I like wavetables and I like drones. Jamuary 6 saw both. A modulated quad wavetable LFO modulating the levels of a quad wavetable oscillator. It’s a patch I’ve been wanting to try for a while, and Jamuary is the perfect time to experiment with new techniques.
There are a lot of moving parts in this patch. The base creating the ever-changing drone is four unsynced LFOs from Kermit Mk3 controlling the levels of the four outputs from the E370 in the Intellijel Amps. These four outputs were patched to the ST Modular Sum Mix & Pan and then to the mixer. The pan CV inputs of the latter three channels were modulated by the Addac506 Stochastic Function Generator. The stereo signal from Sum Mix & Pan went to both the output as well as to a second mixer for summing to mono before being routed to the Verbos Multi-Delay Processor. The mono output of the MDP, which only has the dry signal,1 went to the output mixer, while two of the taps were routed to the Verbos Scan & Pan for hard panning left and right. All three of these signals were mixed and sent to the output.
Although I like the drive the MDP created, it largely defeated the panning of the three E370 outputs. I’d have been better served to run the stereo signal from the Sum Mix & Pan to a stereo distortion for some added drive so as not to throw a cover over subtle movement in the stereo space, but I do like the overall result. The MDP is a fantastic source for overdrive, and is a different sort than a full blown distortion like Mimosa. It’s deep and warm, like a fuzzy blanket on a cold winter day.
There’s lots of modulation too, with the bulk of it being supplied by the Nonlinearcircuits The Hypster fed a Let’s Splosh, with its outputs modulating the waves in both the E370, and three of the four channels of Kermit. Let’s Splosh self-modulated both Gain and Damping to keep its outputs in constant flux.
To accompany the drone proper, I sent the panning wavetables from the Sum Mix & Pan and stereo delay taps from the MDP to a pair of unmodulated Dradds. Both are in Grain Mode, and both are time stretching, with the left channel in reverse at about 20% speed and the and the right channel in forward at a slow crawl. It’s a bit difficult to pick out in the mix, but the overall sound is very different without it, and the final result benefits greatly with it.
The final touch to the patch are the drips and crickets. This oscillator and envelope are both from Falistri, sent through the Holocene Non-Linear Memory Machine. Pitch and random triggering was provided by Sapel. The last free channel of the Addac506 controlled both the Freeze and Scanning of the buffer. Its EOF trigger turned Freeze on and off, with the EOR gate output gating the function output in a VCA, which was scanning the buffer. This little sub-patch took a little while to figure out, but the results are rewarding. I’d been wanting to mess with scanning the buffer of the NLMM ever since I heard this patch by Ras Thavas, and today seemed like the day. It was a fun patch that I’ll be sure to explore further in the future.
I was always sure that a Verbos system could do ambient, but it’s not what I read in their brand identity. Mark Verbos, the owner of Verbos, has noted several times in interviews that his main inspiration in both making music and instruments is his love for techno. The sounds his instruments make are raw, and there doesn’t seem a clear path to ambient paradise when I look at Verbos module faceplates. But in an interview I recently watched, Verbos mentioned that one of the first questions he was asked when the Harmonic Oscillator was whether it can do ambient drones, something he hadn’t considered at all when he was designing it. Nearly a decade later we know Verbos systems can used to perform ambient music, but it wasn’t until today, after a couple of days using sequencers and rhythms, that I finally decided to see what I could do.
The patch began with the Polyphonic Envelope, each of the four outputs to a different harmonic of the Harmonic Oscillator, with the All output patched to the fundamental. In a new technique for me, I decided to use blue noise from Sapel as an amplitude modulator for the fifth harmonic, which ended up being fantastic. I followed that up with very short, randomly generated pings to the eighth harmonic. As a means to more beef, I also frequency modulated the HO with its own second harmonic. The Mixed output of the HO was sent first through Amp & Tone for a bit of conditioning and resonance before going to the Multi-Delay Processor. The MDP was set to output the dry signal and some volume level delay taps, while I patched four separate individual delay tap outputs to the Scan & Pan for stereo-ification.
After some fuddling around with the Polyphonic Envelope, I finally got to a nice flow of envelopes, each triggered once the decay stage of the previous envelope begins in a beautiful cascade that cycles over and over. After a bit of figuring out some movement for the patch, I decided it was ready to record. Only this time, I decided on using some final reverb, my every trusty Walrus Audio Slöer, instead of relying solely on the reverb from the MDP. This was a great choice.
Having recorded the patch and still wanting more, I decided to process the Verbos voice through the Panharmonium (crossfaded saw waves) > the Bizarre Jezabel Pkhia, as well as the Dradd(s) to add some movement and edge, and recorded it again, so today we get another bonus patch.
I’m quite happy with how this patch turned out. This is definitely a route I’ll be exploring more in depth this year.
Today’s patch was a further exploration and curating of yesterday’s Verbos patch, with help from a couple of West Coast-y friends, Frap Tools Sapel, Brenso, and Falistri. Brenso played a pivotal support role in adding texture by supplying amplitude modulation via a triangle wave to Harmonic Oscillator’s Fundamental and the Final output to the Fifth Harmonic. Brenso’s wavefolder and wave shaper were triggered and modulated by Sapel. Harmonic Oscillator was the only sound source, being modulated by Voltage Multistage and Polyphonic Envelope. The mixed output went to Multi-Delay Processor. The saw wave was patched to Amp & Tone. It started out being pinged in LPG mode, before plugging in frequency modulation of the cutoff from Sequence Selector. Two of the MDP individual tap outputs (four and eight) are patched to Scan & Pan and hard panned left and right for some ping-pong action.
Like yesterday, this patch was also inspired by Stazma’s Verbos Harmonic Oscillator demo. I’m not really experienced with much of this Verbos case, so it’s a very rough draft, but a direction that I’m very much enjoying. The tone and texture of the Verbos ecosystem is intoxicating. Enough that’s it’s giving me some bad ideas….
I’ve had the Verbos Harmonic Oscillator and Multi-Delay Processor for a little over a year. My very first Jamuary patch ever used it. But as I was adding to my Verbos case over much of this last year, the HO and Co. went unused. I decided I want to change that, and so I did.
This patch is loosely based on a video by Stazma (AKA The Junglechrist), though there are certainly plenty of changes. It’s not a difficult patch, but the resulting audio is compelling. The amount of drive and saturation is wonderful.
Version 1
It’s starts with two smooth random voltages from the Frap Tools Sapel into the Fundamental and Fifth Harmonic to create a base drone. The random is constantly fluctuating, so the levels of those notes are a bit unstable. It follows with a very short, attenuated envelope triggered by the random triggers from Sapel in the Sixth Harmonic, and then again by another very short envelope into the Spectral Tilt CV input. The Final mixed output of the Harmonics is patched to the input of the Multi-Delay Processor, and straight to the output mixer.
Four of the Harmonic outputs from the HO (the Third, Fourth, Seventh, and Eighth) are patched to the Verbos Scan & Pan. It’s here that each harmonic is played, rather than directly on the HO interface. The harmonics panned, and sent to the second input on the Multi-Delay Processor for some of that saturated delay goodness.
Version 2
This version doesn’t change too much, but the changes are fundamental. I’m working on “stereo-fying” mono gear, and Verbos gives us a great way to do that with the Scan & Pan. Rather than patching harmonics from the HO to the Scan & Pan, I used four of the delay taps, (Five, Six, Seven, and Eight) and hard panned taps five and seven left, with taps six and eight panned right. The HO output and Scan & Pan outputs are patched straight to the mixer.
This change was great for the stereo-fication of the Harmonic Oscillator, but at the expense of drive. The dry signal has little or no drive outside of the saturated sines from each harmonic, with the delayed signal supplying it all. It does admittedly help with clarity. Next time I’ll run the output from the MDP to the mixer with only the Dry signal on the mixed output, which should give me back the drive I’m after.
I don’t really hate dancers, even if this patch might make you think I do.
I don’t trend towards rhythm driven music set to a time grid very often. And even when I do aim to have a rhythmic patch, it’s almost always doing something to mess with time. Jamuary 2501 is no exception.
The first patch of this wonderful Jamuary 2025 started as a desire to use an old and new piece of gear. I bought the Bizarre Jezabel Quarté a couple of years ago when I ran into several Bizarre Jezabel modules for sale at a retail shop in Germany. Until then, the only way to purchase one was to go through a labyrinthine process (for an American) of ordering directly.1 But when I first bought Quarté I didn’t get along with it well at all. I couldn’t figure out how to control the LPG, and what I got was a mess. The controls were crammed, and I sold it forthright. But a few months back I got another hankering to try the Quarté. The PT2399 delay chips are legendary for their lo-fi character, and the quad nature of it as a LPG and delay is right up my current alley of interest. I went on Reverb and grabbed the first one at a decent price, only this one was the updated Quarté Mk2, with a new wet/mixed switch, and some very clever normalizing across channels. The Mk2 can be used in several output configurations, including stereo or quad mono. But the crunch of the delay is what this module is all about.
Quarté Mk2 is not hard to use, but it is difficult to maneuver. Small, unmarked trim pots in very bad places make wiggling a chore when cables are patched in, particular the “t” and “lpgi” trim knobs. The introduction of a wet/mixed switch (which is a 50/50 mix) is very nice. The vactrol-based LPGs sound good, but are quite aggressive, and with a fairly short tail. It’s not always the right sort of strike, which is why I opted to use a Natural gate to articulate notes in this patch, with the Quarté as a delay only.
Most of this patch is pretty simple. Two outputs from the Joranalogue Generate 3 were mixed together and sent to a Natural Gate. The sequence is derived from the Joranalogue Step 8. Both the Natural Gate and Step 8 are clocked by Pam’s Pro Workout, from separate outputs clocked at different rates. The kick was made by Ringing CUNSA, and the hats were blue noise from Sapel sent through a HPF (also CUNSA). Both were triggered by a x8 click output, via the CuteLab Missed Opportunities at increasing levels of probability.
But why is this music for people who hate dancers? It’s pretty groovy. It’s a good tempo for the nightclub. But there is a wrench. At some points, there was an envelope that ripped through the sequence, disrupting the timing and jolting the groove. It’s sudden and unapologetic. The sequence always got back on the grid quickly, but not always in the same spot it was before things were rudely interrupted. It’s jolting and not conducive at all for dancing. I’m sure I’d get thrown out of the club were I to play something like this.
I love the idea of Jamuary. A month during which the goal is to produce something musical everyday. It’s a lofty goal, to be sure, and a worthy pursuit if you can manage it. Creating something everyday is a massive challenge. One that I’m unlikely to conquer. But unless I’m somehow misinterpreting Jamuary Guidelines, it’s okay.
I’ll be participating as often as I possibly can throughout the month. A jumpstart of several recordings is a nice thing to begin the year, and recording something new in short time frames encourages musicians to vary their approach and try new techniques. I greatly enjoyed participating for the first time last year, and hope to have as many or more recordings. I know I learned a lot about myself and my patching, and I hope to learn even more this year.
I’ll be the first to say it. My brother and I have dramatically different approaches to playing a modular synth. This fact makes it tough to plan out a case for the both of us to play simultaneously. He’s a guy that plugs stuff in seemingly indiscriminately, and twists knobs until he finds something he thinks he can work with. I tend to have a very good idea of what I’d like to accomplish and plan methodical ways of making it happen. He likes a swarm of saw waves into a juicy filter. I like very basic sound waves like sines or triangles, and wavetables into wavefolders or with some light FM. He’s a drum and bass producer. I create ambient music with drones and light pings. Everything about how we go about patching a modular synth is diametrically opposed. But it also means that when we patch together, which is never a serious effort and only to waste time doing something fun, we both end up tending towards something that neither of us would generally do on our own. It expands horizons and provides for some interesting results. Last year we basically made noise. Not technical noise, and not even really metaphorical noise, but more like background noise. The sound of a server room in space. Deep hums with envelopes streaking through Odessa to create harmonic shooting stars, and the like. I was much less experienced a year ago, and just kind of went along with it. It was all very cool, and we had a good time. But this year was a little different.
Because I’m a nerd, I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about playing modular. When I’m not actually playing the synth, I’m constantly perusing forums in order to talk about synths, or I’m reading one of the several synth books I have, or I’m writing about my patch ideas in Notability, or watching YouTube for patching techniques. And when I’m away from all of that I run patches in my head over and over trying to imagine ways to approach problems. I’ve made dozens of patches this past year, and even more recordings.1 Of the 45 posts on this blog (not including the current one), 43 are from this year alone. I’m far more experienced than I was a year ago. Even if I know I still have much to learn, I’m more confident in myself and have a much broader skill set and larger bag of tools than I did a year ago.
Night One
When my brother first sat down at the synth, I thought I was gonna have a heart attack. The very first thing he did was mult a single output of Swell Physics to at least eight CV inputs across the system. After patching up all four oscillators of the E370, he decided that, despite there being a fully featured quad filter front and center, he wanted to use the new (and completely unfamiliar to the both of us) Disting NT as a filter. Rather than use the Addac506 Stochastic Function Generator for envelopes, he was digging through Ornament and Crime. I had no idea what he was doing, and for a minute I wasn’t sure he did either. But it was soon clear he was experimenting. Being a homer for modules with screens, the Disting NT was instantly interesting to him. He wanted to see what it could do.
This first patch was a little awkward. He finally gave up on using Disting NT as a filter, and we instead Pinged CUNSA and the four E370 outputs which was a good compromise for what he was trying to do. A single v/oct signal was sent from the Doboz T12 touch controller to all four oscillators tuned at different intervals. This is the only pitch change happening and it only happens when we thought to do it. After a while we introduced delays and then opened the filters as we added modulation to each side of the delay. Later on we added a smidge of granular processing courtesy of the Bram Bos + Hainbach Fluss plugin. It’s not a great patch, but it was fun. Both of us were becoming accustomed to this synth, the tools in it, and each other. Some modules, like the Disting Ex and Doboz Prizma Mk2, we just didn’t understand, and since he only owns a couple of the modules in this case, most of it was very unfamiliar to him. It took a long time to get these results, and though we both knew this patch wasn’t what we hoped it might be, both of us were happy enough. It’s just fun time anyways.
Night Two – The First Patch
Night two was a very different story. I started a patch by pinging three of the four CUNSA filters bongo style using the wonderful Jonah Senzel Pet Rock, a dual channel trigger generator that creates exactly one pattern per channel per day, and a random clock output at some clock multiplication I don’t remember.
Pet Rock is a very basic module. Input a clock, and take the output to your gate/trigger input of choice. You get one pattern per day, and everyone in the world who owns one gets the same pattern. It goes by moon cycle, and its mood reflects the moon cycle. At midnight it changes to the next day’s pattern without any input whatsoever. It’s certainly a fun musical experiment, even if it’s not something I’d use all the time. It was fun to hear the switchover from the Christmas Eve to the Christmas Day pattern (it happened while we were building the second patch of Night Two). You can hear the pattern very clearly, even while the third trigger does its own thing.
I sent two of the CV outputs on the Nonlinearcircuits Stochaos to Amps for attenuation, and on to two of CUNSA’s FM inputs for pitch changes to keep the bongos more interesting. These bongos are sent through a modulated Veno-Echo that regularly changes time per side, feedback, mix, and stereo width. The Veno-Echo outputs go to the mixer for some reverb before going to the output.
