Category: Gates

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A Polyphonic Experiment

During one Jamuary patch, I had the pleasure of using the Alexandernaut Fugue Machine Midi sequencer extraordinaire. I enjoyed it so much that I sought a MIDI > CV converter so that I could bring that particular brand of magic into my synth. Sequencing is easily the most challenging part of eurorack for me. I’m quickly learning that, at least in the immediate term, “battleship” sequencers and me don’t work well together. The options are oftentimes overwhelming and programming them can be a constant exercise in frustration. When you’re trying to play a polyphonic patch, these frustrations compound as the patch gets more and more complex. Of the large sequencers I’ve used René v2 is easily my favorite. I find it to be the most intuitive sequencer I’ve used. The sequencer in the Doboz T12 is also easy to catch on, and the Verbos Voltage Multistage is ultra-simple. But I’ve done nothing but get my teeth kicked in by some of my larger sequencers. Frap Tools USTA, Oxi One, and 4ms Catalyst Sequencer in particular. Perhaps it’s the lack of effort with learning them, or that I simply quit on them too quickly, but nothing kills a moment like manual digging in the midst of a patch. Fugue Machine, even if it’s walled in its own very small box, is but one of many tools that make sequencing much less of a chore, and can help spark the creative drive to explore more advanced sequencing. Fortunately, there are good ways of leveraging MIDI tools in Eurorack.

I searched for a couple of weeks for my ideal MIDI > CV converter. My main consideration was for sequencing polyphonic patches, so it needed to have at least four channels of pitch CV, gates, and velocity. There are several options. One of the more compelling options is the Der Mann Mitt Der Maschine DROID. It’s a CV generating and processing powerhouse that can do almost anything that can be done with CV, including MIDI > CV conversion. I even have a DROID, and it has a killer feature set. If you can program it. It turns out that I can program DROID. It’s not terribly hard, even if I still do it by hand rather than using the GUI tool to create patches. But DROID would take more space, and would only be useful in this capacity, needing all eight CV outputs for pitch and velocity CV. So I kept searching, and finally settled on the relatively new Befaco MIDI Thing V2. I already have and use the Befaco CV Thing CV > MIDI converter and find it good at its job, even if the screen is not fit for middle-aged eyes. It’s only 6hp, and can sit right next to the CV Thing.

One of the MIDI Thing’s features is that it has 12 outputs. Exactly enough for four voices worth of outputs, and what’s more is that the exact configuration for my initial intentions with MIDI > CV conversion is already saved as a preset, or Pre-Def in Befaco-speak, for quick and easy input and output configuration. I simply set the MIDI Thing to “Predef 2: Multi Timbric” in the Global Menu and it automatically set the incoming MIDI channels to 1-4 and preconfigured the outputs. Pretty slick. Since I was already in for a lot of patching, I opted to forego using the velocity outputs. That wasn’t a step I was terribly interested in today. I wanted pitch CV and gates to trigger envelopes, and by golly that’s what I got after spending less than one minute in the MIDI Thing configuration screen.1

Once I had my MIDI routed in the AUM MIDI Matrix, and properly set MIDI ”Predef-ed” in the MIDI Thing, I fired up Fugue Machine. Since I was testing the functionality of the MIDI Thing and how that would work with a modular system, I wasn’t overly worried with an elaborate, or even original, sequence, and just used one of the included presets. Although I had played with the sequence length and transposition while running through the patch before recording it (which was all supremely cool), I simply forgot when I improvised the recording. I was more preoccupied with timing each channel, the levels of each oscillator, and crossfading the ending. As a result, this recording is a repetitive sequence. It doesn’t repeat exactly because of the modulation, but there’s no variation in anything other than oscillator timbre.

For oscillators I chose the always excellent Synthesis Technology E370, with a User-Loaded Wavetable titled NOV that was left from a previous owner. Thanks, dude. It’s pretty outstanding. Tuning each oscillator to unison (in Morph X/Y mode), I ran each of the pitch outputs from the MIDI Thing to the v/oct inputs. I followed that up by using the eight outputs of the Nonlinearcircuits Frisson to modulate both the X and Y parameters of each wavetable for all four oscillators. This constant timbre changing caused by the modulation also causes dramatic volume changes as waves morph in and out of more and less prominent waveforms in the table. I initially wanted something glitchy, and turned Glitch on HIGH with Interpolation Off for each of the four channels, and while it was cool, it didn’t fit at all in with the overall tenor of the sequence itself. The tonality is too “positive”, being in the key of A Lydian, and the sequence too upbeat. I suspect it would work fantastically on slower, more drone-ish material.

After I routed the pitch CV and modulation, I ran the gates to two Frap Tools Falistris for some enveloping. In addition to being enveloped at the Control inputs, three of the four gate outputs were also multed to the Hit input on one of two Rabid Elephant Natural Gates to provide some beautiful pinging of these ever-changing tones coming from the E370. All four channels were processed through Natural Gate, but only three were pinged. The bass note was only enveloped. In this process I made a grievous oversight. While Falistri is a perfectly good tool for this job, particularly the pluckier notes, more defined shaping with a ADSR would have really served the slower voices well. It so happens that I have perhaps the most advanced ADSR generator in Eurorack, but I didn’t even think to use it, and when I did, I was way too deep in the patch to re-patch and reconfigure the envelopes, so I let it go.

