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Instruōnica

It’s no secret that I like patching within brands as much as I can. I like the feel of a unified instrument that’s built to play in concert. It’s not always possible, but I often try and contain a patch within a case until I don’t have any more options. Sometimes it’s an added bit of modulation, or maybe some spare VCAs, or mixing, but I try an exhaust as many options as I can before venturing to another case.

I’ll be the first to admit that it’s been a while since I’ve patched my Instruō case. In fact, it’s criminally underused in comparison to many of my other cases. It hasn’t even been on the synthshelf for the last several months, opting instead to explore other instruments. But today I had a hankering to use it. It wasn’t one module or another that called out to me, but the whole package. I wanted to use Oct tōne.1 I wanted to use Lúbadh. I wanted to use Arbhar. And I wanted to use Scíon.

The Oct tōne, officially designed by Jason Lim at Instruō, and built by the Glasgow Synth Guild, is a wonderful little eight step sequencer that can be chained to support 16 steps. Though it’s small in size, just 10hp, there is a lot of functionality packed in. If it looks familiar, it should. Out of music school in Boston, Jason designed the Qu-Bit Electronix Octone, a sequence module discontinued many years ago, which is what the Oct tōne is based on. Though the basic idea is the same, a small eight step CV and gate sequencer, Oct tōne takes the idea to a new level, adding choice bits of functionality like ratchets, the ability to save and recall sequences, chain-ability for up to 16 step sequences, as well as duophonic output, and much more. In modern Instruō fashion, sometimes cryptic key combos and switch positions unveil a complex set of features that rival much larger sequencers, though I tend to avoid using most features hidden away behind them. Fortunately the most common features one generally might want to use are right on the face, allowing the ability to quantize to one of six scales,2 set the sequence length and direction, as well as various other parameters.

The patch starts with the End of Cycle trigger of an unmodulated, cycling function from Cnōc to serve as the clock. Although a large portion of Oct tōne’s user interface is taken up by the Rate knob which would ordinarily control the tempo, it doesn’t have a clock output, which makes syncing with other gear a bit more difficult. I could have used the trigger output as a clock, but that would have precluded removing steps from the sequence, even if I ultimately didn’t. I also wanted to gate the clock so that the sequence wasn’t running constantly, and without a clock output, I had to patch one to use as a master clock. I ran the clock output from Cnōc to a mult, then to both the Nonlinearcircuits Divide & Conquer as well as a VCA input so that I might gate the clock controlling the sequence with a /5 output, forcing continuous starts and stops as it made its rounds. The clock was also patched to the Venus Instruments Veno-Echo for delay synchronization.

Although I’ve had Oct tōne since it was initially released, I haven’t really used it much. I’m not very familiar with the hidden feature set at all, and I had to break out the manual for even simple adjustments, like changing scales and choosing a random pattern. None of these features are difficult to use by any means, but my unfamiliarity with the interface made the entire thing seem far more cryptic than it actually is. The sequence is simple. It’s a full 16 steps, in Minor Pentatonic, and with notes that sounded good together. The CV output was patched to the v/oct input on the venerable Tš-L, a compact oscillator with a full feature set from FM to PWM, and outputs with standard waves (square – with octave switch, sine, and triangle), to mind-blowingly good wavefolded and PWM outputs, all in just 6hp. Tš-L was the first oscillator I ever bought, and I’ve since bought a second, and I don’t see myself getting rid of it. It’s a powerhouse oscillator in a small package, and sounds great.

I mixed the sine output with a highly attenuated, LFO modulated, two-octave down sub output of the Tš-L in the venerable I-ō47 multimode filter based on the legendary ARP 1047, with a slowly moving LFO from Øchd modulating the cutoff frequency. My original intention was to try and tease out some filter wobble, but I’m pretty sure I had the level too high going into the filter (again), which masks any of the beautiful wobble that might be happening as the LFO moves the cutoff frequency of a highly resonant filter through a sine wave’s frequency. The I-ō47, like the ARP before it, is not your standard filter. Its resonance can scream, but in Notch mode, that high resonance can be highly useful when trying to pick out partials, or for filter pinging. I initially had the resonance set a shade too high. But once I dialed it down a bit, I was able to get just the right amount of frequency boost (with a shade of drive), without screaming. Nice.

From the I-ō47, the mono signal was sent to several effects via the Addac814 6×6 Stereo Matrix Mixer. First to the wonderful Venus Instruments Veno-Echo for some synchronized delay, the left channel at 1x the clock speed, and the right side at a slightly slower division. I’ve long wanted an Instruo delay, and although the Lúbadh can be shoehorned into delay functionality, that’s not really what it is. Maybe one day we’ll see one. I had randomly generated gates from Scíon trigger reverse delays on and off, though it didn’t always have the effect I’d hoped for. Since the sound was completely un-gated, there weren’t many transients to work with, and reverse delays from a static tone (even if that’s not really what it is) don’t sound reversed at all. However, the delay created a beautiful atmosphere, with high-ish feedback for repeats that sometimes go on for a while until blending in with the reverb.

The output of the I-ō47 was also sent to Lúbadh for some looping action. Like most of the rest of this case, I haven’t used Lúbadh as much as I ought to; not since a couple of initial tests after the release of the 2.0 firmware (😬). But with my newly rediscovered interest in looping created by the Cutlasses Gloop, it was time to pull out Lúbadh to see what it can do. This patch was simple. I ran the audio from the I-ō47 output (via the Addac814) to both inputs and recorded the same section of audio to both decks. It wasn’t a particular part, but probably about 90 or so seconds worth of the sequence meandering, first forward, then randomly. Once I had a goodly snippet of the sequence recorded, I slowly moved the volume of the original input down, while moving the level of the Lúbadh up. From there I patched two of the slower Analogue Logic outputs from the Øchd Expander to Length, via some attenuation and offset in order to keep the signal in negative voltage territory, as well as choice bits of random CV from Scíon to Start of both decks. These modulations were unpredictable, and served to unsync the two decks beautifully, allowing them to move around in interesting ways, each playing different parts of the loop simultaneously. This movement created a wonderful phasing effect, as well as super-characterful bits of jitter as the playhead was shifted around. I very much enjoyed using Lúbadh in this patch, every bit as much as Gloop, even if next time I might wait to introduce modulation until after I’ve played around with the loop manually for a bit, or else end it sooner and manually adjust the start points and loop lengths, before allowing it to fade out. Manually manipulating the parts of the recording to be played is a great part of the fun.

But I didn’t stop at Lúbadh. If it doesn’t have Arbhar, is it really even an Instruō patch? I’ve had Arbhar a long time. It was the module that pulled me in to this rabbit hole called Eurorack, and was my first large modular purchase after getting a few nuts and bolts for a system. I initially used it with guitar, creating floating and shifting chords composed of single notes played into each buffer. I really enjoyed that sort of playing, but I haven’t done it in a while, and the several other granular processors I’ve procured since Arbhar have meant my time with it hasn’t been as much as it should have been of late.3 I love granular processing, and use some form of it in almost every patch. But, generally speaking, I get much more mileage from “real-time” granular processors, like Beads and the Dradd(s), than from those that rely on pre-recording audio to a buffer,4 and so just haven’t used as much of the latter. All that said, Arbhar seems to have an ability that few other granular processors possess, even if I can’t quite describe what that it.

Although Arbhar is capable of recording audio to six separate buffers, while morphing between them creating granular clouds that aren’t possible with other granular samplers, I opted in this patch to use just one. At some random point as the sequence meandered along, I hit the Capture button and recorded a 10 second sample onto the Alpha buffer. Using an LFO from Øchd I scanned the buffer, while also using the remaining two outputs from Scíon to modulate Intensity and Length, changing the total distribution of grains as well as the size of each of them. I also used the single output of the now-replaced Tágh to modulate Spray. Tágh is a tradional Sample and Hold module that, while stunningly beautiful, is incredibly large, requiring a whopping 14hp for one random output, and one noise output. It’s completely impractical, and was replaced by a much smaller and far more capable version over two years ago, but I’ve resisted the urge to upgrade.5 Unlike most S&H modules, the OG Tágh does have some control for range, polarity, slew, and it even has its own clock.

As the piece progressed I introduced Arbhar as an octave up spray of sound, using square envelopes so that each grain was distinct. More sparkle and less diffusion. Because some of the grains produced by Arbhar in this patch were in what I lovingly refer to as “dog range”, I ran the output through the Xaoc Devices Zagrzeb, a stereo low pass filter, to tame down the highest frequencies, while adding some resonance and glitter to the patch. That makes me also want Instruo to come up,with their own stereo filter too.

Scíon is an interesting modulator. It’s also one of the most beautiful modules in all of Eurorack (which could also be said about both Arbhar and Lúbadh). Scíon is designed to use the bits of electricity produced by all living things as a source from which to derive random CV and gate signals. Stereotypically, one would use a set of Tens pads on a plant in order to derive those electrical impulses, but it works just as well with any living organism, or even just noise, which is what I used in lieu of sticking the pads to myself or lugging a houseplant up to the synth. It’s a novel way to use the world around us as part of a composition, with each performance destined to be unique. I haven’t really used Scíon much at all, generally preferring chaos to pure random, but I’ll be sure to use more of it in the future. It has four separate modes, Quantized, Random, Harmonic Overtone, and Clocked (which functions like a traditional sample and hold), which all produce fun results. For this patch I used the Quantized mode, though because all of the CV was used for modulation, and not for deriving pitch, either Quantized or Random modes would have worked.

Improvised and recorded in one take on iPad in AUM via the Expert Sleepers ES-9.

Modules Used:
Glasgow Synth Guild Oct tōne
Instruō Tš-L v2
Instruo I-ō47
Instruō Cárn
Instruō Lúbadh
Instruō Arbhar
Instruō Cnōc
Instruō Tágh
Instruō Vincǎ
Instruō SCÍON
Instruō Øchd
Instruō Øchd Expander
Nonlinearcircuits Divide & Conquer
Vostok Instruments Asset
Xaoc Devices Zagrzeb
Addac System Addac814 6×6 Stereo Matrix Mixer
ST Modular SVCA
Intellijel Amps
Intellijel Quad VCA
Knob Farm Ferry

Outboard Gear Used:
Walrus Audio Slöer
Noisy Fruits Lab Lemon

  1. Though Oct tōne is not an official Instruō module, it was designed by Jason in the style of Instruō, using the same graphic and design language, and so it goes in the Instruō case. ↩︎
  2. Sadly, the Oct tone is limited to these scales, with no option to program your own via SCALA files or some other method. The available scales are Chromatic, Major, Major Pentatonic, Minor Pentatonic, Harmonic Minor, Whole Tone, or Unquantized. ↩︎
  3. I also have Dradd(s), Beads, Cornflakes, Brinta, and Typhoon, and I use all of them because they’re all different. ↩︎
  4. All granular processors must playback from a recorded buffer. However, some processors continuously record to a buffer of a certain length. ↩︎
  5. Although the new Tagh is a more flexible and varied device, I’ve not replaced the OG for specific reasons. Perhaps more than any other Instruō module, the new Tagh embodies the trend of shoving more and more features into ever-smaller spaces, while hiding these various bits of functionality behind cryptic button combinations and even switch wiggles. On top of that, and definitely a secondary or even tertiary concern, is that the OG Tagh has one of the most unique panels in all of Eurorack, being a beautiful piece of functional art. ↩︎
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Chromaplane 1

I’ve had a lot of musical gear in my life. Between trumpets and drums, guitars and kalimbas, and now Eurorack modules and synths, I’ve bought (and sold) my share of stuff. Each piece of gear has something about it. Each does the thing that you need it to do no matter how pedestrian the thing might be. And even though each gear purchase fills a need, even if that need is a dopamine hit, few are truly special. The kind of instrument that will transform your sound or how you go about making music.

Today I received the Koma Elektronik / Passepartou Duo Chromaplane, a synthesizer that uses magnetic fields and pickups to produce sound. I’m not much into standalone synths. I don’t particularly have the space, and many are keyboard based, which is something I don’t really do. I’m not averse to hitting the occasional key or chord, but not as the primary means of playing an instrument. Chromaplane, however, is different. It’s comprised of 10 oscillators, each of which puts out a magnetic field which is read by two handheld pickups. As the pickup gets closer to each magnetic field, the sound becomes louder. If you place the pickup between magnetic fields, you get a dyad or chord. Although the oscillator output is natively a square wave, Chromaplane has two mechanisms to soften the sound and allow for more muted overtones. The aluminum body naturally absorbs vibrations and helps to tame higher harmonics. More drastically, however, the output passes through a resonant low pass filter with control that ranges from 20Hz-20kHz. After the filter stage, if one so chooses, is a PT2399 delay, with Time, Feedback, and wet/dry mix controls. The output is intoxicating, even on just the first note. You can watch a demo video of this instrument here, which does a fantastic job of explaining the controls and functionality.

When I first started to play it, I knew I wanted to record something. I didn’t receive it until a bit later in the day, and the AC in my studio space is busted, which means it’s hot as Hades in there. But I still had to work up something.

I wasn’t really sure how I wanted to start, but I took a leap of faith and patched the output of the Chromaplane, via an FX send in AUM, to the wonderfully charming Error Instruments Brinta. I love Brinta, even if I don’t use it very often. It’s clever and simple, yet it seems to have a sort of magic within that can’t really be produced by anything else. Its buffer is very short, only 3 seconds, so sometimes it’s difficult to get just the right material. My goal with today was to quickly play a series of notes played in no particular order or with no rhyme or reason, and record it onto the buffer. From there I found a nice sweet spot, and then proceeded to lightly modulate Size, Speed and the Position with Torpor X, Y, and Z outputs from the Nonlinearcircuits Triple Sloths. I didn’t want craziness, but I wanted some variety at the output. The buffer now looping, I had a beautiful cloud through which the Chromaplane might float. This technique worked fantastically. Brinta pulled through strong yet again. Toward the end I quickly switched from Cloud mode to Chord mode, which are fundamentally different granular engines. Cloud mode spreads the area from which a play head might gather a grain in the buffer, and plays them simultaneously. Chord mode harmonizes grains with the notes being played from the buffer, adding up to six in a major or minor chord, depending on the knob direction from noon. I only kept it in chord mode just long enough to get a few sparkles racing upwards, and it worked just as I’d hoped it might.

I patched the output of Brinta to the Holocene Electronics Non-Linear Memory Machine, not so much for repeats, but to lengthen and thicken out the grains just a bit. The output was at a 50/50 mix, and went straight to the mixer before being sent to a pitched down reverb from the Walrus Audio Slöer.

Being unfamiliar with Chromaplane, I opted for a very conservative performance. Enveloping sounds, creating chords, and even the location of notes in the factory tuning are all foreign to me, so I’ll have to get accustomed to its peculiarities before I light up the charts with it. That said, it’s an eminently approachable instrument by mere mortals. I used the factory tuning, with the cutoff frequency low enough for a very rounded, soft sound, along with the internal delay. The output was sent to the mixer and on to the reverb.

Chromaplane is a magical device, and is an instrument that can be very expressive and emotive. It’s something that begs to be played. I’m sure I’ll use it quite often in the future.

Modules Used:
Error Instruments Brinta
Holocene Electronics Non-Linear Memory Machine
Nonlinearcircuits Triple Sloth
Intellijel Amps

Standalone Synth(s) Used:
Koma Elektronik / Passepartout Duo Chromaplane
Walrus Audio Slöer
Noisy Fruits Lab Lemon

Improvised and recorded in one take on iPad in AUM via the Expert Sleepers ES-9.


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Xaotic Meandering

When I walked up to the synthesizer today, I had but one goal: to use a goodly portion of my newly expanded and reconfigured Xaotic Dreams Subsystem; 252hp of Xaoc Devices goodness.1 I’ve long enjoyed Xaoc Devices. Their Soviet era nuclear lab-like aesthetic initially captured my attention. Like many, Batumi and its 3hp partner Poti, were my first Xaoc Devices modules. About two years later, while in a Vicodin-ed up state after shoulder surgery and having to spend endless hours sitting in a recliner, I happed upon several of Tom Churchill’s demo videos, most notably his video on Odessa, but also Sofia, and using Lipsk and Erfurt as an entry to the Leibniz Subsystem. Within the week I had purchased all of those, plus Samara II, and a few other choice bits, like Sarajewo, to fill a 6u 84hp case, and a few weeks later Batumi and Poti II, LFO Boogaloo. I also watched Tom’s videos on Moskwa and Ostankino II, and also Berlin and Jena, but held off due to lack of space. It wasn’t until Samarkanda, and a few weeks later Oradea, that I decided to expand by a further 84hp, now having the space to fit Moskwa and Ostankino, plus Berlin and Jena for some lovely wavetables.

Xaoc Devices modules are interesting. Most take modulation extremely well in ways most other modules just don’t. Most oscillators would choke under the sorts of modulation Odessa or Sofia take with ease. Their house sound is quite unique, tending from glassy and pristine tones out of Odessa, to downright filthy ones, also out of Odessa. Sofia is likewise extremely flexible, and handles even strong modulation happily. Moskwa II, via its expander module, Ostankino II, is likewise highly modulate-able, with the ability to modulate every parameter on the panel. Like with most of my patches I’ve tended to try and get mellower sounds out of Xaoc Devices patches, which isn’t something most other brands can do under heavy modulation, but this case does it with ease.

The patch starts with Moskwa II. It’s a fairly simple sequence quantized to the Akebono scale, used most often in traditional Japanese music, though it can be played with TET-12 instruments as well. I don’t know that the sequence I used in this patch sounds like what might invoke something you would think of as Japanese, but it does have an interesting sound. Moskwa II was clocked using a copy of a square wave LFO from Batumi, though it was about as inefficient a clocking sub patch as one could imagine. I wanted to start and stop the sequence, and routed everything haphazardly. I should have simply used the Moskwa II clock output (on Ostankino II), and sent it to the clock divider in order to gate the Transport of Moskwa. Once I noticed I could have completed this section of the patch much more streamlined, it was already done, and re-patching it just wasn’t in the cards.

One of the great facets of Moskwa II, like all of Xaoc’s modules, is that it opens up modulation to virtually every parameter available. In this patch I modulated Random, Slew Probability (on the third step only), and although I had Range patched, it’s clear to me that modulating Range is better modulated by a clocked source, like S&H so that changes only happen as the sequencer goes from one step to the next, and not in the middle of held notes. In the performance of the recording, I slowly added in modulation rather than starting off that way. In this manner I was able to have only the very occasional slew, modulated by a Batumi LFO. Ditto with Random. As the recording fades in, it’s a straight eight step sequence, shortened to seven steps, and then six, before going back to eight steps with Random being modulated by a Zadar function.

