Random – peaks and nulls

I went into this patch with the idea that I was going to see if the Nonlinearcircuits Stochaos was appropriate for inclusion in a travel synth I’ll be taking to Alaska this summer (it’s not). I’m looking for gates. Many gates, actually. And although the Stochaos has many gate outputs, it runs on a clock, and sticks to the grid. It’s an awesome tool for what it is doing, but it’s not what I’m looking for in that synth, unfortunately. But despite not being fit for that particular project, this 8hp wonder is a fantastic Chaos or Random (or Both!) driven sequencer that can drive a whole patch.

This sketch was designed to use chaotically driven gates in order to ping the 4 operator outputs of the Humble Audio Quad Operator. Since they operate on ratios of the base pitch, it would never be out of tune, and all of the 4 operators would always have nice harmonic relationships. These pings would then go through the Venus Instruments Veno-Echo for some rather pedestrian unmodulated stereo delay that was perfect.

Since the point of the patch was to see what I could do with the Stochaos, I used it as the heart of everything. It received a clock from the Xaoc Devices Batumi II, and from there performed its wizardry sending gates to and fro. These gates pinged the 4 operator outputs in the Frap Tools CUNSA, as well as triggered various events all over the patch. Stochaos also provided the sequence which was quantized in Quantermain on the uO_C via one of its four CV outputs.

There was some modulation, but not very much. I used one of the Stochaos gate outputs to trigger the Auza Wave Packets which modulated the ratio of one of the operators on the QO. Two of its gate outputs clocked the Nonlinearcircuits Bindubba which also modulated one of the operator’s ratio. Otherwise the patch is pretty barren of modulation. The delay isn’t modulated at all, and neither is Aurora.

As per many of my recent patches I wanted to use some FFT, but rather than reaching for Panharmonium yet again, I used the Qu-Bit Electronix Aurora. I was sort of happy with the results, but I’ve never really studied Aurora in much depth, and so opted to go with whatever sounded good enough in the moment. It’s not a prominent part of the patch, but it does serve to fill in the space a bit. It’s definitely reminded me that I need to learn a few things before I go on my trip so I’m not busy manual digging instead of making music with the precious little time I’ll have.

I didn’t start this patch with a kick drum in mind. I was originally hoping to get not only random gate outputs, but randomly timed gate outputs. My original intent was to make an ambient piece, but that idea sank quickly, so I pivoted in a more rhythmic direction. Once a couple of things were settled, it was clear that the patch was begging for a kick drum. I’m not a four on the floor kind of guy, so opted for something more erratic. Still on the time grid, but not at all predictable. For this I used a divided output of Batumi II into the always fun CuteLab Missed Opportunities and adjusted the probability to taste. The kick is made with a Joranalogue Generate 8 into a Rabid Elephant Natural Gate. The trigger would go to both Natural Gate’s Hit input, as well as triggering the Joranalogue for a short envelope for both Exponential FM on Generate 8, and the Control input on Natural Gate.

Overall I’m really pleased with this patch. It’s a sketch with lots of room for improvement, but the direction and feel is very good. The biggest change I’d make is toning down the high registers. Not only are they too loud, but there’s too much of it. It’s a matter of better attenuating my CV and watching the initial knob position for ratio to ensure they don’t go that high. This alone would improve my result exponentially. I’d also like to do a better job of shaping the melody notes in CUNSA. I’m not yet pleased with the tail of those notes.

Although the Stochaos didn’t meet my need for inclusion in a travel case, I did find that it’s a fine sequencer that can control entire patches with naught but a clock input. You choose the style of decision making you want it to do, Chaos, Random, or Both, and it happily goes to work with 8 gate outputs along with 4 CV outputs, the fixed chaos signal used by the circuit, and some Pink Noise. If you’re not looking for strict control over sequencing, or you’re looking for a sequence of random gates and CV for always-surprising modulation, the Stochaos deserves a look.

