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Chaos Organ: A Quad Operator Experiment

Hi, my name is Chris, and I’m a chordaholic.

Lately I’ve been in a polyphonic mood, attempting to find evermore methods of creating chords and chord sequences with the modular synth. Using a DAW for this sort of thing is child’s play, but in modular synthesis, creating polyphonic chords isn’t a straightforward task most of the time. Most oscillators can only output one pitch at a time, and using multiple oscillators can create timbre mismatches. Tuning 4 or more oscillators to the same pitch while not suffering from pitch drift over time is a chore and a half. Sequencing chords in a traditional modular sequencer can be a mission rife with potential problems, and you don’t always want the repeating uniformity of a sequence, but something more organic. In short, modular synthesis is traditionally a monophonic enterprise, with only a small handful of monophonic voices being used together. A melody, a bass line, perhaps something else to fill in space, and some effects to create a stereo space. Full on chord generation isn’t common because it’s a tedious exercise that generally requires a lot of gear and even more patience. But over the last couple of years this is beginning to change. Although there have always been ways to create chords and chord progressions in modular synthesis, it’s not until relatively recently that we can more easily create chords. Oscillator banks like the Xaoc Devices Odessa (with its expander, Hel), Humble Audio Quad Operator, and RYK Modular Algo, and chord sequencers like the NOH-Modular Pianist make composing with chords on the modular a much more efficient and simple process.

In a previous patch I used the very excellent (and recently updated) NOH-Modular Pianist to create chords that were triggered by an irregular chaotic gate pattern. Although I am generally psyched about how that patch turned out, there are still a couple spots of ugliness that appear due to a bad match of back-to-back chords in the progression. On their own they sound fine. But once smeared out by the delay, FFT resynthesis, and reverb, there is some clashing that happens, creating some ear-cringing dissonance. I wanted something cleaner, and I didn’t want to have prescribed chords, but something that could change organically with a bit of modulation, without the worry of a spicy note peeping its ugly head in. Enter Quad Operator.

The Humble Audio Quad Operator is a bank of 4 oscillators that can be tuned to harmonic and subharmonic ratios of a base pitch. Tune the base pitch to your liking, then simply adjust the ratios of each operator, and you have oscillators that are all harmonically in tune. Patch in a single v/oct signal, and all 4 operators will move along in harmony. The Quad Operator is primarily designed as a the ultimate FM oscillator with any traditional FM algorithm possible, along with any other combo of modulator/carrier you can imagine. But with each operator being independent with its own output (both in a mix and independently), using it as a complex chord generator is a very happy side benefit. Input a single v/oct signal, output always-harmonically related chords. Add in some modulation of a couple of the operator’s ratios, and not only will the chords always be harmonically relevant, they’ll also quite often be different (even if the base of the chord is the same). For modulating the ratios I used both the Nonlinearcircuits Stochaos and the Auza Wave Packets.

There are lots of methods for getting a nice v/oct signal. Sequencers are the obvious solution, but with a quantizer any signal can be a used for pitch. S&H is extremely popular, but random pitch is only slightly less boring than patterns repeating themselves over and over in the exact same way. One solution is to use LFOs alongside triggers to create melodies or arpeggios. Envelopes work great too. But I wanted something a smidge different. LFOs and envelopes repeat themselves by nature. Unless modulated, an LFO or envelope is the same up and down every time. This regularity can be mitigated by irregular triggers, but then it starts to veer towards random, which isn’t really what I’m after. Enter chaos.

In my post, Chaotic Gates, I explained how chaos signals are regular-ish. They take the same general path on each pass, but some unknown irregularity in the feedback path will shift it off course in a non-regular way. These signals are kind of regular, but enough differences come about that there are always surprises. I mostly use chaos as a modulator of some kind. Opening and closing filter cutoffs or wavefolders, slowly modulating level, timbre, or some other facet of a patch. Today I would use it for pitch.

In most circumstances I would use triggers alongside my CV input with a quantizer. Send off a trigger, and whatever voltage is present at the quantizer’s input is sampled, quantized to the nearest note of your chosen scale, and output to the v/oct input on your oscillator. But some quantizers can function without a corresponding trigger, sensing voltage changes, and quantizing automatically once it detects a change large enough to be a separate note in the scale. Quantermain, the quad quantizer algorithm on the ever-useful Ornament&Crime, has this capability, and I decided to give it a whirl. It should be easy enough. Shove in a chaos signal, get quantized pitch CV on the output. And by and large, it was that easy. I knew I wanted fairly slow chord changes, so I needed a slow(er) moving chaos signal. After a bit of attenuation of the chaos signal to reign in the range, I was getting exactly what I wanted. Irregularly moving chords that shift at irregular speeds and that have irregular movement both up and down.

But chords themselves, cool as they are, need embellishment to be interesting. For effects, I sent the chords, via the stereo matrix mixer, to the Qu-Bit Nautilus for some smearing with low pass filtered delay, before going to the Instruo Arbhar. My initial plan was to have some shimmery granular action floating on top of the chords, but I could never find what I was hoping to get. Instead I found a happy accident of harmonically relevant dancing grains that moved to a rhythm.

These dancing grains, although not at all what I envisioned when I set out on this path, turned out being perfect, giving a sense of life inside the thick chords. Like minnows in a lake, or lightning bugs in the night.

Enjoy!