The sequence was sent to both Odessa and Sofia, tuned to G#1 and G#2 respectively, via a Rides In The Storm QAM. I patched Odessa’s Partials outputs, along with the fundamental to the Addac814 6×6 Stereo Matrix Mixer. As noted above, Odessa is extremely graceful with even heavy modulation. It’s part of Xaoc’s special sauce. In this patch several parameters of Odessa were being modulated simultaneously. Both Warp, by a Batumi triangle wave LFO, and Density, by a copy of the wavetable LFO from Berlin and Jena (which also modulated its own Shape parameter), were modulated, but also the Bank via the Leibniz output from Erfurt. The first two modulations are heavy handed, and it really moves the timbre in wonderful ways, adding in multiple levels of detail. Washing clouds of partials floated about in the stereo field, showcasing Odessa’s classic sound signature in all its glory. The latter modulation of the Bank, as Tom noted in one of his videos, is a very subtle sort of modulation. It can sometimes be hard to notice when lots of things are happening at the same time, but it’s absolutely beautiful and adds another layer to see through. As a means to add a bit of heft to the bottom end, I patched the Partials outputs in a stereo configuration, but also added in the Fundamental sine wave to the mix so that it was clear what the bass note is.

To add in some more harmonic material, I also used Sofia which follows the same sequence, and was even more heavily modulated than Odessa. Sofia is an analog spin on a digital technique called FOF, or fonction d’onde formantique, pioneered in the early 80s as a means to add what are called ripple elements quite literally atop standard sine waves, giving them a unique harmonic signature. These ripple elements can be either superimposed sine or square waves, and are always phase coherent to the fundamental sine wave. The ripple elements can be warped, dampened, with several ratios of the fundamental to choose from, and all of it can be modulated. In this patch, I had both Damping and Ratio modulated on both sides. The A side Damping was modulated by a Batumi LFO, while Ratio was modulated by the Minimum comparator output of a Samara II. The B side had the same parameters modulated, though Damping was via a Berlin/Jena wavetable LFO, and Ratio by the Maximum comparator output from Samara II. This modulation created a constant shifting of timbre in the melody sequence which played nicely through the delay.

The mixed output from Sofia was patched to Zagrzeb stereo filter to add a stereo picture via the Spread parameter. Spread is a pretty common feature on many stereo filters, and it works great to create a moving stereo image from mono sources. It works by, you guessed it, spreading the frequencies between channels in equal and opposite directions. As filter one moves the left side cutoff frequency higher, it will move lower on the right side. My initial thought was to use a slowly moving sequence of a sine wave through a filter with very slow modulation as a means to create filter wobble as the cutoff frequency moves through the fundamental pitch of the note playing. It’s a beautiful effect from a result of high resonance combined with the a slowly moving cutoff frequency. I stumbled on this technique a few months ago while patching my Make Noise case, and then set out to recreate it again the following day so that I might add it to my repertoire of patching techniques. It didn’t work as I had hoped, because I completely forgot to implement one of the key conditions, using as low a level as possible at the filter input. I never heard any wobble, and quickly pivoted, though I did initially modulate the filter the same way, by using a slow moving triangle wave. But rather than leave it as it, I also added the attenuated wavetable LFO from Berlin/Jena to the second CV input which aided in hearing the higher harmonics of the ripple elements.

One of the two reasons I decided to expand my Xaoc Devices case was due to the quad mega-delay, Samarkanda, released shortly before Superbooth. Like lots of people I’m a verified delay junkie. I had initially resolved to avoid buying it, but then the announcement of their new Bandpass filter bank and pinging device extraordinaire, Oradea, changed all of that in an instant. Within minutes of seeing that first Sonicstate demo, which was combined with Samarkanda, I had placed an order for the latter (and have since preordered Oradea). Despite being covered up in delays, modular, pedals, and indeed a pair of Echofix EF-X2 tape echoes, I knew this was one I couldn’t resist. It does everything from standard delay duty to long Frippertronics, and from looping to granular processing. It’s huge (42hp), and it’s glorious. It’s made up of four separate delays which can be linked in several different ways to manage stereo work, as well as patch programmed for some common delay behaviors like ping pong delay and feedback loops. In short, Samarkanda is the ultimate eurorack delay, and if you can fit it in your setup, you owe yourself a look at it.

Channels one and two are on standard delay duty. A set of mixed outputs from both Odessa and Sofia, via the Addac814 6×6 Stereo Matrix Mixer, were sent to Samarkanda and delayed in time with the sequence, while the feedback from each channel was fed to the other for some subtle cross feedback action. Although almost all of the faceplate parameters can be modulated, I opted to keep this set static. No weirdness here.

Channels three and four, however, were different. Each was set as a sampler, which was supposed to get into granular-like territory, but it didn’t quite end up that way. Looks like some time with the manual, and some extra-close attention to Tom’s video (and DivKid’s and Monotrail’s) is in order. But that it didn’t turn out the way I’d hoped isn’t the same thing as saying I didn’t like the result. It’s still a very cool, almost casino sounding bit in the patch. Since it had a tendency to be overbearing, I chose to modulate the levels of the outputs in Tallin via a slow moving triangle wave output from Batumi. This modulation was a way of bringing the audio in and out so as not to take the patch over. This worked well, but not quite as I’d hoped. Though I prefer the newer Lublin to Tallin for audio, Tallin has both linear and exponential CV inputs, while Lublin has Ping and exponential CV inputs. For this application, a linear input was clearly the better alternative, and too much faffing around with offsets and attenuation are required to get slow moving CV to behave well with exponential VCAs. But Tallin is designed to distort after a certain level, and I didn’t really want that, although I did get it, which can be heard as the audio peaked in level. I’ll have to more closely survey the manual to get voltage levels and attenuation via Tallin’s knobs more to my pleasing.

There were three primary sources of modulation that was used throughout the patch. The first is the venerable Batumi II with its far less frustratingly sized Poti II expander. The sine waves of channels one through three were used to frequency modulate the others for an interesting set of triangle LFOs that moved all about. Channel one modulated channel two, which modulated channel three, which, in turn, modulated channel one. The fourth channel was all but completely wasted as a clock, and a haphazardly done one at that. Consider the whole fiasco a lesson learned. I really could have used another channel for modulation, the rest of my modulation outputs in the case already being overtaxed with splitters and mults.

Zadar was the other widely spread modulator present in the patch. Zadar is a fantastic module. Its hundreds of shapes are perfect for complex modulation, and although I’d really like to see a more traditional function generator from Xaoc Devices, Zadar would never leave the case because it does what nothing else really can. Channels A and B were set to wildly fluctuating stepped functions, and mixed with negative offset in Samara II, which controlled the Time parameter on the third and fourth delays on Samarkanda, while Channel C modulated several things via a mult, and Channel D, a slow moving triangle wave, modulated the cutoff frequency in Zagrzeb.

The last modulator used in the patch was a wavetable LFO from a Berlin/Jena combo. My original thought when putting the patch together was to use Berlin as the main melody, while using Odessa and/or Sofia as a background for Berlin to meander around in. But none of the wavetable banks fit the sound I was hoping for. But I knew I could still use it to tease out some interesting movement in the patch. It modulated several facets all over the place. It modulated itself, but using the wavetable output to modulate the Shape parameter, plus the cutoff filter in Zagrzeb via its secondary FM CV input, as well as the Damping input on the B side of Sofia. I also had it modulate the Range of Moskwa II, but ultimately didn’t like the effect.

This is my first patch with several of these modules. Moskwa II, Berlin and Jena, and Samarkanda all had their premier in this patch, and it’s by far the most involved (mostly) Xaoc Devices patch I’ve done to date. It definitely won’t be the last.

Modules Used:
Xaoc Devices Moskwa/Ostankino II
Xaoc Devices Odessa
Xaoc Devices Sofia
Xaoc Devices Zagrzeb
Xaoc Devices Samarkanda
Xaoc Devices Berlin
Xaoc Devices Jena
Xaoc Devices Batumi/Poti II
Xaoc Devices Zadar
Xaoc Devices Samara II
Xaoc Devices Tallin
Xaoc Devices Lipsk
Xaoc Devices Erfurt
Rides In The Storm QAM
Intellijel Amps
Intellijel Quad VCA
Nonlinearcircuits Divide & Conquer
Addac System Addac814 6×6 Stereo Matrix Mixer
ST Modular SVCA
Knob Farm Ferry

Outboard Gear Used:
Walrus Audio Slöer
Noisy Fruits Lab Lemon

Improvised and recorded in one take on iPad in AUM via the Expert Sleepers ES-9.

  1. Or at least it will be 252hp once the newly announced Oradea arrives. ↩︎
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Pianos In The Cloud, in E Major

It’s been bittersweet times of late. Lots of emotions. You see, my oldest son is about to graduate high school. He and I are very close, and it’s dawned on me that I’ve been raising someone I can’t live without, to live without me. I’m both sad that he’ll be starting his own life away from home, yet excited to see the man he will become. We’ve been through a lot together. We’ve helped each other these last 18 years; been there for each other when we needed someone most. It saddens me greatly to know that soon everything will change, yet I also know that something new and wonderful waits ahead. I get to watch him grow and forge his own path, and that will bring rewards of its own. I know he’s ready, and that gives me optimism, yet it’s still difficult to know that such a wonderful time in life is coming to a close.

It’s in this light that I walked up to my synth today. It’s been a very emotional few weeks, and I needed an escape; something to pull my attention away from the emotional roller coaster the two of us have been on these last few weeks. I had no idea what I wanted to accomplish today. Perhaps today wasn’t even about the product, but the process. But even if the product wasn’t the point, it turned out beautifully. The overall tenor of the piece is hopeful, with a small twinge of sadness.

The piece starts with the Addac System Addac506 slowly modulating the level of the four outputs of the Flame Instruments 4VOX wavetable synthesizer. This slow moving LFO/chaos/CV technique has become a part of my sound, and I’m constantly looking for ways to refine it. This patch is fairly simple, however. Each of the four 4VOX oscillators, tuned to a simple E Major Chord, were patched to a bank of Intellijel Amps, and level controlled by the four ever-changing outputs of the Addac506 Stochastic Function Generator. The lowest note, E1, was offset in the VCA so that it would always be audible, as well as modulated with the Addac506, which tended to add a beautiful drive to the sound. I don’t often use the drive in Amps. It’s not a bad sounding distortion, but it’s not the one I reach for first (or second…). But today the small amount of edge it gave that bass note voice was perfect. Balancing on the edge of breakup from time to time in a beautiful back and forth between soft and not as soft.

The wavetable I used is called “Surf Ram 01”, which was a series of mostly smooth sine-ish notes. It’s similar to the stock Wavetable A in the Synthesis Technology E370, though also noticeably different. Its edges aren’t quite as soft; the hint of digital jaggedness. Each of the four wavetables were morphed by the Nonlinearcircuits Frisson, via attenuation in De-Escalate, and four highly attenuated mixes of the other four Frisson outputs, via the Atomosynth Transmon, were used to modulate the detuning of the four oscillators in each part of the chord voice. As the modulation morphs each wavetable, the pitch slides up and down to different notes, though one of the four oscillators in each voice remains static. The 4VOX is a unique module. Each oscillator can be up to four oscillators, capable of playing chords, octaves, fifths, or if it’s controlled by MIDI, can be a fully fledged 16 voice oscillator. Most parameters can be modulated by one of two CV inputs, though each oscillator is limited to two points of modulation.1 It’s been around for quite a while, and not very common from what I can tell, but it’s a wonderfully intuitive wavetable oscillator that’s highly capable and sounds great.

The piece started with only the root note of the chord, and its three accompanying oscillators, sliding up and down a scale similarly to a patch I recently did with the E370, though not as dramatically. As the tenor of the piece began to set in I raised each of the other notes in the chord until all three were at full modulation strength in Amps, fading in and out at different times and with no pattern of any sort. While the three upper notes were all panned back and forth in the stereo field, the root note remained centered, only to be scattered left and right by delay and reverb.

The first effects destination for this cloud was the venerable Holocene Electronics Non-Linear Memory Machine for some beautiful slightly scattered delay. I’ve used the NLMM a lot. I really like it. It’s got some serious chops for creating really nice delay effects from fully diffused repeats that hang like a reverb, to creating cicada-like sounds with its unabashedly aliased pitch shifting. One of the more popular criticisms that I’ve read is that it’s not syncable. You can’t use it with a clock. But I feel like this is part of the NLMM’s magic. The delays float, unsync’d, on any of many several time scales. For this patch I wanted to use the delay as a simple thickener. A short delay with high feedback can lengthen a note significantly, while helps both smooth out edges, but it also allows more sound for other processors to work with, granular processors in particular. I had a very small embellishment for this part of the patch; a seldomly triggered envelope from Falistri that would modulate the pitch setting and cause a short blip, but I simply forgot to plug it in while recording.

Once all of the notes were floating in their dance with one another, I introduced the Dradd(s). I love my Dradd(s). Buying a second was an incredibly gratuitous purchase, but now I find having the pair indispensable. It’s more than an accoutrement used as flair or embellishment in most of my patches . The way I use the Dradd(s) they become a part of the sound. A way to lengthen notes, fill in space unobtrusively, and add texture and movement. I tend to use it at higher clock settings, though I also tend to use the Mod knob moderately heavy to keep the clock moving and unpredictable.

Although I now had my floating chord swirling about, and was quite happy with it, I felt like the patch needed something more. Not much. Something sparse and a bit understated, while still being distinct. I didn’t want to drown out the chord, but I did need something to juxtapose it against. Although I initially wanted to use something other than the piano, the LABS Soft Piano is what ultimately sounded best in context, and with how sparsely I wanted to use it. Since I have a Quantizer/Piano Multisample preset in the Disting NT, I used it, though I changed the key and scale to E Major. With four CV and four gate inputs it’s far more elaborate than this particular patch called for, but it worked just as well because of the particular gates and CV triggering the piano.

The pitch CV and gates were all derived from a fairly slow moving The Hypster, four outputs going to Let’s Splosh, the other four to Numberwang. Four outputs from each were patched to the Disting NT and distributed to the quantizer and each of the eight voices of the piano. As The Hypster slowly meandered about, Splosh and Numberwang generated a chaotic pattern of notes. But since it chaos, it’s regular-ish, so many notes repeat with slight variations, and happen in a very rough rhythm that is almost a pattern. In this patch the sparse nature and pitch of the two most oft repeated notes seemed to fit my disposition perfectly. It was beautiful and full of hope, with a hint of sadness that comes with the end of something wonderful.

Once I had the piano in place it was almost perfect. But I still felt like some embellishment was missing. I didn’t want to disturb the quiet nature of the piece too much, yet despite the bittersweet sadness that has overwhelmed me these past few weeks, there is also cause for joy, and joyous occasions call for a bit of confetti. As I looked at my synth to see which module or process might call to me in order to fill the role, it was the ever-charming Cutlasses Gloop that was immediately apparent as the right path. Looping is really fun, and with Gloop it’s easy to get lost. Four lines of looping, all at different speeds, directions, and locations within the full sample can be mesmerizing while performing. What I intended to be a six to eight minute recording quickly turned into over 14 minutes of looping bliss.

I first introduced a mono line that was playing at 1x. Since the piano and the loop were not sync’d, it created a disjointed effect which was almost granular. Two very similar lines playing simultaneously. I then introduced a second mono loop playing back at reverse half speed, creating subtle pitched down zips, and primarily creating texture. The third and fourth loops brought in were hard panned left and right. The left side loop was playing forward at 3x speed, and the right looping in reverse at 4x speed. These two panned loops were at a lower volume than the mono loops. As the piece progressed, I added the piano into the Dradd(s), as well as began to shorten and move loops around to get in a final position to end the piece. As the piece began to wind down I lowered the volume of the two outside loops, then after a bit, faded to silence.

As per usual, I used the Walrus Audio Slöer reverb, this time in Light mode, with the octave up at about 80% and the clock speed at minimum.

Modules Used:
Addac System Addac506 Stochastic Function Generator
Addac System Addac814 6×6 Stereo Matrix Mixer
Flame Instruments 4VOX
Intellijel Amps
Intellijel Quad VCA
Nonlinearcircuits Frisson
Nonlinearcircuits De-Escalate
Nonlinearcircuits The Hypster
Nonlinearcircuits Let’s Splosh
Nonlinearcircuits Numberwang
Atomosynth Transmon
Expert Sleepers Disting NT
ST Modular Sum Mix & Pan
ST Modular SVCA
Holocene Electronics Non-Linear Memory Machine
Cutlasses Gloop
Frap Tools Falistri
Frap Tools 333
Knob Farm Ferry

Outboard Gear Used:
Walrus Audio Slöer
Noisy Fruits Lab Lemon

Improvised and recorded in one take on iPad in AUM via the Expert Sleepers ES-9.

  1. As a comparison, the Synthesis Technology E370 also has but two modulation inputs per channel. ↩︎
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Cicadas Arise

It happens here every 17 years. Brood XIV emerges from their long underground slumber and takes to the trees. During this time, perhaps over a trillion cicadas will emerge over the course of 4-5 weeks throughout East Tennessee, the eastern half of Kentucky, and small bits of far western North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, and southeastern Ohio.

I was here during their last emergence in 2008, my first time experiencing periodical cicadas, and at times it was a complete caucauphony. There were times when I felt as if the sound was coming from inside my head. The volume can get so loud that being indoors was barely a respite. That what happens when perhaps two million of them are on my property in the Kentucky Bluegrass. For these next several weeks the cicadas of Brood XIV, the children of the last generation I saw nearly two decades ago, will be ever present, serenading the world with their song. But their collective song isn’t monotone or at a static level. It pulses. It has a natural ebb and flow that rises and falls in what can only be described as a most beautiful chaos.

I recorded a short snippet earlier this afternoon, about 22 seconds worth, so that I might put them through the synth. I’m sure I’ll get other recordings, especially as they get louder, but I wanted something to do today.

I can’t really remember this patch very well. It was a very stream of consciousness-like affair, with lots of changes and adjustments along the way. I’ll write what I remember as clearly as I can, but this will not be a comprehensive breakdown.

