoping to find my way to the quad versions of What’s Going On and Let’s Get It On. I learned about those 1970s Motown mixes stumbling through this forum. That’s why I joined.

Also interested in running my own synths in quad. Looking to pick up what I can here about all that. Cheers.

 

[H.A.L.]

Welcome aboard! Synths and multichannel -- you DO want to spend a lot of money, lol!

What type of synths are we talking about -- modular or semi-modular? For performance, or recording?

For starters, look for an external mixer that outputs individual channels with panning. Four semi-modulars
can output four channels that you could pan however you like with two separate stereo system speakers.

For modular, Bored Brain has an interesting mixer + expansion that handles up to 12 channels (!):

https://boredbrainmusic.com/product/xcelon/

https://boredbrainmusic.com/product/xcelon-xp3/

Eurorack only recently starting going to stereo over mono, but I have seen individual modules for quad that you can search for on Modulargrid.net. Here's a search for some:

https://modulargrid.net/e/modules/b...&SearchShowpanel=1&order=newest&direction=asc

Of course, you can double up two stereo modular outputs. For example, have two Instruo Carns that can output eight channels into four outputs with panning (you can rear sum them, but the end one would just be stereo, so keep the modules separate).

https://modulargrid.com/e/instruo-carn

Let us know how it goes! I'm sure there are others here who know more about the synths you
are talking about (that I assume are semi-modular keyboard types). A small 48hp Eurorack could be a relatively
cheap means of tying together semi-modular inputs and outputting in panned quad.