To be honest, I was expecting hurdles to cross, but I was surprised when it all just worked. CV did what it’s supposed to do. Gates did what they were supposed to do. Everything was perfectly in tune and on time.

Once the notes were created in their respective Natural Gate, all four outputs went to the ST Modular Sum Mix & Pan. While three of the four channels were panned to mono, the fastest moving and highest pitched voice was being slowly panned in the stereo field. The stereo output was then routed to the Addac814 6×6 Stereo Matrix Mixer, and sent to the Venus Instruments Veno-Echo. To ensure a solid clock for the delay, I used the now-defunct (or at least unavailable in the United States according to the App Store – which would seem weird) CoVariant Clock AUv3 plugin, which converted the MIDI clock in AUM to CV and sent it out an ES-9 output as an analog clock. I’ve never really sought to use a MIDI clock as the master clock outside of the iPad. I’ve certainly never used it as the master clock in a Eurorack patch. But this clock was flawless, likely to due CV being generated directly at the source, minimizing switches and pass-thru cabling or USB MIDI jitter. Hopefully CoVariant remains a working plugin in iOS for a while to come as there are currently no other direct MIDI > CV clock converters on the iPad. Veno-Echo was set at x2 on both sides with similar feedback just shy of noon. I also added a smidge of drive in order to enhance the sample reduction I put in the feedback loop. Veno-Echo, with its cross-feedback and width parameter, really can create an enormous stereo field

And so can the Dradd(s). It’s no secret I’m absolutely smitten by dual Dradd(s). Despite this infatuation, my first instinct was to patch in Beads, but Beads just didn’t really have what I was looking for today. At least I couldn’t find it. But the Dradd(s) did. In fact, I had to decide between two modes which both had something very cool to offer. I ultimately chose the Tape mode because the octave up was too much to resist. I slowly started to fade out the oscillators once the Dradd(s) were at full volume, and allowed its magic to guide the rest of the recording, fading out in a glorious wash of the Rain algorithm on the Walrus Audio Slöer.

Modules Used:
Befaco MIDI Thing V2
Synthesis Technology E370
Frap Tools Falistri
Frap Tools Sapel
Rabid Elephant Natural Gate
Nonlinearcircuits Frisson
ST Modular Sum Mix & Pan
ST Modular SVCA
Addac Systems Addac814 6×6 Stereo Matrix Mixer
Venus Instruments Veno-Echo
Pladask Elektrisk Dradd(s)
Knob Farm Ferry

Outboard Gear Used:
Walrus Audio Slöer

Plugins Used:
Alexandernaut Fugue Machine
CoVariant by Alan Clifton

  1. It should be noted that the MIDI Thing also produced velocity CV, I just didn’t use it. ↩︎
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Made Noise – Sketch 5

When I finished Jamuary I was resigned to taking time off before patching again. Jamuary was exhausting, and I’m tired. I wasn’t sure how long it might be before I patched again. It turns out the answer was “immediately.” By 10pm on February 1st I was bored, and so decided to put something together on the iPad for fun. I had no intention to record it. I was just playing around with a few things to see how they work. The same thing happened on the 2nd. I started to watch a YouTube video, and decided that I’d rather just do a patch on the synth that was sitting not eight feet from me than watch someone else do one. And so I did.

I knew from the start I wanted it to be in a minimalist vein. Maybe not the dictionary definition of Minimalism as a musical discipline, but still something with not much going on. You know; minimalist.

The patch started with Tempi. The base tempo was ~60bpm:

  • Channel 1 (x1) > Mimeophon
  • Channel 2 (x1) > René X Clock
  • Channel 3 (x2) > René Y Clock
  • Channel 5 (/5) > René X Mod
  • Channel 6 (/7) > René Y Mod

René received the clocks and Mod gates from Tempi on both the X and Y channels. Mod on both channels was set to Start/Stop on the Fun page. When the gate is low at their respective Mod inputs, the sequence moves forward, when it’s high, it stops. Since all four clocks are at different times, there is no continuous repeating pattern, each channel starting and stopping every bar and change. Gates and Access were adjusted for both channels throughout the performance to guard against becoming stagnant. René controlled all four voices in the patch, using just two oscillators, Spectraphon and STO. As far as I know, the scale is in C Lydian, but it sounds like I may have neglected to make the key change between C Major and C Lydian in one (or more 😬) of the channels. It doesn’t happen often, but we get a hint of dissonance on occasion.

The X Channel sent pitch CV to Spectraphon’s A side, and the trigger from the X Gate output to DXG’s Channel 1 Strike input. The Y channel was routed similarly to Spectraphon’s B side and DXG’s Channel 2 respectively. These two oscillators form the first voice, comprised of fairly sparse pings in the DXG. The mixed outputs from Spectraphon A and B were sent to DXG in a way to remain discrete left and right with their separate gate patterns. When you plug something into the Left input on any DXG channel, it normalizes to the Right channel and becomes a mono signal at the output. In order for the Left (mono) input to remain in the left channel only, a dummy cable should be plugged into the Right input. This dummy cable breaks the normalization, and will send audio at the Left channel input to only the Left channel at the output. I plugged Spectraphon’s A side Mix output into DXG’s Left input on Channel 1, along with a dummy cable in the Right input. Spectraphon’s B side Mix output went to DXG’s Right input on Channel 2. This kept the A side pings on the left side of the stereo field, and the B side pings on the right for a delightfully stereo experience of pings and echoes.

Both sides of Spectraphon were tuned to C one octave apart. Spectraphon was modulated in three places, but only moderately. The A Side Focus and Slide were modulated by a Maths envelope and Wogglebug’s Stepped outputs respectively. The B Side Slide was modulated by the Maths OR output. The slight modulation helped to have subtle timbre changes on the pinged notes, some brighter and others darker. Both sides also FM’d each other slightly. The FM Bus Index for both channels were around 8:30 on the knobs. There’s some FM, but not very much at all. Just enough to give notes a kind of bounciness once struck in the LPG. One really nice feature of the Spectraphon’s FM capability is that its sine waves always stay pure in order to avoid the problems associated with cross-modulating oscillators. No matter how much one might FM Side A, its sine wave can still modulate the B side with a clean sine wave rather than one that is FM’d. Most oscillators, once they become carriers, are useless as modulators. Not so with Spectraphon where both oscillators can be both modulator and carrier oscillators at the same time. Very nifty.

René’s Cartesian Channel performed an identical role with STO and QMMG as the X and Y channels with Spectraphon and DXG. I wanted something well above the predominant audio register in the patch. High pitched tings and drips, in the same manner as the Spectraphon pings, only even more sparse. These were designed to be ornamental notes, not the star. The Cartesian Channel CV output sent pitch CV to STO’s v/oct input, and its trigger output went to Channel 2 of QMMG for similar pinging with the Cartesian trigger. The STO’s sine output was used to keep the notes with as soft a texture as I could with pings. One interesting difference between using the QMMG and DXG as a LPG is that QMMG’s decay, at least my QMMG’s decay,1 is noticeably longer on higher pitched notes than the DXG when pinged with a trigger. In the DXG, higher pitched notes are sometimes just barely blips. This sort of behavior is generally expected with just about every LPG because of how they filter the upper harmonics. But through the QMMG, those high notes are seemingly longer. It’s certainly a result of the those juicy QMMG vactrols, and a good argument for keeping vactrol LPGs around, cadmium eaters be damned. These pings in the QMMG were mixed in with the Spectraphon A and B side pings via the Aux input in the DXG.

After I worked up the pinging I was after, I knew I wanted something more, but it had to be complementary and juxtapose itself against the very delicate pings. I was in a stream of consciousness-like trance when building this patch, and so even though I’ve documented all of the final patch connections for the entire patch, I’m not exactly sure what thought process led me to how I was going to fill in the space in a graceful way. A bit of experimentation, some clever routing, and tinkering seemed to be the answer.

I first decided I wanted to use QPAS. I’m not sure how I decided on it being heavy filtering, but I knew I needed the voice to be subtle so as not to overtake light pinging happening in the stereo field. I sent Spectraphon’s A side Sine wave to the L input on QPAS, and the B side Sub output to QPAS’s Right input. The trick was to have both oscillators filtered by QPAS, yet remain separate in the outputs. QPAS essentially became a dual mono filter with shared controls.2 The frequency knob on QPAS, for most of the performance, was moderately low, around 10 o’clock on the knob, though it was being modulated by an unsync’d Wogglebug’s Smooth output, while both Radiate knobs were being modulated by the Woggle output.

QPAS’ Left and Right outputs would become completely separate voices, unfettered by any gating or enveloping, being tamed and shaped only by the filter cutoff(s) and resonance(s) before going straight to the output. Because these outputs weren’t being gated or enveloped, they were always present, moving along with their respective pitch sequences from René, Spectraphon’s A side following the X Channel, and the B side following the Y channel. I remember really liking the sound of the voices and the feel they added, but struggled to find a solution to these sequences droning along overtaking the pings. The answer was simple: only send as much volume to QPAS’ inputs as is absolutely necessary, and allow the resonance to do some of the lifting. It’s a delicate balance between not being audible and drowning out everything else; the output needed to be always present, but delicate enough to not use all of the space in the sonic field.

The Right Low Pass and Smile Pass outputs went straight to X-Pan Channel 2 A and B inputs where they were crossfaded and slowly panned across the stereo field (by the same cycling envelope). This melody carried a mostly present sequence from the Y channel, though quite muffled by the filter and constantly swirling with the crossfading, and smoothed out with resonance, then copious amounts of Mimeophon with Halo. From the time it was introduced, this Y melody is omnipresent, filtered to various degrees, and allowed to drift through the stereo field.

The Left outputs is where the routing became a bit of voodoo. I know what connections led to this sound, but I’m not sure I understand the mechanisms that led to the result. It was a sine wave playing a sequence heavily filtered by QPAS,3 and then very heavily filtered again by QMMG. The Left Low Pass and Smile Pass outputs were routed first to QMMG channels 3 and 4. I tried all four modes, but only the Low Pass mode gave me the specter of a ghost lightly singing in the background, occasionally wavering and trembling as the pitch of the input, slowly moving filter cutoff, and resonance interacted with one another. When the voice was introduced, the filter on QMMG was completely closed, only being modulated by a cycling Maths envelope. Resonance started at about 8:30 on each knob. I slowly added more resonance, then more again, before also slowly raising the cutoff. By the time I hit stop on the recording, both the cutoff and resonance for both channels were at about 1 o’clock on the knobs. It sounds as if it’s a feedback patch, though, outside of the copious amounts of resonance in the QPAS and QMMG signal paths, tamed by the controlled input into QPAS, there is no feedback patching.4 These two outputs from QMMG were crossfaded in X-Pan, so that the sound constantly drifted and resonated in interesting ways. This led to wavering cries that occasionally had a smidge of growl enough to resonate through the Mimeophon in an incredibly beautiful way.

This voice, although the most subtle and delicate, as well as the least present, is by far my favorite part of this patch. It brings the patch to life. It’s one of the coolest sounds I’ve gotten from any patch. When I first heard that sound I stood tall and stared straight at the QMMG as if to ask it to teach me its wizardry. It was the first time I’ve looked at the QMMG as an instrument; as something more than a set VCAs, LPGs, and filters, with a mix output.

All four voices were mixed in the X-Pan, and sent to the Mimeophon for some delay-ification and Halo, the soft noise of the Mimeophon cushioning the edges in subtle ways.

Like so many patches I made during Jamuary, this patch is an open testament to a cohesive Make Noise system being a fluid instrument. It’s an absolute pleasure to play.

One small issue I had, which reinforces my desire for a couple of VCAs than can boost levels before going to the ES-9, was that the recording was ultra-quiet. The pings are very quiet, which necessitated a low volume for everything else in the patch. I needed to add a full 12.5dB in post in order to bring my peaks up to ~ -12dB in AUM.

Modules Used:
Tempi
René Mk2
Spectraphon
STO
QPAS
QMMG
DXG
X-Pan
Maths
Function
Wogglebug
Mimeophon

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

  1. Each QMMG will have a different response because of the natural variability of vactrols. Make Noise does a great job of matching vactrols in an individual unit as closely as possible, but there are (sometimes noticeable) differences in the decay length between different units. This is the same for all vactrol-based LPGs. ↩︎
  2. Definitely a first time using QPAS in this way. ↩︎
  3. Filtering a sine wave is about as pedestrian a job as a filter can do. It’s normally unremarkable as filters thrive on upper harmonics. ↩︎
  4. If the input level was much louder, I’m confident the resonance, particularly in QMMG, would have been screaming. Both filters have a very pronounced resonance that can run away quickly. ↩︎
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Jamuary 2530

I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do today. I initially settled on a simple piano into an occasionally reversed delay patch, but wanted more than this very Rings-into-Clouds-like aesthetic. If I wanted that today, I’d just use Rings-into-Beads. But there’s a new module I recently got, and it was kinda staring at me wide-eyed, asking “Can you play with me now?”, akin to a small boy begging his busy father for just a few minutes of time. Or something like that. Whatever.

I was set on buying the new Cutlasses Gloop the very first time I saw it. Gloop is a four head tape looper. Each head can be played simultaneously, in either direction at various speeds. Each head can play the entire loop or any snippet down to small grains. It’s a fantastic looper on paper. I received it a couple of weeks ago, but just hadn’t gotten around to playing it yet. Once I realized that I wanted to use Gloop today, the patch pivoted and started to take on a life of its own. But I made the unfortunate decision to still incorporate the whole reverse delay and Beads thing. It’s not that it sounds bad. It doesn’t. It sounds really nice, actually. But it doesn’t fit with the looper direction very well, and I didn’t have the courage to dump the work I’d already done. It added several unnecessary minutes to the recording, and because of a now fixed peculiarity in how the module operates,1 I flubbed the performance, and had to add more unnecessary time to the recording in order to get the settings right and get to looping. That doesn’t happen until over nine minutes into the recording. Such is Jamuary.

The patch isn’t terribly difficult, even if there’s a lot of patch cables. I patched four cycling functions from the Addac506 to Numberwang, adjusted the rise and fall range to something that produced a nice cadence of gates in the Disting NT. The same four functions went to the Vostok Instruments Asset where I attenuated and offset all four channels into specific ranges of notes so as not to overcrowd the sonic range by using attenuation only. These four signals were patched to the Disting NT CV inputs for the quantizer to voice everything in D minor.

The piano went to the stereo matrix mixer where it was sent to the Veno-Echo, Beads, and Gloop.

Veno-Echo provided the sumptuous delayed sounds, randomly triggered into reverse by End of Rise gate outs on the Addac506, via the CuteLab Missed Opportunities, with a low probability of allowing the gate through.

Beads was set to have medium length grains with a sharper envelope, the buffer being slowly scanned at one octave up. The Beads output was sent directly to the mixer for multitracking.

One unfortunate fact of looping more or less randomly generated parts is that you get what you get. Sometimes, like during my first run-through, you’re able to capture a really good loop. Something you can work with. But other times, you’re not left with much, and you kind of need to eat your own dog food and pretend it tastes great. Such is this recording, I think. It’s not offensive. Not by a long shot. But had this been a take for anything other than Jamuary, I would have re-done it (as well as jettisoned other parts). Looping can be inspiring when you have a good loop. But it can feel like work when you have to search around for good looping points.

I completely neglected to snap any pics of this patch, which is a shame. Next time. And I’ll definitely be revisiting Gloop very soon.