I recorded the cicada sample onto the Miso Modular Cornflakes buffer. After recording, I let it playback continuously in a loop, while heavily modulating every parameter with four outputs from The Hypster, via Let’s Splosh. Speed, Pitch, Grain Size, Diffuse, Position, and Length all received healthy doses of mixed, rectified, and attenuated chaos, while Harmonics and Distribute received modulation from an inverted sequence slowly running in the Verbos Voltage Multistage, and clocked by a single gate output from the Nonlinearcircuits Numberwang. Numberwang was fed from four outputs of Let’s Splosh. These were the last four available outputs from Let’s Splosh (this marks the first time I’ve used all 16 outputs in a single patch), so the movement they created isn’t very much. Only four of the 16 gates were ever high in Numberwang using these signals, but it created just enough movement to keep the sequence moving. If I had to make a comment, I’d say that I severely overmodulated Cornflakes. There’s a lot of swirl, and what sounds like filtered noise. The result isn’t bad, per sé, but there are many things I’d ease up on were I to record this patch again.

This wonderful swarm of granulated cicada-song was sent to the Frap Tools CUNSA for heavily modulated Bandpass filtering (introduced at ~ 00:50), using Sapel’s smooth random outputs to modulate the center frequency, along with two Falistri functions performing AM at audiorate in CUNSA’s built-in VCAs. This filtering created a lot of stereo movement in the best kind of way, and the AM from Falistri gave it an even more fluttery sound, mimicking the cicadas’ awkward flight amongst the trees.

Both the Cornflakes and CUNSA outputs were sent to the Industrial Music Electronics Malgorithm MkII for some lightly modulated bit and sample reduction, along with the smallest bit of waveshaping via the Green setting of the third button (introduced at ~01:35). It’s an effect, in this patch at least, that is subtle. It’s hard to pick out in context, but when it was not there it was quite noticeable.

The sub bass (introduced at ~02:10) was created with a Verbos Haronic Oscillator’s saw output through Amp & Tone, which was amplitude modulated by the Harmonic Oscillator’s mix output. Different harmonics (8, 7, and 6) rose and fell via cascading triangle functions from the Polyphonic Envelope, which created subtle pitch changes in the drone as it took on the pitch of the higher harmonics via unattenuated AM. The frequency cutoff was modulated with one of the cascading envelopes from Polyphonic Envelope, first lightly to create subtle movement in the timbre of the drone, then more heavily, and with high resonance, to create a beautiful, if dark, background for the cicada song, with streaming harmonics from the saw wave echoing in the stereo field. The filter output was sent to the Multi-Delay Processor, with the dry signal from MDP’s output going straight to the mixer, while four separate tap outputs were patched to Scan & Pan, hard panned, two taps to the left and two to the right, and mixed in the Addac System Addac814 6×6 Stereo Matrix Mixer.

I tried mightily to use the Rossum Electro-Music Panharmonium in this patch, but I simply couldn’t get anything at all that I liked. I ran into, and quickly lost, a couple of sweet spots, but I didn’t have the discipline to keep the knobs still. The cicadas create a highly detuned chorus as it is, and swirling dissonance through the Panharmonium was a huge mess. There were a couple of times when I used a feedback path in the matrix mixer that created a beautiful, deep bed of pads, but it was quickly gone. I suspect that much faster analysis times would likely help with this sort of input material.

Modules Used:
Miso Modular Cornflakes
Addac System Addac814 6×6 Stereo Matrix Mixer
Frap Tools CUNSA
Frap Tools Falistri
Frap Tools Sapel
Nonlinearcircuits The Hypster
Nonlinearcircuits Let’s Splosh
Nonlinearcircuits Numberwang
Nonlinearcircuits De-Escalate
Vostok Instruments Asset
Verbos Electronics Harmonic Oscillator
Verbos Electronics Amp & Tone
Verbos Electronics Multi-Delay Processor
Verbos Electronics Scan & Pan
Verbos Electronics Polyphonic Envelope
Verbos Electronics Voltage Multistage
Industrial Music Electronics Malgorithm MkII
ST Modular SVCA
Intellijel Quad VCA
Knob Farm Ferry

Outboard Gear Used:
Noisy Fruits Lab Lemon
Walrus Audio Slöer

Improvised and recorded in one take on iPad in AUM via the Expert Sleepers ES-9.

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Hypster Harmonics

It’s not often during the high school baseball season I get a Saturday to laze about. Most of my Saturdays during the Spring and Summer are spent wandering the commonwealth from ball field to ball field. But with rain washing the day away, I had some rare time to patch. I’ve been thinking a lot about chaos of late. From a smidge of CV to a filter cutoff or wavetable position, to lathering it thick on as many parameters as I dare, almost every patch I create uses chaos in some fashion. My last patch used the Nonlinearcircuits Frisson as the engine, and I had been thinking of ways to use it again. I thought about a similar patch using different wavetables, but ultimately grew bored with the idea as quickly as it came to mind. I thought about using it to control eight oscillators rather than four. Then it came to me: Harmonic Oscillator.

It’s been a while since I last used the Harmonic Oscillator. The Verbos case, aptly named Verbosian Dreams, has been cycled out of Subsystems for the last couple of months as I explored my 4ms and Mutable Instruments cases. The last Verbos patch I can remember making used chaos-modulated blue noise as a means to control the levels of each harmonic. Although it was more of an experiment, I thought it turned out really well. It’s one of my favorite Jamuary patches, and my first inclination was to carry on from my last patch and use the Frisson’s eight outputs to modulate noise via eight VCAs, and use those outputs to control the Harmonic Oscillator just as I had before. And so I patched it up, but there was a problem. Although there is phasing of Frisson’s output signals, there wasn’t enough phasing for this particular patch. The result was that too many harmonics were being excited too loudly and too close together, which made the mixed output of the Harmonic Oscillator sound more like a single wave with lots of harmonics rather 8 separate voices slowly creeping in and out. It was less than ideal. So I decided to revisit my previous patch, Jamuary 2509, while making some changes.

Firstly, I removed the noise as a variable. It sounded fine, but despite wanting to use a previous patch as a base, I didn’t want to recreate the exact same thing, so opted to use chaos directly to modulate the levels of each harmonic, rather than using noise with chaos as an intermediary. But the phasing problem of it sounding like a single complex wave rather than separate oscillators was still prevalent, and switched from using Frisson to using The Hypster.

My relationship with The Hypster is close. I seem to figure out a way to get it in nearly all of my patches in some form. It may not always occupy a lead role, but its capabilities are enough that it’s a highly flexible modulator and can be used in a number of situations. Because of this close relationship, I knew that The Hypster doesn’t have those sorts of phasing problems. Outputs X, Y, Z, and U are all from discreet parts of the signal, and their counterpart outputs, -X, -Y, -Z, and -U, while not exact polar opposites, are close enough to opposite that functionally they may as well simply be a polarized copies. This meant that, at most, only four of the harmonics would be receiving positive voltage at any one time, and I might avoid the problem of mixing too many harmonics at once. This changed worked out great. The Hypster can be as chaotic as one would like, but when at tamer settings it can also be regular. The oscillations were close, but never exactly the same. This led to multiple harmonics generally staying together in a sort-of pattern, but with some drift. Some harmonics came in a smidge early or late, or lingered a bit longer than previously. Some peaked more than once per cycle. These differences led to a very organic flow of notes, like leaves racing down a stream. As the piece progressed I introduced some moderate modulation from Frisson (which was itself being modulated by Triple Sloth) to The Hypster’s Frequency, Gain, and Damp CV inputs, creating an ebb and flow which made for interesting change. As frequency rises and falls, it gets faster and slower, and as Gain and Damp rise and fall the chaos changes, with its voltage levels in flux and desire to change in flux.

For the recording, I introduced each harmonic one by one over the course of about three minutes. The fundamental note of the Harmonic Oscillator was tuned to D1. I should know better than to tune my patches so low, but I’m an absolute sucker for thick bass. The order of harmonic introduction was 3, 5, 8, 4, 1, 6, 2, 7. I also patched an envelope to the Harmonic Oscillator’s Center input to create a series of blips up and down the harmonic series, and while it sounded great in isolation when I was testing and tuning the voltage, it tended to get lost in the context of harmonics and didn’t really sound how I’d hoped.

If I’m being honest, using all eight harmonics via the mixed output is probably gratuitous is some ways. Once all eight harmonics are introduced, some get lost in the mix. There were some combos of harmonics that I liked better than the full array. Yet as an excercise in experimenting with chaos I felt compelled to use all eight outputs on The Hypster (and Frisson before it). I’m likely far better off using four or five harmonics than all eight. That said, when using all eight, a rhythm appeared. It wasn’t constant, and it was subject to change, but the output definitely had a rhythmic vibe that probably would be right with fewer harmonics.

The Harmonic Oscillator’s mix output was patched directly to the Verbos Multi-Delay Processor for a smidge of that preamp goodness, even if I was trying to keep the slightly hairy sine waves from the Harmonic Oscillator as clean as possible. The only sound at the MDP mixed output was the dry signal, but four of the individual delay tap outputs were patched to the Scan & Pan before being mixed back with the dry signal output of the MDP in the Addac814 6×6 Stereo Matrix Mixer. This way of patching kept the harmonics centered in the stereo field, with some movement around the edges to create some space.

The only effect I used, outside of the MDP and reverb, was the venerable Dradd(s). Wanting some musical content in higher registers, the Harmonic Oscillator only goes up to D4, I decided on using the Tape algorithm for an octave up effect. At first it was steady playback at 2x, forward in the right ear and reverse in the left. After a while, I introduced some modulation from Frisson to both the Clock and to P2, which in the Tape mode introduces tape errors, where it went back and forth between forward and reverse at 2x as if the tape machine were on the fritz. Late in the recording I changed the feedback from Positive to Looping, creating the spiraling octave jumps as grains were fed back to the input.