Modules Used:
Nonlinearcircuits Triple Sloth
Nonlinearcircuits Stochaos
Auza Wave Packets
Humble Audio Quad Operator
ST Modular Sum Mix & Pan
AI Synthesis 018 Stereo Matrix Mixer
Qu-Bit Electronix Nautilus
Instruo Arbhar
CalSynth uO_C
Knob Farm Ferry
Mutable Instruments Blinds
Oto Bam

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


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A Sketch With The Nonlinearcircuits Stochaos

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.

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A Chordal Soundscape With The Pianist, Odessa, Panharmonium, And A Couple Of Tape Delays

I’m not going to go in depth on this patch as there’s a lot of modulation happening and I can’t possibly document it without rambling in circles. I’m also using several techniques I’ve already written about, like using chaos at a clock, running a delay into the Panharmonium, using tape delays, and panning using VCAs.

A couple things of note:

The Echofix EF-X2 tape delays have incredibly good overdrive. The clipping is all analog and is both warm and musical. I would absolutely use the preamp alone to add anything from subtle saturation to thick overdrive. All of the distortion in this track is from the pair of EF-X2 tape echoes.

The Pianist by NOH-Modular is a highly capable chord sequencer. Building progressions is easy and the interface is intuitive. It certainly has faults (that I’ll discuss later in a more comprehensive review), but overall it does an absolutely fantastic job.

Odessa is Odessa and I will make no apologies for it.

This is the first patch during which I’ve used both the go-to AI Synthesis 018 Stereo Matrix Mixer alongside my new mono (voltage controlled) matrix mixer, the Transmon by Atomosynth. I used the latter to mix the Sofia Mix output with the Odessa partials outputs, while panning the Odessa fundamental slowly from left to right (although I can’t really hear the panning in the mix if I’m honest). Having a voltage controlled matrix mixer with individual outs for 12 of the 16 channels, along with 8 channels that can attenuvert makes for a compelling piece of kit. The possibilities are endless.

Modules Used:
NOH-Modular Pianist
Xaoc Devices Odessa (+ Hel)
Xaoc Devices Zadar
Xaoc Devices Lipsk
Xaoc Devices Erfurt
Xaoc Devices Samara II
Xaoc Devices Batumi II (+ Poti II)
Rossum Electro-Music Panharmonium
Holocene Electronics Non-Linear Memory Machine
Atomosynth Transmon
AI Synthesis 018 Stereo Matrix Mixer
Nonlinearcircuits The Hypster
Nonlinearcircuits Divide & Conquer
Nonlinearcircuits Triple Sloth
Auza Wave Packets

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


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Made Noise – Sketch 1

Confession time: I have a weird relationship with Make Noise. I mean, I love their modules. Most of the time. And I think their philosophy of making modules that are part of a coherent, customized musical instrument is spot on. Most of the time. But seemingly more than any other Eurorack brand, Make Noise will build a wonderful product borne of a brilliant idea, and then during the design process make one, or more, decisions that makes one wonder just what they were thinking.1

Like most people I started my Make Noise journey by integrating individual modules into a larger system. A module here and another there turned into a full 168hp Make Noise Subsystem that was integrated into a larger system mostly made up of single brand cases. Of course I’d found use of them in integrated patches, but with a couple of exceptions, I found myself opting for something other than Make Noise modules. If I had more than one or two Make Noise modules in the patch, generally most of the patch was dedicated to Make Noise modules. But there was something that always seemed amiss. I just never felt like my Make Noise Subsystem fit particularly well within a huge modular synth.

And so without any desire to rid myself of Make Noise, I’ll admit to having contemplated it several times, I decided to lean in and completely separate Make Noise from the rest. To allow it to be the instrument it wants to be on its own terms, and not a bit part in someone else’s show. To be free.

Once I made that choice, I had other hard decisions to make. By switching over to a 4 Zone CV Bus Case, I afforded myself 40 more HP, plus the CV Bus,2 but I still had to perform some rearranging to fit in everything nice and tidy. I added a couple modules that I thought were necessary to have a cohesive and “complete” Make Noise system (namely Rene v2 and a DPO). I had to pull a couple of choice modules out (LxD, MMG, STO). But before I made that switch, I decided to do a patch that included at least one of them.

I hope to make Made Noise a series of posts dedicated to the many bleeps and bloops created with my full Make Noise system. I’m sure I’ll find ways to use it with my larger synth again, but for now Make Noise will will fly solo.

This first sketch started as a rough recreation of a patch Walker Farrell did 5 years ago, called “Patch From Scratch: QPAS & Tempi.” I’ve always loved QPAS for pinging, but I had not gone all out with modulating it before while pinging. How boring. I also knew from the start that I wanted to integrate Morphagene into this patch, and I wanted to experiment with modulating zones in Mimeophon.

The patch is easy enough in theory. Some gates from Tempi, happening at various clock divisions, pinging QPAS’s input, as well as the R Radiate, L Radiate, and !!¡¡ inputs, while triggering various other events. But these gates run deep by being spread around the case through the CV Bus triggering Maths, Function, as well as clocking Mimeophon and Rene. End Of gates from Maths and Function are also being used to trigger different events around the patch. One Tempi channel is also performing some self-pleasure on the Mod input, which shifts the clock divisions around for a continuously changing rhythm and melody line. These shifts effect every aspect of the patch.

CV is sent from Rene’s X Channel to the Resonance CV input on QPAS, to keep the rhythm lively with having varied tail lengths, and changing the melody notes. There’s a familiarity there, but it’s not really repeating exactly. The Y Channel gates are triggering the Wogglebug S&H circuit, and the Cartesian Channel gates are triggering the deep kick of the STO.