Modules Used:
Addac Systems Addac506 Stochastic Function Generator
Nonlinearcircuits Numberwang
Expert Sleepers Disting NT
Vostok Instruments Asset
AI Synthesis 018 Stereo Matrix Mixer
CuteLab Missed Opportunities
Venus Instruments Veno-Echo
Mutable Instruments Beads
Cutlasses Gloop
Knob Farm Ferry
ST Modular SVCA
Intellijel Quad VCA

Outboard Gear Used:
Walrus Audio Slöer

  1. This behavior has been fixed in the newest firmware, but I haven’t installed it yet. When you cleared a loop, all tape head settings would revert to the default. I didn’t realize it until I was in the midst of performing the patch. ↩︎
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Jamuary 2528

Long day at work so this will be a quick and dirty patch notes….

The Make Noise system has my back again.

QPAS pinging away. Sequenced and pinged by René. Smile Pass and Bandpass outputs both sent to X-Pan and crossfaded, although I don’t know there’s much difference between them in the output. Spectraphon supplied both ring modulated and FM tones. For FM tones, Spectraphon A is on left, Spectraphon B on right. They are tuned an octave apart. Both mixes enveloped by a Fall modulated Maths functions in DXG.

Both QPAS and Spectraphon had every CV input modulated by…something. Wogglebug, René, Maths, Tempi, Maths Functions, the OR and SUM outputs on Maths, and just about anything else I could find.

Everything mixed in DXG and sent to Mimeophon for some delay and a decent amount of Halo. Had a little too much fun using the 0-Coast Slope output to modulate Mimeophon’s uTime CV input.

Kick was created by the 0-Coast. A steady clock from Tempi triggered the Contour on the 0-Coast. The Contour output was attenuated and sent to the v/oct input to give the kick some punch. The kick is dry in the mix.

Modules Used:
René Mk2
Tempi
Spectraphon
ModDemix
Function
QPAS
Maths
Wogglebug
X-Pan
Mimeophon
0-Coast

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

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Jamuary 2527

When I set out to do today’s Jamuary patch I had initially planned on recreating, at least in spirit, a patch I did as a test for a travel synth during the summer. After setting up the piano portion of the patch, I changed my mind and decided against creating a sub bass sequence, or indeed using any distortion as I did in that patch. In part was because I was highly taken aback when, instead of plugging the piano output into the Qu-Bit Nautilus, as I did in that patch, I reached for the extremely lo-fi Bizarre Jezabel Quarté Mk2. The natural decay of the delay was plenty dirty in all the best of ways, and decided to go with it instead of introducing some other form of distortion. From there the patch went a very different direction. Rather than a sad yet hopeful tenor, this one is just sad.

For this patch I decided to use Stochaos as my gate producer for triggering the piano sounds, being fed by a chaotically controlled clock. I’m a fan of using chaos as a clock source. I’ve used multiple methods of using chaos to create off beat rhythms, from using Numberwang to running a chaos signal through Divide & Conquer, a clock divider than can use any signal as a clock input. Today I used, for the first time, the Nonlinearcircuits Let’s Get Fenestrated, a comparator NLC-style, fed by a heavily modulated The Hypster. This process created a perfectly ultra-wonky clock, which then fed Stochaos. Stochaos spat out four gates at the Disting NT inputs which triggered both the quantizer and the Poly Multisample player.

The audio was sent to the AI Synthesis 018 Stereo Matrix Mixer, and on to the Bizarre Jezabel Quarté Mk2 for some soul-crushingly beautiful repeats that seem to disintegrate as they decay away. I seriously contemplated just leaving the patch at that, adding in some reverb, and calling it a day, but I knew that I could add to it subtly and give it some more life. To give it some other textures to contemplate and heighten the overall mood of the piece without distracting too much from the piano and those beautiful repeats.

I started with the Qu-Bit Electronix Data Bender, but I knew I only wanted to use that sparingly and didn’t think it would add enough by itself, so opted also to send the piano notes to the Dradd(s) for some good old fashioned time stretching. This was perfect and even allowed me to use the Data Bender even more sparingly so as not to overwhelm the Piano with failure. I slowly controlled the Data Bender output in the ST Modular SVCA with a modulated LFO from the Frap Tools Falistri. To modulate the length of the LFO I used an attenuated and slightly offset Smooth Random output from Sapel into the Both CV input. An inverted copy of the LFO was sent to a second SVCA which very slightly lowered the volume of the Piano and its repeats while the Data Bender did the thing.

The Dradd(s) add tons of texture with their medium-to-short grains, re-creating the piano at a slow crawl, filling in space and adding a layer of intrigue. Like a splash in water, the Dradd(s) created a distorted view of what’s underneath: slivers of sound overlapping and rippling off each other in a beautiful chorus. I’m still infatuated with the dual Dradd(s). I’ve used lots of granular processors in Eurorack. Of the continuous processing type, those that don’t rely on pre-recording to a buffer, but instead have a continuous buffer and don’t require recording a certain bit of material to process, I have a very difficult time choosing between the Dradd(s) and the Mutable Instruments Beads. It seems like I can always find something fascinating. That I can always use it to find something beautiful inside of the audio itself.

Modules Used:
Nonlinearcircuits The Hypster
Nonlinearcircuits Let’s Get Fenestrated
Nonlinearcircuits Stochaos
Nonlinearcircuits De-Escalate
Expert Sleepers Disting NT
Bizarre Jezabel Quarté Mk2
Qu-Bit Electronix Data Bender
Pladask Elektrisk Dradd(s)
Frap Tools Falistri
Frap Tools Sapél
Vostok Instruments Asset
AI Synthesis 018 Stereo Matrix Mixer
ST Modular SVCA
Intellijel Quad VCA
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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Jamuary 2526

I love my Make Noise synth. No matter my mood, I can always count on my Make Noise box to provide for some serious fun. The instrument is simply sublime. It’s quick, intuitive, and a breeze to perform with. Tony and crew have really done a bang-up job not only designing each module, but in making sure they fit seamlessly together as a cohesive instrument. Of course there are some modules that I have strong opinions about, but rarely do those issues inhibit creativity.

Tonight’s patch was an improvised jam. It was a long day at work and I had just under two hours to get a patch together, work out the modulation, figure some flow for the performance, however meager, and record it. Two hours is about the least amount of time I can generally create a patch from scratch, though I’ve noticed throughout this Jamuary that I am getting faster, but with the Make Noise synth I figured I’d hit record before midnight. Today I had some time to spare.

The patch is pretty involved. Every sound except the kick drum, which is STO, was generated from Spectraphon. I used both sine waves from Spectraphon to ring modulate each other in my very cool orange LED ModDemix. One copy is sent to the L channel of DXG, the other the right channel (both with dummy cables in the unused channel to preserve the stereo field), each triggered in their respective Strike inputs by René’s X and Y channel. Both sides of Spectraphon received pitch CV from the X channel. This created a really cool stereo field with the molody’s rhythm jumping back and forth in your ear, constantly changing as I improvised on René.

The second voice is where it gets a bit complicated. It was made from Spectraphon’s B side Odd and Even outputs, triggered in QMMG by using René’s Cartesian channel gate. The B side Focus is sequenced by the Y channel, and Slide was sequenced by the Cartesian channel. Varying levels of Wogglebug’s Stepped output modulated the B side Partials, as well as the B side FM Bus Index. There’s a lot of movement in this voice, but it’s always harmonically related to the first voice. Partials flying around, FM being heavily modulated, both affecting the sound of different from each output.1 After being gated in QMMG. I sent a mix of the modulated Odd and Even signal to X-Pan to be panned back and forth in the stereo field.

Everything is mixed together in DXG and sent to Mimeophon for delay and a hint of Halo.

The kick is made using STO. A x1 gate from Tempi triggered Function which provided an envelope in X-Pan’s Aux input, I polarized Function’s negative output in Maths, in order to make it positive again, and used that to FM STO to give the kick a little more punch.

This patch was really fun to make and perform. I was shaking my skinny little ass all over the joint. As a kid from the 80s, that’s the measuring stick for a good time.

Modules Used:
René Mk2
Tempi
STO
QMMG
Spectraphon
ModDemix
Function
QPAS
Maths
Wogglebug
X-Pan
Mimeophon

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

  1. It occurred to me as I was writing this that I could have simply used the mixed output from Spectraphon rather than mixing them later. It would have also enabled me to not have to run the kick through the delay. ↩︎
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Jamuary 2523

I haven’t felt as bad as I did today for a long while. I even called in sick to work, which is something I don’t generally do. It was hard to get motivated for Jamuary today, but, as usual, once I finally mustered the energy to turn the synth on, the rest of the world kind of melted away for a short time, even if today wasn’t destined to be a fully from-scratch patch.

Today’s Jamuary patch is a re-work of yesterday’s patch. My first inclination was to simply swap the effects on the piano and Panharmonium and call it a day, but the result wasn’t at all what I had in mind, so decided on using different effects entirely.

The base of today’s patch was exactly the same as yesterday. The four outputs from the Addac506 were split to Numberwang and Let’s Splosh, which sent gates and CV respectively to the Disting NT, which quantized the CV and passed it to the Poly Multisample algorithm that spat out audio.

The audio, via the AI Synthesis 018 Stereo Matrix Mixer, was sent to the Venus Instruments Veno-Echo for some slow repeats that were occasionally triggered into reverse using spare gate outputs from Numberwang. Both the dry and repeated audio were sent to Panharmonium, set to an octave down. Panharmonium is a magical module. It can sometimes be hard to tame, but when you finally find that sweet spot in a given patch, it has the capacity like few other things to gracefully fill up space and create a floating bed of awesomeness. Panharmonium was sent to the Dradd(s) in Tape Mode, each side played 2x speed, one forward, the other in reverse, with just enough feedback to occasionally shimmer upwards another octave. I’ve been absolutely amazed with the sounds I’ve gotten with dual Dradd(s). Of the many GAS-induced purchases I’ve made in modular, a second Dradd is amongst the best of those decisions.

The Piano/Veno-Echo, Panharmonium, and Dradd(s) were all separately sent to the output mixer for some reverb in the always lovely Walrus Audio Slöer.

Modules Used:
Addac Systems Addac506 Stochastic Function Generator
Nonlinearcircuits Numberwang
Nonlinearcircuits Let’s Splosh
Nonlinearcircuits Divide & Conquer
Expert Sleepers Disting NT
Venus Instruments Veno-Echo
Rossum Electro-Music Panharmonium
Pladask Elektrisk Dradd(s)
Intellijel Amps
Frap Tools Falistri
Knob Farm Ferry
ST Modular SCVA

Outboard Gear Used:
Walrus Audio Slöer

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Jamuary 2522

Today was a much needed day off from work. After two long shifts in the cold, I was looking forward to taking my time while patching in my warm studio today. The last couple of days had been last minute jobs on the iPad, and I don’t like being rushed. The process was unsatisfying, and the outcome suffered. They’re not terrible sketches by any stretch, and absolutely gave me ideas for future use, but they just feel rickety and incomplete to me. Such is the nature of Jamuary.

As I was in the midst of discussion in a Discord earlier this afternoon, the conversation turned to the new 4ms MetaModule, a module capable of running VCV patches. A couple of others and I had chimed in voicing our preference for the also new Expert Sleepers Disting NT. I also mentioned that I needed to learn how to use the Disting NT, which set off a lightbulb moment. This is Jamuary, and I had planned to make a full modular patch today. I’d use this opportunity to learn better how to use the algorithm(s) which prompted the purchase in the first place, even if it can do so much more.

I have created a lot of patches over the last year that use the Disting Ex in Polyphonic Multisample mode. I love that mode, but the Disting Ex has a user interface only a mother could love. It has a lot of great features, but the screen is incredibly small which is tough on these almost-50 eyes, and the interface awkward. Each algorithm has a million options, and navigating to make changes is a hassle. So much so that I literally only ever used Disting Ex in Poly Multisample mode. The new NT promised a much bigger screen, a much friendlier interface, and that it could run several algorithms simultaneously. I wanted that superior interface, even if it couldn’t do anything more (which of course it can do a lot more). It’s totally possible to have a multi-voice patch complete with FX while only using output cables. It really is an incredible machine, but there is a learning curve. I wanted today to be about making my way up that curve, even if just a little bit.

I’ve only used the NT once. It was just before Christmas, and I had just received it. Between my brother and I, we were able to squeeze just a drop or two of juice from it (Day 2, Patch 2). I left frustrated, but not ready to give up on it, because that drop was sweet. But today was a bit different. Shortly before getting ready to patch, I watched an introductory video for the NT to see if I could find my bearings a bit, and learn better how to navigate it, and how to leverage using more than one algorithm at a time. After firing up the synth, I immediately starting digging through menus and setting up a simple patch, but with a twist. I would only run a quantizer into the Poly Multisample algorithm, but rather than a single gate and cv source, I would use four pairs of gates and CV, all to be quantized, and then sent via Aux busses inside the NT to the Poly Multisample which was set up to receive the quad set. Though programming wasn’t completely smooth, it went easy enough, and once I stumbled in the menus a couple of times, navigation eased, and programming came together exactly like I’d hoped without a hitch.

The patch started with four cycling functions from the Addac506 Stochastic Function Generator. The outputs were split and sent to both the Nonlinearcircuits Numberwang for gate generation, and Let’s Splosh for pitch CV. Four outputs from each went to Disting NT, with the CV being attenuated and offset with the Vostok Instruments Asset to varying degrees before going to the input pairs. Once the signals reached Disting, they were quantized into C minor, and passed on to the LABS Soft Piano sample library, before coming out of stereo outputs and directly into the AI 018 Stereo Matrix Mixer.

From the mixer, the Soft Piano audio was sent to the Holocene Electronics Non-Linear Memory Machine. Set at a medium slow delay time, the freeze section was gated and modulated by a cycling function from the Frap Tools Falistri. The End Of Cycle trigger turned the Freeze on and off, while a clock divided (/2) version of that trigger gated the function itself, which scanned the buffer for some granular-like sounds. The clock-divided trigger also gated an offset signal that switched the output to an octave up while the buffer was scanning. This part of the patch was tricky. I tried several different methods before I made a realization about the nature of the gate I was using to trigger freeze and scan the buffer. Because it was the End of Cycle output and the function had not yet started, it was already high, and on the first count in the clock divider. Once I started the cycle, the cycling function and resulting trigger, a simple /2 output of Divide & Conquer worked perfectly to keep the freeze function, scanning, and offset to the octave up in sync. The result is almost Data Bender-like in the best of ways.

In order to fill in some space between the sparse piano notes being played, I sent both the piano and NLMM to the Rossum Electro-Music Panharmonium, which went through the Venus Instruments Veno-Echo at about a 50/50 mix. I set unsync’d, medium-long delay times on each channel, and allowed it to bring some motion to Panharmonium before going to the output mixer.

Everything went through the always lovely Walrus Audio Slöer for some thickly modulated reverb.

Modules Used:
Addac Systems Addac506 Stochastic Function Generator
Nonlinearcircuits Numberwang
Nonlinearcircuits Let’s Splosh
Nonlinearcircuits Divide & Conquer
Vostok Instruments Asset
Expert Sleepers Disting NT
Holocene Electronics Non-Linear Memory Machine
Rossum Electro-Music Panharmonium
Venus Instruments Veno-Echo
Intellijel Amps
Frap Tools Falistri
Knob Farm Ferry
ST Modular SCVA

Outboard Gear Used:
Walrus Audio Slöer

Improvised and recorded in 1 take on iPad in AUM via the Expert Sleepers ES-9.

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Jamuary 2514

I set out today to experiment with exactly two things: a dynamic trigger patch technique suggested by none other than DivKid, and a new stereo wavefolder that I haven’t used nearly enough. It started off as a simple patch, that turned into a beast.

Dynamic triggers are interesting. Normally a trigger’s amplitude doesn’t matter. Most triggers simply cue other modules to do whatever it is they do. But some drum modules, filters, and LPGs thrive when fed with dynamic triggers because it allows individual hits to be different volumes, which brings an interesting dimension to LPG pings. There’s variety; a variance that adds character and drama.

The patch itself isn’t that difficult. The key is to both attenuate and offset noise, and use that in a VCA CV input. In a thread about Dynamic Triggers on Modwiggler, DivKid writes,

It’s also good to remember (for all of us, I know I need a reminder sometimes) that CV utilities are our friends. Offset and attenuation would get you a long way. So rather than fully random. Take a CV utility and use an offset of say 3V (roughly) and then mix in the noise but attenuated and you’ll have a series of values that are hovering and dancing around the offset. Musically and sort of “humanised” around that offset.

Although it sounded easy enough, I asked, on his Discord server, to elaborate, and he confirmed that the patch is as easy as I imagined it would be:

  • Trigger > VCA input
  • Offset/attenuated noise > VCA CV input

If you have a VCA with both level bias/offset and CV attenuators (like the Intellijel Amps, Quad VCA, or many others), simply patch the trigger to the input, set the offset to taste (3V, for example), and set the CV attenuator to taste. If you set it at around 1V, you’ll have triggers between 2-4V. The more attenuated the noise, the closer the triggers will be to the offset level. However you do it, it’s a dynamic treat.

I did this patch times four, using four copies of a Frap Tools Sapel trigger, each patched to the CuteLab Missed Opportunities for probability processing before going to the Intellijel Amps in order to be dynamically controlled by the offset and attenuated noise. Amps made this patch much easier because it has CV inputs that normalize, which means I only needed to use a single patch cable to feed all four channels doing trigger processing.1

These now dynamic triggers pinged four Rabid Elephant Natural Gates, which does register dynamic triggers, where I used four Frap Tools Falistri generators as oscillators before being mixed and sent to the Venus Instruments Veno-Echo.2 There are a lot of patch cables, with plenty of mults and Stackcables throughout. Triggers were flying everywhere in the patch. From Sapel to Missed Opportunities, Amps to Stochastic Function Generator, and Ornament & Crime’s legendary Quantermain quad quantizer algorithm. And that’s just to create notes. Other triggers went to the Nonlinearcircuits Divide & Conquer and Stochaos (to trigger its rather excellent stepped CV outputs), Veno-Echo, and Calsynth Changes, which modulated a lackluster kick and the very very cool Optotronics Stereo Lockhart Wavefolder.

The wavefolder was surely the high point in this patch for me. I really only understand how half of it works, but it’s ultra-fun. It adds harmonics in really interesting ways, fed by sharp envelopes to each side from a Calsynth Changes, triggered by a Calsynth Twiigs quad Bernoulli gate based on the Mutable Instruments Branches. This creates some exceptionally cool stereo movement that I’ll have to explore more of.

I also used the Industrial Music Electronics Malgorithm Mk2 for part, which was cool, but was overshadowed by the wavefolder once it was added.

Modules Used:
Frap Tools Sapel
Frap Tools Falistri
Frap Tools 333
Frap Tools CUNSA
CuteLab Missed Opportunities
Intellijel Amps
Addac506 Stochastic Function Generator
Nonlinearcircuits Stochaos
Nonlinearcircuits Divide & Conquer
Nonlinearcircuits De-Escalate
Nonlinearcircuits The Hypster
Calsynth uO_C (Quantermain)
Rabid Elephant Natural Gate
ST Modular Sum Mix & Pan
AI Synthesis 018 Stereo Matrix Mixer
Venus Instruments Veno-Echo
Calsynth Changes
Calsynth Twiigs
Optotronics Stereo Lockhart Wavefolder
Knob Farm Ferry

Outboard Gear Used:
Vongon Ultrasheer

Performed and recorded in 1 take in AUM on iPad via the Expert Sleepers ES-9.

  1. I actually used all eight VCAs in my Amps chain to dynamically control four triggers and four snappy, stochastic envelopes from the Addac506 Stochastic Function Generator which were patched to the Natural Gates’ Control CV inputs. ↩︎
  2. I meant to mix these down in a slightly stereo orientation, but I simply forgot to turn the pan knobs. 😕 ↩︎
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Chord Changes From WAWEDH?

Here’s a patch diagram of how I did the chord changes in my latest patch, What Are We Even Doing Here?….

A quick explanation….

  • The four waves from Swell Physics that control volume of the chords are all fed to four VCAs, as well as an analog comparator (Xaoc Devices Samara II).
  • Samara II compares the signals and outputs the Maximum (AKA, Analog OR) voltage level of all four signals at any given moment.
  • This signal is fed to a window comparator, (Compare 2), which generates a gate every time the Maximum signal goes below 0v.
  • This gate goes to the Clock input on the NOH-Modular Pianist, which changes to the next chord in the sequence.
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