Once all of the audio was in the mixer it was sent to the Walrus Audio Slöer with a shade of some octave up.

Modules Used:
Nonlinearcircuits The Hypster
Nonlinearcircuits Frisson
Nonlinearcircuits Let’s Get Fenestrated
Nonlinearcircuits Triple Sloth
Nonlinearcircuits De-Escalate
Intellijel Amps
Verbos Harmonic Oscillator
Verbos Multi-Delay Processor
Verbos Polyphonic Envelope
Verbos Scan & Pan
Verbos Voltage Multistage
Addac System Addac814 6×6 Stereo Matrix Mixer
Pladask Elektrisk Dradd(s)
Vostok Instruments Asset
ST Modular SVCA
Knob Farm Ferry

Outboard Gear Used:
Walrus Audio Slöer

Improvised and recorded in one take on iPad in AUM via the Expert Sleepers ES-9.

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A Whirly Tube Of Chaos

Still inspired by my latest patch, I decided to once again use four slow waves to control the levels of the Synthesis Technology E370, gently bringing them in and out of audibility. But rather than using Swell Physics to set the flow, I decided to use the flow of pure chaos. These sorts of soundscapes are amongst my favorite patches to create. They’re almost always exceedingly beautiful, and I’ve found that even similar patches can yield radically different results. I have a small library of slow motion patching techniques I use regularly, and I’m continuously looking for new ways of expanding upon them. Whether that be newly created control schemes, or simply making small adaptations to ones already in my toolbox, I’m constantly seeking new routes and trying to learn new methods.

The beating heart of this patch began with the Nonlinearcircuits Frisson, an eight output chaos module based on Mackey-Glass equations, with some help from its chaotic friends, Helvetica Scenario, Triple Sloth, and The Hypster, as well as assists from fellow NLC friends, Numberwang and Let’s Splosh. Frisson is a chaos module that gives some control, but not an overwhelming amount. You can control phasing of the outputs, which also increasingly have more slew, and the speed can be somewhat controlled, though not really. You can also CV control the phasing, or inject an external signal into the internal chaos. It also can be alternatively used as a CV phaser, taking an input, while phasing the outputs and increasingly adding slew. It’s a fantastic way of getting eight closely related modulation signals. I’ve used Frisson in the past, it was a goodly part of my last patch too, but this time I used it differently. Rather than being solely used for modulation of some secondary parameter like a filter cutoff, this time Frisson’s chaos was the star of the show, with four randomly chosen outputs directly controlling the Synthesis Technology E370 output levels in the Intellijel Amps, while the other four outputs were patched to Let’s Splosh to be spread through the system. Having chaos directly control levels is interesting, because it means you’re hearing chaos and it’s meandering directly, as opposed to indirectly via the modulation of a secondary parameter. When the chaos signals rise, so too does the sound of each oscillator. As the chaos moves through its circuitous oscillations, you can hear its mood. Sometimes bold, other times shy and apt to change its mind, chaos is the highlight of this patch, not part of a side show. I’ve done similar patches before using chaos, most notably Jamuary 2509, but I tend more towards Swell Physics, or some form of LFO over straight chaos for this kind of job. Here, Frisson and its chaos form the basis of everything.

And it’s not just the volume levels that Frisson controlled. The remaining four outputs were patched to Let’s Splosh, a very excellent “put something in, get many things out” kind of module that takes four inputs and has a lovely 16 outputs of completely interrelated control voltage to spread around a patch. Four more-or-less randomly chosen Splosh outputs were patched to the Atomosynth Transmon’s inputs.1 Eight of the 11 outputs from the one and only Triple Sloth were used to modulate the eight CV inputs on Rows C and D of the Transmon to help create a wild mix of chaotically moving control voltage. This rich and complex mix of chaos created all of the tonal movement in this patch, as the oscillators were sent a steady Dmaj7 chord. As voltage increased along the X axis of each wavetable, notes move along a scale, most noticeably in the higher register, where it sounds reminiscent of a classic Gen X toy, the Whirly Tube. I was absolutely infatuated by this chaotically created melody, making sure to treat that one channel different from the rest. I offset the audio in Amps so that it might be audible for a bit longer than the other oscillators. I also made sure that its channel was centered and turned up loudest in the ST Modular Sum Mix & Pan, even if the third channel is still mixed too loud. I wanted it to be a highlight of the patch, with pitch and volume of the melody controlled by Frisson’s lovely chaos. Let’s Splosh didn’t stop at modulating wavetables, however. Two more of its outputs were patched to the two CV inputs on Triple Sloth, creating a CV loop where Splosh modulated Sloth which in turn modulated other Splosh outputs in the Transmon. Chaos acting upon chaos, acting upon chaos. Beautiful.

The audio was patched from the Intellijel Amps to the Addac System Addac814 6×6 Stereo Matrix Mixer via the ST Modular Sum Mix & Pan, before being spread around to various effects. Its primary destination was the Echofix EF-X2 pair for some stereo tape delay treatment. This recording may well be the my most beautiful result from the tape delays to date. Having used offset delay times with varying tape head combinations, a fair amount of feedback, and a smidge of reverb, the sound floats back and forth cloud-like in the stereo field. Once that cloud hit the reverb, it lingers in the best ways possible, with a slight octave up choir to provide for some air.

But the tape delays weren’t the only FX destination for the main audio. As I’ve become prone to do, I wanted something to fill out the frequency range. Most of the audio was in the mid-to-upper ranges, and I’m a sucker for depth. I used Panharmonium with a fairly slow analysis gap, set at an octave down. Two octaves down really sounded great, but, like the last patch, there was too much flutter from very low frequencies. I didn’t want to bother re-patching it through a filter, and I didn’t think to use an EQ in my mixer. I thought about sending the Panharmonium through a delay, but ultimately chose to let it stand on its own (through reverb, of course).

And the effects didn’t stop there either. Another favorite method of mine to thicken sound is to use it with the venerable Pladask Elektrisk Dradd(s). It’s not easy to describe what the Dradd(s) do in Grain Mode. The manual describes it as time stretching. And though it certainly sounds like time stretching, with some sources it sounds like something else too. Almost as if a small string section were playing a tremolo shadow of the input. A wonderful unsteadiness to the notes that follows it around like a little brother whimpering for attention.

With the core of the patch complete, I sought some appropriate ornamentation. This is normally a spot I might use a Multisample piano or high(er) pitched oscillator pings through a LPG, but none of that felt right. It was awkward, often falling too in line with the already existing frequency and timbre range of my chaotic cloud, and just sounded bad. I tried pianos of various types, resonators like Rings, music box samples, and others before deciding to do something I’ve never done before; just cycle through sample folders and see what sounded good in context. I landed on one instrument that sounded promising, but I decided to keep going and come back to it if I couldn’t find anything else. Within a few clicks I landed on a sample folder called “MoogMG1vsAD_SynthFX.” I still have no real idea what these samples are, but when I heard the first careless swirl I immediately associated it with the sound of my Whirly Tube oscillator and knew it was right.

Gate and pitch generation for these swirlies was, just as the main audio, generated via chaotic processes. Four outputs from The Hypster were patched to Numberwang, while two others were patched to the Helvetica Scenario inputs. Numberwang used these chaos signals to create gates, while Helvetica Scenario was used as a sample and hold to get four separate CV outputs to be used for pitch, two of which would be derived from the inputs from The Hypster. Numberwang is a fantastic way of getting off-grid gate generation. It’s a favorite method of mine, depending on the needs of the patch. Four of its outputs were sent to the Disting NT which triggered the quantizer and samples, while two other outputs were used to trigger Helvetica Scenario. Helvetica Scenario is a fun module. It’s a slight twist on a traditional sample and hold module. Rather than using noise from which to sample voltage, it uses a jerk chaos signal running at approximately 300Hz. When hit with a trigger, it will output the voltage of the chaos signal, just as a normal S&H would do with noise. And just as with most S&H modules, one can always use an input, but Helvetica Scenario provides two outputs which act like a S&H. The first, the S&H output will sample the input and send that voltage to its output. The second, the Stepped output, however, will always sample the voltage of the internal chaos circuit so that each will provide two separate stepped outputs with just one trigger, for a total of four stepped voltage outputs. In fact, even if no input is patched, the Helvetica Scenario Stepped and S&H outputs will output voltages from different parts of the signal, so there are always at least two discrete voltages on every trigger. The four outputs here were used as the pitch CV for the swirlies, via the Disting NT’s quantizer, triggered by other gates coming from Numberwang.

The swirlies from the Disting NT were patched to the Venus Instruments Veno-Echo. Cross feedback was set to full, with wide stereo width. There was also a twinge of sample reduction in the feedback path. Two final gates from Numberwang triggered the left and right Reverse, which created a very psychedelic feel to the swirlies as they darted through the clouds of the E370 and its floating repeats, Panharmonium, and the Dradd(s).

Modules Used:
Nonlinearcircuits Frisson
Nonlinearcircuits De-Escalate
Nonlinearcircuits Triple Sloth
Nonlinearcircuits The Hypster
Nonlinearcircuits Helvetica Scenario
Nonlinearcircuits Numberwang
Nonlinearcircuits Let’s Splosh
Atomosynth Transmon
Synthesis Technology E370
NOH-Modular Pianist
Intellijel Amps
Intellijel Quad VCA
ST Modular Sum Mix & Pan
ST Modular SVCA
Addac System Addac814 6×6 Stereo Matrix Mixer
Expert Sleepers Disting NT
Venus Instruments Veno-Echo
Rossum Electro-Music Panharmonium
Pladask Elektrisk Dradd(s)
CuteLab Missed Opportunities
Vostok Instruments Asset
Knob Farm Ferry

Outboard Gear Used:
Noisy Fruits Lab Lemon
Echofix EF-X2
Walrus Audio Slöer

Improvised and recorded in one take on iPad in AUM via the Expert Sleepers ES-9.