While I was busy honing the bongos in, my brother was hard at work creating a tone with the Disting NT he thought would go well with the atmosphere of the bongos that he could control as an improvised voice using the T12. Although he struggled mightily to figure out how to control the many facets of the Disting NT (to be fair, both of us wrestled a lot with it), he ran into a nice enough sound, and we went with it. He used the pressure output from the T12 to control volume. From the VCA, the oscillator went through the last open channel in the CUNSA and out to the mixer for some reverb. It’s not a complicated patch, not by any means. It’s just simple pinging, along with an improvised synth line on top. But it was coherent and showed promise.
Night Two – The Second Patch
For the second patch of the night I took control of the Disting NT in order to use it for the primary reason I bought it: as a polyphonic multisample player. Clearing the previous patch, I immediately added a Poly Multisample algorithm and assigned the gate and CV to Inputs 1 and 2. I wanted to added several more gates and CV sources so that I could use Stochaos as its source, but couldn’t figure out how to add more CV/gate pairs and simply moved on. Wanting to explore the NT a bit more, I chose to use the Shift Register (Turing Machine) algorithm as the pitch and gate source. It worked a treat, even if I did it “wrong.” The beauty of the Disting NT is that entire patches can be completed in just one module. Add Clock, Shift Register, Quantizer, and Poly Multisample algorithms to a patch, and I could have it running without a single cable. It even has its own delay and reverb algorithms for good measure. We wanted an external clock, which we used, but I didn’t understand how to route the gate and CV outputs from the Shift Register directly to Poly Multisample, so output the signals and patched to the gate and CV inputs for Poly Multisample on the front panel. I also could have used an internal quantizer, but chose to use Quantermain in the uO_C because I was tired of fumbling around Disting menus for the night.2 We put a 0hp attenuator on the Disting CV output, and before Quantermain, to have manual control over the pitch range, which was a really nice performative touch. I suppose the patch isn’t technically “wrong”, but it is inefficient, and could have been accomplished without a single patch cable, or just one since we were determined to use an external clock.
The Soft Piano multisamples were sent to the Veno-Echo (with some slight but noticeable sample reduction) for some delay, while being lightly, and then a little more heavily, modulated by Swell Physics, with its various outputs modulating feedback and width, while its two gate outputs turned reverse on and off per side. From the Veno-Echo, the piano went to the mixer for some reverb.
After we got the multisample player set, we went to work on the kick drum and hi-hats. The kick is created by ringing a CUNSA filter input with an envelope from the Addac506, which was triggered by the Pet Rock. We sent the same envelope to the FM CV input to give the kick a bit of punch. The hats were created using the Pink Noise output from the Stochaos, sent through a HPF and enveloped using a second Addac506 function which had a slight set of variance in attack, but a fairly wide set of variance in the fall section to give some variety and openness to the hi-hat hits. The kick drum is a sort of weird kick. It’s actually a low sine wave drone that is being enveloped. We both liked the droning and thought droning was a better choice than leaving it as a straight kick. It helps fill in space and provides for a certain mood that wasn’t conveyed by the kick alone. These went straight to the mixer, with the hats getting some reverb, but not the kick. A very last minute decision had my brother switched the hi-hat and kick pattern from Pet Rock, which was much better. When we started this patch it was still Tuesday night. By the time we were ready to record it was Wednesday morning, and the pattern had changed.
Both of us were incredibly happy with this patch, despite our fumbling around Disting NT menus. It’s a lot closer to something I might normally make, but that wasn’t a deterrent for my brother who went along with it and was really impressed with how playable the patch was by controlling the start/stop of the clock and by using the attenuator to control the range of piano notes we’d hear. It starts with a single pitch, and slowly expands outwards before coming back to a single pitch by the end.
