Despite having to hazard snowy conditions doing afternoon obligations, I finally had a bit of time today to patch as the sun was beginning to set on what is about to be a very cold night. Like, for real. It’s gonna be cold as balls.1
I didn’t have an idea ready to go for today, so resorted to a couple of patches that I’ve done variations of in the past and wanted to further explore. I finally used Just Friends as a six part oscillator, with a lightly modulated Nonlinearcircuits The Hypster chaotically controlling their levels in six VCAs, while also modulating Just Friends’ Shape to get subtle timbre shifts. I didn’t seek a particular harmonic relationship between the different oscillators, but I turned Intone clockwise from noon until I got something that sounded a little dark but still pleasant.
Once these waves were level modulated and mixed to stereo in an Intellijel Amps, with odd Identity outputs on the left channel and even ones on the right, the mix was sent to the Olivia Artz Modular Time Machine for some delay before being sent to the output mixer and some reverb. I also sent a passthrough of this output to the Dradd(s) for some granular synthesis in Tape mode. I initially wanted it in an octave up mode, but between the high pitched bleeps, that were further pitched up in their own delay and granular-esque process, there was too much going on in that higher frequency range and it became too much to deal with. In lieu, I went with what amounts to using a tape machine that stutters at half speed. The effect here isn’t dramatic, but it does add a lot of movement in the stereo field which is really interesting.
The second voice was a simple triangle wave from a Falistri, using the other generator as its envelope and trigger source in the Rabid Elephant Natural Gate. The EOC output also triggered Sapel, which supplied both a new fall time for the envelope, as well as pitch for the oscillator, varying both note pitch and length. Although this sub-patch worked as it should, it was weirdly patched. It could have been great simplified without any penalty whatsoever. The inefficiency is due to it being what was left from other ideas. Rather than re-patching, I recycled what was already going on. I initially combined both generators’ bipolar outputs in Falistri’s four quadrant multiplier for some ring modulated tones, but ultimately opted for a sparkly sound over the marimba sound. The output from Natural Gate was sent to the Holocene Electronics Non-Linear Memory Machine for some delay and buffer freezing, which created some really cool effects, especially the aliasing on the pitched up notes. I wanted to devise a way to scan the buffer only while it was frozen, but couldn’t quite figure out how to do that with the current patch and gating technique. It definitely stumped me. I’ve done a recent patch where I was able to scan the buffer only when it was frozen, but it used an entirely different triggering mechanism and today I didn’t have there wherewithal to work together an algorithm to get it done. That said, the effect it does create is very cool. Almost Data Bender-like, which appeals to me.
I ran into a dreaded problem while recording today’s patch. It doesn’t occur often, only a handful of times that I can remember, but it is a problems channel bleed/crosstalk in my mixer. It can be clearly heard for at least the first two minutes and 20 seconds, and intermittently throughout the recording. It only happens under circumstances like today, with much lower pitched audio in one input, and much higher pitched audio in some other channel. Think sparkles. You know, kind of like in today’s patch. It’s really annoying, even if I don’t notice it in most circumstances. Fortunately the builder is super-responsive, and we’ll see if he has a fix or mitigation for it.
Modules Used:
Mannequins Just Friends
Nonlinearcircuits The Hypster
Nonlinearcircuits De-Escalate
CuteLab Missed Opportunities
Intellijel Amps
Olivia Artz Modular Time Machine
Frap Tools Falistri
Frap Tools Sapel
Rabit Elephant Natural Gate
Holocene Electronics Non-Linear Memory Machine
AI Synthesis 018 Stereo Matrix Mixer
Knob Farm Ferry
ST Modular SVCA
Outboard Gear Used:
Walrus Audio Slöer
Performed and recorded in 1 take in AUM on iPad via the Expert Sleepers ES-9.
- In America, at least for my generation where I grew up (South Florida), “as balls” is a popular unit of measurement. You can use it similarly to “as fuck”, although “as balls” isn’t quite as flexible. It works, however, under many circumstances. Hot as balls. Cold as balls. Busy as balls. Heavy as balls. Far as balls. It can also sometimes be used in a slightly different form as an adjective. (E.g., balls cold, balls hot). ↩︎