  1. I chose outputs based on their relative output levels. ↩︎
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Adagio for E370 in Dmin7

It had been a couple of weeks since I’ve been able to patch, and I was itching. Having just been on a spring break high school baseball trip to the beautiful Emerald Coast, I was inspired by the sea. It was the first trip in over a year I hadn’t taken some music making device, and even if I didn’t really have the time to patch during this trip, I missed not having something.1 I thought all week about what I would be making if I had my synth, and Swell Physics was first and foremost in those musings.

When I first set up this patch it was a mess. A cacophony of sound where each part seemed to work well on its own, but as soon as it mixed with other parts the whole thing turned to shit. As a non-professional musician, I try not to fall into that trap of being too hard on myself when my results are less than what I’d hoped for. Failure, after all, is the key to progress and improvement, and if a recording sucks it’ll just go into the folder of dozens of other recordings that suck. My livelihood is not at stake, and I don’t yet have a reputation to ruin. When I turned on my synth today, I listened to that latest patch still plugged in, and I was unhappy. It was a mess, and only reminded me that the recording I had heard of that patch a dozen or more times that week just wasn’t it. I was resigned to tearing the patch down and starting from scratch, but since I wanted to use the same control scheme I instead chose first to tweak a few settings and see if I couldn’t salvage the patch.

I don’t really like tweaking already-built patches. I mean, I like tweaking controls, but not patch points. It’s generally not been an exercise that has produced meaningful fruit, and I usually find it easier to simply start over rather than navigate a nest of patch cables. Today’s first change, however, wasn’t a physical patch change, but a setting change to the E370. Rather than using one of the User wavetables I’ve taken fancy to, a very cool wavetable leftover from the previous owner, I switched all four channels over to ROM A, and the difference was immediate. In fact, it was pretty much the sound I envisioned before i even started patching. So much for tearing down the patch.

The patch starts, as many of my patches often do these days, with the Addac System Addac508 Swell Physics. Since first receiving Swell Physics many of my favorite recordings are based around it. Whether I’m using the wave outputs directly to control levels, or in conjunction with modules like the Nonlinearcircuits Numberwang and Let’s Splosh to control various facets of a patch, I’m constantly finding new ways to integrate it into my work. The four outputs were sent to an array of Intellijel Amps’ CV inputs to control the levels of four modulated outputs from the always lovely Synthesis Technology E370 quad wavetable oscillators and blue noise to simulate the spray of the ocean. Each oscillator was fed pitch information from the NOH-Modular Pianist, one note each of a D minor seventh chord (though I’ve no idea what the oscillator was tuned to). From the Amps, the mixed noise and audio outputs went to the ST Modular Sum Mix & Pan to place in the stereo field of the mix.

Modulation of the E370 wasn’t particularly heavy in this patch, but each oscillator’s X axis was moved around by a complex mix of CV from the Nonlinearcircuits Frisson mixed together in the Atomosynth Transmon CV controlled matrix mixer. Four randomly chosen outputs from Frisson were sent to the four inputs of the Transmon, with the other four Frisson outputs modulating four separate nodes in the mixer itself. This modulation to the E370’s X axis was at a medium slow speed and moved waves around beautifully, slowly shifting the sine wavetables.

The Atomosynth Transmon is a curious module. Nominally it’s a matrix mixer, made by a very niche maker based in Lima, Peru. But this matrix mixer has several tricks up its sleeve. The first row can be used for the attenuation or attenuversion of signals, a switch controlling which mode is active. The second row can do both, and each node has an individual output. The last two rows each have a discreet VCA input per node, also with individual outputs. If one of those individual outputs is used, it’s removed from the final mix of the row. Each node can also be used as a 12V offset voltage using jumpers on the back. The Transmon is a very powerful and flexible mixer that can be used in a myriad of ways. Most often I use it for simpler mixes, or even as individual VCAs, but this patch called for going whole-hog, mixing four chaos signals, while using four of Transmon’s individual VCAs to modulate my modulation. These new modulated modulation CV mixes create all of the tonal shifts in the E370 voice as they move the sine waves through a series of notes along the X axis of the wavetable. The pitch CV being sent was constant through the recording. I could have manually tuned each oscillator to those notes and the result would have been no different.

Although I was much more pleased with the result after changing wavetables, it wasn’t enough change. The original delay I had chosen for the E370, the Holocene Electronics Non-Linear Memory Machine, was no longer the best tool for the job. Although its inherent aliasing worked great with the original wavetable, I didn’t like it at all with the much cleaner waves I was using at the time. It created too choppy a repeat, even with some diffusion and without pitch shifting. So I switched over to the very clean Olivia Artz Modular Time Machine, which worked a treat. With a medium length delay time, notes were lengthened and it gave the overall sound a bit of thickness, even if I didn’t pay much attenuation to how I set up each tap.

With the primary voice more-or-less set, it was time to fill in the cracks. The flowing waves of the E370-plus-noise mix with its delay and some reverb were beautiful, but lonely. It was heavy on high(er) pitches, and I wanted to add a bit of body to it. In comes Panharmonium. Though it’s highly capable, I very rarely use Panharmonium as a main voice. But I use it all the time as a supplement to the primary voice as a means of reinforcement, most often shifting the pitch in one direction or another so that various frequency ranges are represented. In this patch I initially went with a two octave downward shift. It was deep, but not overpowering, in a beautiful way, though there was simply too much that wasn’t being heard at all because the frequencies were just too low, which too often caused a flutter that sounded like clipping. No good. So I compromised by going down only one octave, (introduced at 1:15), which transmogrified the audio into a warm bath. I don’t normally modulate Panharmonium, I haven’t found it needed, but for this patch I decided to use offset and attenuated versions of the Swell Physics Average output to modulate both the Center Frequency and Bandwidth, which created a slight swirl in the output which added texture.

But I didn’t stop there. The Panharmonium voice was beautiful, but it needed delay for a bit of thickness of its own, so I sent its output to a pair of very slightly driven Echofix EF-X2s, with its speed lightly modulated by a triangle wave from a Frap Tools Falistri, giving it a hint of vibrato in the delay tails. The offset delays helped create a beautiful stereo image, and added a slight bit of focus.

Now that we had a beautifully flowing soundscape of waves, it was time for some ornamentation. Recently I’ve been reaching primarily for my pair of ever wonderful Pladask Elektrisk Dradd(s) when I’m looking for granular synthesis, but I knew I wanted at least one thing that Dradd cannot do: a two octave shift to create sparkles. It can do a one octave shift in Tape Mode, but not two octaves. So I turned towards the Mutable Instruments Beads (introduced at 2:30). I’ve had Beads a long time. It was one of my first modules, bought on a whim when I saw they were in stock one day. Beads can be many things from delicate to bombastic, and with this patch I wanted subtle, and Beads excels at being subtle. Like all granular processors, finding a nice sweet spot (or range) can be a challenge, but the controls are intuitive and once you find that range, Beads can produce wonders to behold. With slight modulation from Tides to Size, along with use of the attenurandomizer circuit to Time, and I had a beautiful spray of shimmering grains to follow in the wake of the E370 and Panharmonium waves. But even with this beautiful flow of waves I wanted something more. Something to use as juxtaposition. Something with more edge.

One module that I’ve criminally underused is the Frap Tools Brenso. I’ve certainly used it before, but it’s daunting, and I haven’t really put much brain power towards learning it, so I’ve tended to use its standard shaped outputs, while ignoring the gobs of waveshaping and wavefolding on the right side of the module. It’s a shame, really, but I thought that this day would be a good day to start exploring the extensive tonal options on the panel. I decided to start simple, using Sapel’s two smooth fluctuating random signals to slowly and lightly modulate both the waveshaper and wavefolder. This created an almost crackling electricity sound at times. It sputtered. It growled. It was an uneasy signal, fraught with fear while trying to exert its independence. I ran the Final output from Brenso through CUNSA, mixed with noise like the E370 waves, for some light filtering to attenuate some of the most egregious frequencies. The last time I made a patch like this I used a sequencer and pure sine waves for the epic sub bass line. It was way too loud, even if it was intentional, and repetitive. It was also pitched far too low. This time around I decided to use the same module to create the bass line, but rather than use a sequence, I used the Doboz T12 in Touch Keyboard mode and manually played the part. I wanted to time the note changes by feel rather than a clock. It’s still too loud, and still probably too low in pitch (some lessons are harder to learn than others), especially as I go up in register, but placing this very uneasy and slightly dirty wave in contrast to the smooth waves of the E370 and Co was a nice touch. Were I to record this patch again, I would definitely do a better job of controlling the level of this voice. I think the recording still sounds great, but I was certainly a bit overzealous with the volume of this voice.

For reverb I used my trusty Walrus Audio Slöer in Light mode for a choral sounding octave up shimmer. This reverb really has become my primary reverb. I only move away from it once it proves itself to not be the best tool for the job.

Improvised and recorded in one take on iPad in AUM via the Expert Sleepers ES-9.