The balance of this patch is all jacked up. The kick is too loud, and the hats too soft. Both of us were using unfamiliar headphones, and we were deceived. We should have believed the level meters in the mixer more than our lying headphones. It’s not a completely awful mix, but it could be much better.
The third night, alas, wasn’t meant to be.
Despite having a highly capable synth, I’m not completely happy with the module choices I made. Not because the modules are bad, but because there were simply too many of them that I didn’t even have a faint grasp on. We fumbled our way through the Disting NT, which is a testament to how good the UI is being that’s it’s also a very deep and complicated module with dozens of features. But we were never able to use the Doboz Prizma Mk2 at all. It was completely opaque. I should have done more than a light perusing of the manual the night before I left. I should have put my hands on it and figured at least how to get something out of it before slapping it in a case as a primary sequencer. It was a waste of 6hp, and a not insignificant amount of precious time. Had I made even a minimal effort to learn something about the module before I left, our patching might have been completely different.
I really dig making these travel synths to play with my brother. We both end up getting something from it. Him, some access to gear he doesn’t own alongside my very different patching methodology, while I’m able to see how someone else with very different tastes would patch my modules. The both of us get to spend some valuable time together doing something we both love.
For a list of modules in this case, see this post.
All patches were improvised and recorded in one take in AUM via the Expert Sleepers ES-10 and Arturia AudioFuse.
Many patches go through various revisions and are played and recorded several times before I present them. ↩︎
None of this is a criticism of the Disting NT itself. We were both completely unfamiliar with using it, and there’s a lot going on. I’m more critical of myself for having chosen a module I didn’t have at least a basic understanding of. ↩︎
I do most of my patching in exactly two locations. My primary synth is located in my home studio along with a host of other instruments from guitars to kalimbas, and tuning forks to computers. My secondary synth is primarily a Make Noise-only affair, though there is a small Pod48x that has other branded modules used for effects pedal routing, a noisy reverb, an output VCA to control input levels, and an Expert Sleepers ES-10 to go to my audio interface.
But every once in a while I have the occasion to get a case out of the house and play, which is always a nice treat. I don’t gig, although perhaps one day I will, but trips provide a nice change of scenery and a fresh perspective that can oftentimes lead to wonderful patches. While my primary synth has a huge array of modules and functionalities, a travel synth forces me to make hard choices. What to include? What can I leave behind? What modules can I omit and allow plugins to carry their water? These are always hard choices that require a lot of thought, and made even more difficult when you consider that many of these travel synths will be played by two people, and not just me. My brother has been playing Eurorack for several years longer than I have, and we have very different tastes and approaches to using the modular. In addition to bringing modules I know well, I also use travel cases as an opportunity to try gear that I haven’t really learned well, or that I’d like to further explore. There’s nothing quite like necessity to force you to learn a piece of gear you have, and all of your normal, go-to gear can’t be a crutch.
For travel synths I like to have at least four dedicated voices (with other modules like filters also capable of being a sound source), ample modulation, at least four VCAs, a sequencer, some form of touch control, some gate producers, a multifunction module, and at least a delay for effects (even if a plugin could handle that task). I use plugins for reverb, EQ, and granular synthesis. I don’t want the case to be too specific in its task because it’s a case about exploration, but it also has to make sense as an instrument.
For this year’s Xmas Synth, I chose to deploy the legendary Synthesis Technology E370 quad wavetable oscillator and Frap Tools CUNSA quad multimode filter extraordinaire as the core of the case around which the remainder was built. This takes care of the four voices, filtering, VCAs for those signals, as well as various levels of mixing those signals. CUNSA can also handle drum duty via pinging, or be fully fledged oscillators themselves. Both are incredibly advanced and bring a lot of functionality to the case.
It’s with this synth that my brother and I will be exploring over the next several days as we celebrate Christmas with our parents. Last year’s synth produced some interesting sounds. I’m sure this year will be even better.
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.