The QPAS is being heavily modulated. In fact, there isn’t a control input not being used. Radiate L & R, Resonance, Freq 1, Freq 2, and both !!¡¡ inputs are modulated by gates from Tempi and CV from Rene’s X Channel, a Function envelope. Freq 1 is a bit of patch programming from the L HP output.

While the Tempi and QPAS are doing the heavy lifting throughout the patch, like a lead guitarist, the Mimeophon is what gives it some polish, and that extra bit of oomph for everything to come alive in an ever-changing flow of repeats, jitters, and screeches. While the shifting gates from Tempi are clocking Mimeophon, as well as pinging the uRate CV input, it’s also being modulated by the Maths Sum output, the Morphagene CV Output, a Maths envelope, and Wogglebug (stepped output). I wanted to get an idea of what modulating zones would be like, and it turned out even better than what I imagined it could be. The modulations between carplus strong-like sounds to long drawn out echoes created a sense of splendor and ever changing tones.

Morphagene too gets in on the action. I wanted a bubbly swirl, and by goodness I got a bubbly swirl. I’ve had Morphagene for a while, but it just wasn’t one of the granular-like processors I’d reach for. It was fun, but never integral. In this patch, it lends a level of instant fun and really brightens the sketch. I’ll be the first to admit that it’s probably too loud in the mix, but I do very much enjoy the whimsical direction it gave to an already whimsical melody. The slowing tape machine sounds, the speedy and gurgle fast forwards and rewinds all contribute to the fun.

This certainly isn’t my last patch with this new Make Noise Satellite Subsystem. It’s a level of immediacy and fun that’s hard to replicate with other brands. Here’s to the next one.

Modules Used:
Tempi
QPAS
Maths
Mimeophon
Morphagene
Rene Mk2
Wogglebug
Function
STO
DXG
X-Pan
Optomix rev2
CV Bus Mk2

Improvised and recorded in 1 take on the iPad in AUM via an Arturia AudioFuse.

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  1. The DXG being unable to not mix, and not having a way to get both LPG channels out individually seems to me to be headbangingly shortsighted. There is no good argument for their premium 4 Zone CV Bus Case having M2.5 screws and sliding nuts. I could go on.
  2. Although the CV Bus is little more than a glorified passive multiple, its implementation is incredibly well thought out and unendingly useful.
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A Dark Drone: First Patch With Sibilla

I was recently afflicted with a particularly bad case of GAS. During this latest bout, I hurredly purchased the drone specialist module, Sibilla by Clatters Machines. I didn’t need another drone machine, but after a couple of recent subsystem rearrangements, I had 10hp to fill in my Stereophonic Black Subsystem, and within a couple of YouTube demos jumped at the Sibilla. I don’t like GAS, and I know that it can be unhealthy, but it sometimes (oftentimes?) gets the best of me.

Despite my knowing it wasn’t a particularly wise purchase, I still thought that Sibilla could produce something nice. Had I doubted it, I wouldn’t have succumbed to GAS, at least not for this particular module. I had meant to use it in my recent Piano Mist patch. I had it patched up but never turned it up in the mixer because I was so enthralled with what I had in the Piano. So today I decided to start with Sibilla and see where it could go.

One of the reasons why I bought Sibilla was because I have a difficult time resisting additive oscillators. Although Sibilla isn’t anything resembling a standard oscillator, it does use additive synthesis as a big part of its process. Along with multiple delay lines and a fixed low pass filter (with adjustable resonance), Sibilla adds harmonics using different waveforms that are differently phased to help create a bed of complex moving textures. Naturally I wanted to emphasize those harmonics to create not only movement, but a sense of chordal change.

My initial experimentation was simply playing the Rise and Fall knobs, which was very cool. Improvising isn’t something I do very much, and I greatly enjoyed it. I even tried using the Doepfer A-198 Trautonium Ribbon Controller, but I decided to keep this sketch as more of a drone with full harmonic changes, not a part of a drone while using its harmonics as an improvised solo. So in order to create those chord-like changes, I reached for 2 of my favorite things: chaos and sample and hold.

I ran one of the outputs from a patch programmed Joranalogue Orbit 3 to the Joranalogue Step 8’s input. Step 8 functions as a really large Sample and Hold, with each step running as an attenuator. The trigger for each step comes from the Rise gate of a modulated looping Contour 1. The steps are not regularly triggered, so there’s nothing to time. The Step 8 samples the chaos signal, attenuates it depending on the slider position, and sends out that voltage to the Fall input. Each cycle is in continuous flux, creating movement, but not regular movement.

Joranalogue’s Orbit 3 is an unsung hero of chaos modulation. Nonlinearcircuits dominates the chaos landscape in Eurorack, and other forms of chaos generation are often overlooked in light of NLC’s vast catalogue and strong pedigree as the source for chaos in modular synthesis. But Orbit 3 has some distinct features that make it a compelling competitor. It’s controllable in a way that NLC’s chaos generally isn’t. Orbit 3 has full frequency control, a reset, and you can control the position of both attractors. I’ve been able to consistently get compelling low frequency waveforms that are interesting and easily tweakable. I don’t always want overarching control over chaos signals and how they go about their business, but when I do I patch Orbit 3.

The Audio Path

The audio path of this patch is fairly simple:

  • The L/R audio outputs of Sibilla > Bizarre Jezabel Pkhia stereo multimode filter (LP out) > Worng Vertex stereo VCA for a bit of volume manipulation > Channel 4 of the AI Synthesis 018 Stereo Matrix Mixer.
  • The audio is then sent from Output 1 > Miso Cornflakes.
  • Cornflakes > Ch 1 input of the matrix mixer to be mixed with the dry drone signal.
  • The mixed drone and granular processing is output from Ch 4 of the matrix mixer to my final mixer.
  • A send to the Vongon Ultrasheer for some reverb and vibrato, and we’re done.

I didn’t particularly need to send the output of Sibilla through another filter, it has a low pass filter of its own, but I wanted to create more movement per channel. I initially wanted to use Pkhia’s Band Pass outputs, but that didn’t really work, so decided to use the LP outputs with the filter set initially almost completely wide open. With some chaos modulation of the filter cutoff in each channel I was able to get slow, unpredictable appearance and disappearance of some harmonics which created lots of subtle, yet interesting, effects throughout.

Cornflakes is set to a constant pitch of +2 octaves, with its position, grain size, grain length, diffusion and speed being heavily modulated by chaos. This effect creates the slightly detuned shimmer on top of the drone, and heightens suspense as the patch moves along, finally releasing some of that tension before the drone fades away.

The reverb and vibrato is the exceedingly good Vongon Ultrasheer. The reverb portion is set with a long tail and no pre-delay. The tails also are set to favor higher frequencies to help avoid mud in the lower frequencies. Sibilla has 4 separate delay lines, so the lower frequencies aren’t without its own sort of reverb. I just didn’t need them delayed and diffused even more. Although I didn’t notice it while recording, there is a bit too much vibrato. It’s not distracting my any means, but it’s a bit too much in depth and speed, and it is noticeable in a way I rather it weren’t; like a shade too much syrup on your waffles.

The Control Path

If the audio path is simple enough, the control path is anything but. The heart of the modulation in this patch is chaos generated by a patch programmed Orbit 3. More chaos is used from NLC’s The Hypster. Slow chaos affects nearly every parameter of the patch, with the Auza Wave Packets in its debut role in my synth on 3 Cornflakes modulation targets.

Sibilla doesn’t have every parameter being modulated, but there is still a fair amount of modulation. Orbit 3 is modulating the Rising harmonics and resonance, while also supplying the signal for the Step 8 to do its sample and hold business.

Orbit 3 is also modulating the cutoff frequency for both sides of the Pkhia, the rate of the Rise and Fall on Contour 1, as well as self-modulating the EP+ and Distribution as a means to keep the signal ever-changing.

Step 8 provides the changing chords via its sample and hold functionality at the Scan output to Sibilla’s Fall input, triggered by the Fall gate of a constantly changing, looping envelope from Contour 1. The Analogue 3 output modulates the Distribute input on Cornflakes, with Analogue 5 modulating Orbit 3’s Distribution.

Contour 1 provides the stepping action for chord changes with its Fall output, as well as gating Cornflakes’ record functionality with its Rise gate output.

The Auza Wave Packets, a complex modulation source centered around various stages to create sophisticated wave types, made its first appearance in one of my patches. I’ve never used it before, and still need to learn lots of things about it, but it seems the possibilities are endless. In this patch, I used “The Unipolar Wave” (output 2) to modulate Cornflakes’ grain Size, “The Capsulated Oscillator” (output 4) for the Length, and “The Pure Oscillator” (output 5) for the Position. NLC’s The Hypster played a minor in rounding out modulating Cornflakes’ Speed and Diffuse parameters.

There are still a lot of details to work out with this patch. The modulation is largely not attenuated or scaled in any meaningful way. I’d probably try opening up the attenuation on the chaos signal used in the sample and hold to change chords. I’d also try and see if I couldn’t hone in Cornflakes to something a bit smoother. But overall I’m pleased with this first patch, and I look forward to doing special things with it.

Modules Used:
Clatters Machines Sibilla
Bizarre Jezabel Pkhia
Worng Engineering Vertex
AI Synthesis 018 Stereo Matrix Mixer
Joranalogue Audio Orbit 3
Joranalogue Audio Contour 1
Joranalogue Audio Step 8
Nonlinearcircuits The Hypster
Auza Wave Packets
Mutable Instruments Marbles
Knob Farm Ferry

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

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Panharmonium Bonus

One facet of my latest patch that I’m quite happy with, even if it needs refinement, is the Panharmonium voice. I struggled for a long time to get anything I liked at all from Panharmonium, much less something nice. Something that pleased me. It wasn’t until this patch that I finally made something I wanted to keep. There’s some dissonance in spots, which is something I’d like to improve on, but overall it’s a beautiful soundscape.

The input is the wet delay signals, output to Reverb. No modulation. A fairly slow analysis interval, some glide, some blur, some feedback, down 1 octave.

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Chaotic Gates

One of the more pressing challenges in modular synthesis is combating sameness. The same notes in the same patterns, all with identically shaped envelopes, at identical volume levels, and exactly in time. Without interventionist patching, the sameness quickly evolves to boredom. No one wants that.

One route of dealing with the problem of sameness in modular synthesis is to use separate sources for pitch and gates. Unlike all other instruments, note instantiation and note pitch are not intrinsically tied together in modular synthesis. By decoupling these facets of musical creation, you can have great levels of control fairly easily. Any change to either parameter, and your result changes in interesting ways. A regular gate pattern becomes predictable, which means that mystery and wonder are lost. Even when the gate pattern is used as part of a modulation track, as opposed to creating notes in a melody, sameness looms, and this sameness compels the synthesist to interject on some level and rid the patch of the potentiality for boredom. Today I want to focus on gate generation.

There are lots of ways to generate interesting gate patterns in the modular world. Standard clock utilities, gate probability modules, Euclidean pattern generators, random gate generators, logic modules, binary gate generators, Turing machines, and many more. All of them are capable routes of travel. It’s more a matter of function, workflow, and aesthetics that will determine which route is best for your given application.

In my latest patch I wanted a gate pattern that was at a “good” rate (read: it doesn’t take too long between gates, nor do they happen too frequently), and without discernible patterns. These gates are meant to control a simple facet in the patch: turning off and on the reverse function on the Veno-Echo. It’s not a terribly important part of the patch, but it does impart a distinct part of its character. I could have chosen a random gate generator like the one in Frap Tools Sapel, Instruo Scion, Make Noise Wogglebug, Mutable Instruments Marbles, or patched a smooth random signal into a window comparator in order to get random gates, but I wanted to experiment with chaos as a means to create gates. I use chaos regularly as modulation in most of my patches, but I’ve never really used it in a way that isn’t directly patching a chaos output to a standard modulation input like a filter cutoff or some other control. My use of chaos has been exclusively slow, direct modulation. I knew there was more to be had.

I’ve recently put together most of a Subsytem made up of modules from Nonlinearcircuits, a designer of eccentric modules I’ve long been a fan of. I’ve had a couple of Andrew’s chaos based modules, the mighty Triple Sloth and his rendition of The Hypster, for quite a while. They’ve been mainstays in my modulation cases for a couple of years. They were more recently joined by Let’s Splosh, and a few weeks later, Divide and Conquer, and I knew I wasn’t done. Quickly thereafter I added a Helvetica Scenario and a Stochaos to this chaotic modulation hub. But how to use it? There’s only so many modulation inputs in a given patch, and surely there had to be a way of using this subsystem for other purposes. Then a quick line on NLC’s page describing one of their gate sequencer modules, the 8bit Cipher, caught my attention.

Then I started really parsing the language in NLC catalog module descriptions, and noticed there was repeatedly a very deliberate use of the word “signal” to describe what goes into Clock inputs. Not a gate or rising edge, but a “signal.” For instance, on the Divide & Conquer page, the description states, “All sections will run off a signal patched into section 1.” Similarly, on the page for Helvetica Scenario it says, “To get it running, patch a signal into the clock input. Clock 2 is normalled to Clock 1 so a signal on 1 will drive both channels.”. In contrast, descriptions are quite clear when an input requires something more specific. In the description for Stochaos, it says, “To operate, just feed a gate to IN, add a reset if you like.” (All emphasis added).

And then it clicked: in the NLC universe, anything can be a clock so long as it periodically passes 1v. Nonlinearcircuits modules require nonlinear thinking, and that can lead to creative paths and surprising results.

For my clock, I knew I wanted to use a chaos signal. Sloths could work, but I wanted something more controllable, and opted for The Hypster, primarily because it has rate control from very slow to audio rate. Controlling the cycling rate allows for helping determine the window sizes; about how long it takes to cycle around and traverse 1v. With chaos this cycle could be sort of regular, or not very regular at all, but I could partially control the speed of that regularity, and that was important for designing the delay sound. I didn’t want a constant barrage of reverse delay “zips”, nor did I want only simple repeats, and I wanted the transitions from one state to the other to be organic feeling.

Although I had initially wanted to use the Stochaos from the start, with The Hypster as my clock, I soon realized that Stochaos requires a gate at its input, and not a “signal.” So I chose to use the Divide & Conquer as an intermediary. The Hypster to the Input of the Divide & Conquer, and using the 5/2 output to feed the Stochaos. From there Stochaos spits out gates based on chaos.1

Even though chaos signals are not regular, they’re not random either. In fact, if we know every factor in advance, a chaos signal can be predicted exactly. It’s just that we generally don’t have all of the information. There is a type of regularity with chaos, even if it does surprise you with each passing cycle. Think of your drive to school or work everyday. The route is the same, but the drive itself is not exactly identical on any 2 days, a phenomenon known as Intrapersonal Variability in travel. This variability is chaos. Each cycle of a chaos signal is very close to each other, like your drive to school each day, but an unknowable number of very small factors create change from one cycle to the next.

On your drive, there are subtle differences each time you take that route. Maybe you took the inside lane today when you normally take the outside lane, or you took a super wide turn at an intersection because of traffic conditions, or you left 2 minutes later than normal and got caught in traffic which slowed you down, or you had to make a very slight detour to go around an accident along the route. These subtle differences on a day to day basis, even when the overall route is the same (home to school), cause a very different track when compared at the micro level. It’s regular-ish. That’s a chaos signal.

But I wasn’t exactly dealing with only the micro level where changes from one cycle to the next are readily apparent, and I didn’t want that “sort of” regularity to appear regular, and opted to modulate the Rate and Gain of The Hypster with the Triple Sloths in order to keep noticable change happening on the macro level too. A perfectly imperfect clock signal, leading to a constantly changing stream of pulses as the mysteries of Stochaos took over, changing the state of my delay.

This portion of the patch itself is not terribly complicated. The chaotic gate programming only requires 6 cables, 2 of which are the gate outputs themselves. But this simplicity in creating the patch belies the complexity of what it’s achieving. Irregular gates can come about in many ways. It’s really easy to plug the output of a random gate generator and turn a couple of knobs to get a good result. But who wants the easy route when real discovery and learning happen when actively seeking the manual way?

Modules Used:
Nonlinearcircuits Triple Sloth
Nonlinearcircuits The Hypster
Nonlinearcircuits Stochaos
Nonlinearcircuits Divide & Conquer

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1. It’s not exactly clear to me from the patent that inspired Stochaos what method is used to derive gates at the outputs, particularly when in the Chaos setting. It mentions using noise, which is the Sto part of Stochaos, but it doesn’t fully describe the process itself outside of circuit diagrams, except to say that it uses a binary counting process.

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Piano Mist

There’s a patch that caught my ear in the days after a recent shoulder surgery while I was stuck in the recliner hopped up on pain killers, and looking for every distraction I could find in the synth-based slice of the internet to keep my time occupied. Unfortunately for my wallet during this time, I happed upon Tom Churchill’s excellent tutorial demos on the Xaoc Devices Odessa and Sofia (which led to an entire new Xaotic Dreams Subsystem). Stazma’s (AKA The Junglechrist) demo of the Verbos Harmonic Oscillator (particularly how it pairs so beautifully with the Multi-Delay Processor) led me on similar path with Verbos.

But it was one patch in particular that I kept coming back to which had me captivated. Over and over I’d listen to it, allowing its peace to wash over my ailing mind and soothe my temporarily excruciating existence. As I watched I would try to make out through an oxycodone fog what was happening, hoping that as soon as I was able I could create something like it. I took notes as best I could, and I traded my BitBox Micro so that I could acquire a Disting Ex. Although BitBox Micro is capable of playing polyphonic multisamples, and is a fantastic module in its own right, it can only do so with MIDI, and I needed to use CV and gates.

My first foray with this patch was a mess. The basic framework was more or less built out, but lots of things were off. My first problem was a horribly calibrated Disting Ex. Its pitch was wildly off, and nothing was in tune despite receiving carefully calibrated pitch CV. Once that was fixed things were much better, but I still had far too many dissonances that weren’t at all what I was looking for, and I wasn’t sure how to fix it. I couldn’t get the speed to something I felt was just right. I couldn’t get a satisfying note distribution. I wasn’t at all satisfied with it. I recorded it, but every time I’d listen back, I’d hear mere flashes of my goal disappear into a dark cloud of dissonance. Each listen prompted me to revisit the idea.

I’ve made over a dozen other modular recordings since that first try. Jamuary was productive. Not a single one of them attempts to use polyphonic multisampling. Not a single one of them uses Marbles or Disting Ex (in any capacity). I’d stepped away from it. During that time, when I would take a few moments to think about the patch, I gained some perspective, as well as some newfound patching knowledge and experience with the various patches I was making at the time. I was now better prepared to revisit this piano patch with a fresh take.

I knew that one of my initial problems to solve was that the original patch had too many notes available for CV to address. My first attempt at this patch was in C Major, and I left all 7 notes of the scale available between C1 and C5 to all 3 CV inputs. Marbles spits out randomly generated pitch CV and gates from its X and T outputs, which goes to the 3 CV and gate inputs on the Disting Ex, via Quantermain in the Micro Ornament and Crime. Despite having quantized pitch CV, using the maximum number of notes meant that any number of dissonances can happen at any point. Nobody wants to hear E juxtaposed with F, or any other dissonant intervals, with any regularity. Particularly not when there can be several dissonances occurring simultaneously. It’s harsh, when I’m looking for smooth.

Along with a key change (C Major to C Minor) I also made adjustments such that each pitch CV input would only generate particular notes of the scale, and not all of them. This change made dissonances few and far between, which meant those dissonances were now artistic tension that would quickly resolve to something more pleasing, and not a stream of clashing notes that barrel into one another, overtaking the piece. I made some minor adjustments to the Rate and Jitter controls on the Mutable Instruments Marbles to get a more satisfying pace and amount of sloppiness in note instantiation. I also tweaked the note distribution to get something resembling a bell curve in pitch generation. More notes in the middle of the range than at either extreme. Super low and piercingly high notes are good for effect, but not as a matter of regular course throughout a piece. These notes are generated randomly, but the process still needs well set boundaries in order to remain interesting. Unfettered random is every bit as boring as a fully repetitive pattern.

Now that I had a stream of piano notes I was content with, it was time to address the FX, which is what would make this piece interesting. The piano sets the path. The FX create the atmosphere around that path. During my first attempt at this patch, I tried to keep FX to a minimum. Some reverb courtesy of the Mutable Instruments Beads, followed later by its granular synthesis engine. The FX were sparse, but not really in a good way. The piece was empty and cluttered at the same time. Octave repeats spiraling off almost uncontrollably, awkwardly filling in empty space and becoming unruly when note generation temporarily sped up. It was a mess. A mess so bad, in fact, that I simply stopped recording out of frustration, and pulled the patch apart.

This time I started with the reverb. Although the FX is what would be most interesting about this piece, I knew I wanted to have the reverb set based on how it sounded with just the piano notes. I wanted a massive open space. Something between a huge cathedral and space. There needed to be bounds, but they needed to be pretty far out there. I had initially chosen to use the Vongon Ultrasheer for the reverb, but in a last minute decision decided to use the Oto Bam with its Ambient algorithm. Some adjustments to the size and decay, along with a bit of modulated chorus adjusted in the Bam, and we were set. In retrospect, I wish I had added even more chorus to lofi it up, or that I had used the Ultrasheer with some randomly modulated vibrato, but I’m still quite pleased with the result.

But what next? I had bad memories of out of control granular repeats, so decided to forego using it in favor of delay. I knew I wanted some reverse delay (because if it doesn’t have reverse delay is it even ambient?), but all reverse delay all the time quickly became taxing, its zips easily taking over the soundscape. So I decided to work on panning technique which would gradually move the source piano sounds between 2 different delays using 2 different sorts of repeats. The technique isn’t hard, even when adapting it to a full stereo signal. You can find the patch diagram here. These 2 delays are mixed, creating seamless transitions between 1 delay and the other. Very cool. I got movement and gradually changing variation. As one delay fades out, the other begins to fade in. Pretty much exactly what I wanted.

But even with gradually shifting between 2 wholly separate delays, the reverse delay was still a bit over-prominent, which meant that I needed a method to turn the reverse function on and off. Chaos to the rescue. After some tweaking to various facets of my clock, the delays were sorted. But there was still something missing.

I’ve had Panharmonium for a long time. It was one of my first large Eurorack purchases, and I definitely didn’t have the modular chops to use it effectively. In fact, I’d had a very hard time getting anything nice sounding from it. I could never seem to find the right analysis interval, and a couple of other settings really mystified me, resulting in what I can only describe as sonic sludge. A glob of abruptly shifting dissonances that sounded terrible. It was nothing like what the many YouTube demos promised were all there to be unlocked.

After watching a video titled “How I Use My Rossum Panharmonium (Part 1)” by Baséput I noticed something. The source he used is fairly sparse. I had been using full melody lines as a source and it hadn’t worked out at all. He was using the granular-like output from Morphagene as a source, which is fairly sparse, and had a beautiful result with just a couple of knob twists. Depending on your settings, just a second of a Morphagene output could hold an entire piece’s worth of sonic info. With that info in mind, I decided to use the mixed delays as my input into Panharmonium. A few more tweaks to the delays to give me shorter repeats, plus an octave up on one of them, and I felt like I had good sonic ingredients for Panharmonium to shine.

And it worked. Despite never having anything special from Panharmonium before, I was greeted almost instantly with exactly the sorts of sounds I’d always imagined making with it. In just 1 patch the Panharmonium turned from a module I had listed for sale into one I doubt I’d ever get rid of. The results are an almost choir-like accompaniment, which gives the entire piece an ethereal feel, which was pretty much what I was going for. More on this to come.

Modules Used:
Mutable Instruments Marbles
uO_C
Expert Sleepers Disting Ex
ST Modular SVCA
Holocene Electronics Non-Linear Memory Machine
Venus Instruments Veno-Echo
Rossum Electro-Music Panharmonium
AI Synthesis 018 Stereo Matrix Mixer
Nonlinearcircuits The Hypster
Nonlinearcircuits Triple Sloth
Nonlinearcircuits Divide & Conquer
Nonlinearcircuits Stochaos
Intellijel Quad VCA
Xaoc Devices Warna II
Xaoc Devices Zadar
Knob Farm Ferry
Oto Bam

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

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A 4ms Wonderland

Like many people, the flagship 4ms modules, Spherical Wavetable Navigator (SWN) and Spectral Multiband Resonator (SMR), immediately grabbed my attention upon first laying eyes on them. They’re beautiful, engaging, sound mesmerizing, and perhaps most importantly, full of blinkenlights. The best demos show the promise of drone heaven and the frolicking of gently pinged filters. Everything about them induces the worst sort of GAS.

The SMR was one of my first large Eurorack purchases. The second I heard the first demo of it on a YouTube video I was absolutely hooked. I wanted the sound of Fantasy Land (not to be confused with Fantasyland). Ringing bells harmonizing about as I modulate and play with sliders, so I found a decent deal on one and pulled the trigger.

Those first few patch dates were rough. The complexity of Modular synthesis in general still all but totally eluded me. I had very little understanding of voltage ranges, attenuators and offsets, and properly using CV. To add on, the SMR has the learning curve of a steep cliff, with deep shadows under every knob turn and flick of a switch. It’s incredibly dense, and highly intimidating for a beginner, so after those first few forays I put it aside with the hopes that I might revisit it when I could more properly understand how to use it. I tried again about a year later and had better results, but still not satisfying ones. Certainly not worth the money it costs or space it occupies. I thought of selling it, but those demos….

Fast forward to the end of summer 2023. The HS baseball season was over (I keep score for a local HS team and travel with them, and then do it again for summer ball) and I once again had some time to mess about with my synth. But instead of trying to play with the SMR and get something useful, I gave in to a serious case of GAS and ordered a SWN, the SMR’s sister module of equal beauty, size, cost, and complexity, along with equally beautiful sounds emanating from within its spheres. No one ever accused me of being smart.

But this time I took a different tact before trying to use it. Rather than simply plugging in cables to see what happens, I watched 2 demo videos by the ever-engaging Red Means Recording and loopop; over and over and over, while having the manual open to refer to the official documentation when needed or desired. I wanted to understand what this beast was and how it worked, not just have an idea of what it can do. Before I ever patched a single cable I’d watched the videos at least a dozen times, and read the manual in depth so that I might have a solid grasp of the controls.

I’m glad I did that. During my first session at the controls, I only needed to consult the manual for the different LFO and scale color coding. The controls were easy, and in some ways, already ingrained. I knew which knob I needed to twist for browsing the wavetables, and how to use the same knob to select a different wavetable sphere. Instinctively I knew how to change chords. The session seemed to flow easily and it was a good time, however brief. Who knew that RTFM was a good idea?

The next day I had more time, and I was due for a longer session on the synth. Being that I’d just recently finished a 3u 84hp subsystem dedicated to 4ms , I was eager to get to patching it in a more unified way. So I was off to the races. Not just with the SWN, but I was determined also to use the SMR in conjunction. My understanding of synthesis has come a long way since my first time sitting down with it, and I wanted my longing for something beautiful out of the SMR to finally be realized. Plus, because of my newly found understanding of the SWN, I had an idea. 💡

Although I’m sure that this idea is as far from original as could be, it was still an idea that I came up with independently, and I was determined to run with it. Those 6 Level CV inputs on the SMR just so happen to correspond to 6 LFO outputs that can send envelopes, gates, or triggers. Surely 4ms didn’t design this pair this conveniently on purpose!

And it was brilliant. The patch starts with continuous pinging of each filter in succession, while modulating the Spread which sends the pinging melody up and down the scale in very interesting ways. It’s then mixed with a drone from the SWN while modulating the areas within the wavetable sphere. The 4ms Dual EnvVCA was used to modulate the Scale on SMR, which was itself modulated by one of the envelope followers. Dual EnvVCA was also used to slowly modulate the wavetable. Everything was sent to both delay and reverb. There are loads of cables in this patch, but it wasn’t terribly difficult.

Modules Used:
4ms Spherical Wavetable Navigator
4ms Spectral Multiband Resonator
4ms Dual EnvVCA
Vongon Polyphrase
Vongon Ultrasheer

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


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FX Sends (and Returns Too)

As I was restructuring my synth into Subsystems, I was adamant that I wanted a varied and flexible outboard FX section. Although I love Eurorack FX, I’m fairly convinced that many FX are better outside of the case, rather than a module in it. Modulation sounds great on some FX, like delay, but causes chaos in others, like reverb. I’m know that there are lots of great pedals that aren’t in euro form, and that pedal companies have been perfecting FX for decades. The first stereo reverb, for instance, came about long before Eurorack was even invented. Why reinvent the wheel, or limit myself to only euro FX? That’s counterproductive and boring.

But I also had a logistics problem. FX sends and returns are traditionally handled through a patchbay, and as mightily as I tried, I couldn’t imagine a good way to implement a patch bay in my Eurorack system. Patchbays make connecting audio gear simple and intuitive. I use them all the time on my recording/editing desk. But this time it was not meant to be. The Eurorack specific patchbays on the market aren’t quite flexible enough. The Patchulator and Patchulator Pro don’t offer full-time access to every effect from any given number of sources. Theoretically I wanted to be able to play all 10 of my effects simultaneously, with 10 different sources. A patch bay makes this easy, but without one I’d have to come up with something different.

That something different took a while to assemble, and for all I know may not even be the best way. But even if it isn’t the most efficient way, it’s a way that works. I can run any source to any effect at any time. I can chain effects with ease. I don’t have to do any unplugging and plugging in of pedals. They’re all available, all the time. Awesome.

I long searched for a send/return module that would meet all of my needs. It had to have stereo inputs and outputs, fairly small (because I knew I would need 9 or 10 of them), a way to control the send level, and a way to mix from 100% dry to 100% wet. There are several Eurorack send/return modules, but few are fully featured. After testing a couple, the one that fit the bill best is the Knob Farm Ferry. It has everything I was looking for. It can function in mono or in stereo, has send level (which also functions as a crossfader with a switch), mixes from full dry to full wet, and all in just 4hp. To top it off, the Ferry even includes the requisite TRS > Dual TS insert cables to connect your line level outboard effects and pedals. A nice set, I might add, and not something you’d find on Amazon for a couple bucks with generic plastic connectors and cheap cabling.

Since I have 10 pedals I wanted to use as FX with my synth, I knew I needed at least 9 Ferries. I already had a Strymon AA.1 that I was determined to use so I ordered 8 more Ferries in 3 separate batches. Knob Farm even sent me a free Ooots, a very excellent output module that I use with my satellite synth.

The modules themselves have been installed for a while, but I procrastinated fiercely with getting everything patched in. Patching in 10 separate pedals, all with stereo I/O (and some with MIDI) is quite the chore, and I was dreading it. I didn’t want a proverbial rat’s nest, which meant careful labeling and deliberate cable routing with lots of Velcro cable ties to keep things as orderly as possible.

Does it work?

Once I had everything patched in came the nit-picky task of testing. Are all the modules connected to their pedals correctly? Are all of the modules set up correctly for stereo sends and returns? We’re about to find out.

For this type of testing I’ve found that very simple sources work best. They’re easy to patch, and give good, regular feedback if something is amiss down the chain. Today I set up as simple a patch as I could muster: the “Final” output from Brenso into CUNSA being used in LPG mode, with an envelope from Falistri modulating the LPG, and the EOF gate striking the wavefolder of Brenso. Falistri was set to cycle at a fairly slow rate; about 72bpm. This gave me constant boings, with some space between to let the FX tell me whether they were working or not.

I manually patched that boing to each and every Ferry, and from each Ferry to my output module (Expert Sleepers ES-9), ensuring that everything was set correctly. All mono/stereo switches were set to stereo, the Gain/Xfade knob switches to gain. I then tested the wet/dry mixing, and gain of each. Of course I also took the time to ensure that the effects were working, and had some fun, particularly with the delays, despite such a monotonous source. It took about an hour, and although I ran into 2 separate problems (I had inputs and outputs mixed up on the Oto Bam and Boum), everything went about as smoothly as it could. Nice!

The FX are in, and now it’s time to jam.

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