Modules Used:
Addac System Addac508 Swell Physics
Addac System Addac814 6×6 Stereo Matrix Mixer
Synthesis Technology E370
Nonlinearcircuits Divide & Conquer
Nonlinearcircuits Frisson
Atomosynth Transmon
Intellijel Amps
Intellijel Quad VCA
Olivia Artz Modular Time Machine
Frap Tools Sapel
Frap Tools Brenso
Frap Tools CUNSA
Frap Tools 333
Frap Tools Falistri
Doboz T12
Rossum Electro-Music Panharmonium
Vostok Instruments Asset
Mutable Instruments Beads
Mutable Instruments Tides v2
ST Modular SVCA
Knob Farm Ferry

Outboard Gear Used:
Walrus Audio Slöer
Noisy Fruits Lab Lemon
Echofix EF-X2 (no idea why this is no longer on their website)

  1. Technically I had my iPad, which, from my Jamuary experience, is more than enough music making machine, but I simply wasn’t inspired by anything on it at the time. ↩︎
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Bonus Track – Colored Strings Rev 1

I didn’t set out to re-record my latest patch the other day. I was set on using some other sample set in some other way. But there were a few things about my last recording that bothered me a little. I was getting too many pitches that were too high; well outside the zone of what “Low Strings” should be. There were points when way too many colors were being shouted at listeners. The delay was a bit too much. And I wanted to streamline the patch a bit.

I won’t go too in depth on the patch, you can read about the details here, but I did make a few changes that improved the recording substantially….

The most major change I made was to eliminate the Qu-Bit Electronix Nautilus, and use the pair of Echofix EF-X2 tape delays on the string samples. This helped to both fill out the space, while simultaneously cutting away excess in the overall soundstage. Rather than simply repeating notes and phrases, the tape delays lengthened and widened them.

The Panharmonium (introduced at ~2:40) was pitched down an octave, which helped lend some depth. More voices were added, and it was set to analyze a wider spectrum. The Panharmonium, along with the Walrus Audio Slöer (which was also set to pitch an octave down), really added weight to the entire recording. I removed a delay from the Panharmonium’s signal path (previously the tape delays), and allowed it to sing only through the reverb, which was a substantial improvement.

No changes were made to the Dradd(s).

No changes were made to Plaits-does-Robot-Speak except sending it far fewer gates.

Modules Used:
Nonlinearcircuits The Hypster
Nonlinearcircuits Lets Get Fenestrated
Nonlinearcircuits Stochaos
Nonlinearcircuits Triple Sloth
Vostok Instruments Asset
Expert Sleepers Disting NT
Addac System Addac814 6×6 Stereo Matrix Mixer
Rossum Electro-Music Panharmonium
Pladask Elektrisk Dradd(s)
Mutable Instruments Marbles
Mutabke Instruments Plaits
Mutable Instruments Beads
Knob Farm Ferry
ST Modular SVCA
Intellijel Quad VCA

Outboard Gear Used:
Echofix EF-X2
Walrus Audio Slöer
Noisy Fruits Lab Lemon

Improvised and recorded in one take on iPad in AUM via the Expert Sleepers ES-9.

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Made Noise – Sketch 7 (A Multimod Experiment)

I’ve had a full Make Noise synth for a while. In fact, I had far more Make Noise modules than I had space for, and with the recent release of Multimod, their new modulation tool, I decided to spring for a second 4-Zone CV Bus Case to avoid having to constantly rearrange the case from patch to patch. Multimod is an interesting tool. Billed as an eight output buffered multiple with several tricks up its sleeve, it presents a new method of spreading modulation signals around a case. It uses phasing, time, and speed manipulation in order to conjure this newfound magic. Fugue-like sequences can be created, as can wild modulation schemes, and many other things besides, all created from a single input signal. Being a Make Noise fan, I ordered one knowing only that it was a modulation source. If Make Noise has a gap in their lineup, it’s modulation sources. Once I saw the initial demo videos by Sarah Belle Reid and Red Means Recording, I ordered a second.

Although upon receiving them I used the new Multimods briefly to get an idea of how they worked, I hadn’t yet delved into what they can really do. I roughly recreated a couple of patches found in the videos, such as sending a sequence to several oscillators, and even trying it as a multitap, pitch shifting delay, but these were surface level primers, not any sort of real exploration. Being that Multimod presents a very new way of sending modulation around a synth, I was unsure how I might want to use them. My initial thought in ordering two was to use one for CV manipulation, and the second as an audio processor. I’ll certainly do more of that in the future, but I wanted to see if I couldn’t tackle an issue I noticed right away.

One of the highlights of the video demonstrations were the creation of fugue-like sequences, where many oscillators would receive the same sequence, but at different speeds or phased in time in interesting ways. But I also noticed immediately that although the sequence pitch data was spread around, there wasn’t a good way of spreading around an accompanying gate sequence for articulation. Some attempts at remedying this conundrum that I’ve seen involve using a separate gate sequencer, or even just a clock. And while deriving pitch and gate sequences independently is a particular strength of eurorack, that method seemed haphazard and insufficient for this application. I wanted more. I wanted the entire sequence at all of the outputs regardless of the speed or phase. So I thought about it, and suddenly a potential answer came to mind. Use one Multimod for processing the pitch sequence, and the other for processing the gate sequence. But there was still the problem of movement. I needed to move the knobs the exact same amount at the exact same time in order for the outputs on both modules to follow. How would I modulate them so that they were always doing the same thing at the same time and the gate sequences were following their pitch CV counterparts?

The CV Bus.

Although a Maths channel two or three could be used as an offset in the same way, I decided to use the CV outputs of the Noisy Fruits Lab Lemon, a very excellent standalone CV/MIDI controller, to manually control Multimod’s Time and Spread controls. My goals here were simple: to use two Multimod’s to control a single René CV and gate sequence, with the outputs on both being in sync with one another. If Multimod were an all analog module, I think this experiment would likely be dead in the water. I’m not convinced that parts and control tolerances would be close enough such that they would remain identical through modulation. But since Multimod is all digital, I surmised that so long as all of the Init settings were the same on both, they should (very theoretically) react the same to identical control voltage received at the same time.

To start, I copied a x2 clock from Tempi to both Multimod Tempo inputs, with a second /16 clock to both Reset inputs. This ensured that the clocks of both units would always be in sync. I then patched René’s X CV channel to the first Multimod input, and the X Gate output to the second Multimod input. The Init setting on both Multimods were simple: Phase at full CCW, Spread at Noon, with the Spread CV attenuverter at full CW, and Time at full CCW. With these settings, things worked just as they should: a single CV and gate sequence from all eight outputs happening at precisely the same time. So far, so good. I then patched the Lemon fader CV outputs to the CV Bus, and then to both the Time and Spread CV inputs on both Multimods.1 A single CV source should (again, theoretically) modulate both units identically such that as the CV sequence speeds up (or slows down), the gate sequence simultaneously does the same, and corresponding outputs on each Multimod should remain in sync.

For the oscillators I chose the Spectraphon.2 The first Multimod output one was patched to Oscillator A, with Output four patched to Oscillator B. The mixed outputs of each side of Spectraphon were then patched to QMMG inputs one and two. Outputs one and four of the second Multimod were patched to QMMG’s CV inputs, with both QMMG channels in LPG mode (though it sounded cool in LPF mode too). With identical modulation going to both the Time and Spread CV inputs of both Multimods at the same time, the CV and Gate sequence outputs should (theoretically) also be in sync with changes. The CV sequence from output one on the first Multimod should match the gate sequence from output one on the second Multimod. Ditto with the other outputs.

To be honest, I’m not sure if the patch worked like it should have in theory. What I mean to say is that the result is ultra-cool whether theory was borne out in practice or not. Things sound correct with the resulting sequence from Multimods output four, the output that is affected least by changes to Time and Spread. But I can’t really tell if the pitch and gate sequences from Multimods output one, the output affected most by changes to Time and Spread, is synced in the same way. The sequence is moving pretty fast. Hearing individual triggers can be tough at super high speeds, especially when slamming triggers into vactrols, like those in QMMG. Not only is there inherent bleed, but the fall response is such that you can’t always hear individually triggered notes if they’re in quick succession. DXG would likely have been a better candidate for testing the precision of the altered sequence because each trigger is annunciated clearly in a way that isn’t possible with vactrols. That said, I’m a huge fan of vactrol bleed. It can be a beautiful effect when used with intention, and although I wasn’t looking for any particular sound with this patch, vactrol bleed certainly showed off its character in this test recording.

This diagram is missing the clock and reset to the Multimods.

The QMMG outputs were sent to X-Pan, with the Channel four sequence mixed in the middle, while the Channel one sequence was slowly panned left to right and back again through the stereo field by a cycling Maths triangle function. The stereo output of X-Pan was sent to Mimeophon for some finishing with beautiful repeats and Halo.

Modules Used:
Tempi
René Mk2
Multimod
Maths
Spectraphon
QMMG
X-Pan
Mimeophon
Wogglebug

Outboard Gear Used:
Noisy Fruits Lab Lemon

Improvised and recorded in one take on iPad in AUM via the Expert Sleepers ES-9.

  1. As mentioned previously, the same thing can be accomplished with any offset generator like Maths or ChnSvr. ↩︎
  2. Seriously, Make Noise: Spectraphon is awesome, and I’ve never even explored it beyond SAO mode with the default Spectra. ↩︎
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