Modules Used:
Nonlinearcircuits Stochaos
Nonlinearcircuits Bindubba
Xaoc Devices Batumi II
Humble Audio Quad Operator
Frap Tools Cunsa
Frap Tools Sapel (to convert 5v gates to 10v triggers)
Frap Tools Falistri (to convert 5v gates to 10v gates)
AI Synthesis 018 Stereo Matrix Mixer
Venus-Instruments Veno-Echo
Auza Wave Packets
Knob Farm Ferry
Qu-Bit Electronix Aurora
Oto Bam

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

Pinging filters in one of my favorite modular patches. You can get lots of different tones, creating very LPG-ish sounds with beautiful ringing decays, booming drums, or melodic clicks and chirps to color your modular masterpiece.

The traditional way to patch a filter for pinging is really simple. Set the resonance on your filter on the verge of self oscillation, run a trigger or gate into the INPUT of your filter, get some pitch CV into the v/Oct input or the filter cutoff CV input. Now patch the output of your filter to your output (or through any effects you might want), and you’re in business. But there’s an inherent problem in many modern filters when patched in this way.

Oftentimes the input will ping on the rising edge of your trigger, then click on the falling edge, which is not ideal. No one wants clicks in their music, except when you do, so we need a work around.

Some filters, in an effort to mitigate the click problem, have a “Strike” or “Ping” input meant for gates and triggers. The Joranalogue Audio Designs Filter 8 and INSTRUō I-ō47 are 2 examples, as well as the 2 filters I used in this patch.

For filters without a dedicated input for pinging, simply patch your trigger or gate to an envelope generator with a snappy envelope. A very fast (or even no) attack and a short decay work well. Adjust the decay of your envelope and the resonance on your filter to affect the tail of the ping. It may take a bit of fiddling, and a little can go a long way, but your perfect tail is in there. Hopefully. Patch the filter output to your output module, and on every trigger you’ll hear a new note.

Make Note: Some filters are better pingers than others. Some don’t process v/oct well, or maybe the resonance is too finicky to get the ping you’re lusting after, so if you don’t like what you get with your first choice, move on to another. That said, most filters should work well.

But this post isn’t about just pinging a filter. It’s about doing it in stereo. And while I could tell you that this method is possible with just 1 filter (it totally is), this patch uses 2 independent filters for pinging, and a stereo filter for effect.

In practice pinging 2 filters isn’t any more difficult than pinging a single filter. You simply repeat the patching process with a different filter after you’ve done it once. And rather than having a single sequence for the both of them, we’re using 2 random sequences, that are triggered randomly using a random gate skipper.

We start, as we most often do, with the clock. In this patch, we have the clock feeding 2 separate S&H generators, which will put out unrelated, random CV sequences. Both of these sequences then go through a pitch quantizer before being sent to the v/oct inputs on the filters. The sequences may be different, but we at least want them in the same key (unless you really like dissonance) for aural continuity. The clock also sends a trigger to a random gate skipper, which will allow only a subset of those triggers to pass through, ensuring that the 2 filters never receive the same beat sequence, providing stereo movement and depth. The gate skipper also send triggers to the final stereo filter, and an envelope generator, which is also modulating the filter. Yet another clock signal is sent to the delay to ensure our repeats are in time. The final clock signal is being sent to yet another Random Generator so that it can provide modulation to the final stereo effects filter.

Once triggered, the filters will send their quantized pings to a delay (pings seem to beg for delay), before moving on to the final stereo filter before going to the output. Listen to the result below!

Modules Used:

ALM Busy Circuits Pamela’s New Workout (Clock)
CuteLab Missed Opportunities (Random Gate Skipper)
Frap Tools Sapél (Random)
CalSynth uO_C (Pitch Quantizer)
Joranalogue Filter 8 (Pinging Filter)
Instruō I-ō47 (Pinging Filter)
Make Noise Maths (Envelope Generator)
Make Noise QPAS (FX Filter)
Make Noise Wogglebug (Random)
Venus Instruments Veno-Echo (Delay)

eleaf · Filter Pinging

Category: Random

A Sketch With The Nonlinearcircuits Stochaos

Pinging Filters in Stereo

Modules Used: