Tag: amps

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Jamuary 2531

I wanted to do something very different today. Throughout Jamuary I’ve done drones, rhythmic pieces that one might even dance to, as well as many other styles. I even have a classic Rings > Beads patch. It had been a long while since I played my 4ms case. I can recall the last patch I used it. It was a pretty cool patch featuring the Ensemble Oscillator (though not one I uploaded to peaks and nulls), and before that was a patch last February. I hadn’t touched it at all during this Jamuary; it was one of the two cases I hadn’t touched at all (the other was my Instruo case), and I wanted to hear those sweet, sweet wavetables again.

I had initially set out to duplicate my 4ms Wonderland patch. I really enjoyed that patch and wanted to see if I could do it again. The answer is probably, at least a close enough version of it, but I ran into the same problem I had when making it the first time. The output levels of the Spectral Multiband Resonator pings are so low as to need significant boosting. In order to get them in an audible range for humans, I needed to boost them by 20dB, then run them to another VCA to boost them yet more. All this boosting added significant noise. I’m sure it’s something I will lean into in the future (who doesn’t like a bit of noise?), but I wasn’t in the mood to deal with it for tonight. So I decided to use the Spherical Wavetable Navigator to trigger itself in LFO > VCA mode rather than drone in the background. I started it with no transposition or Spread, then slowly introduced modulation to both, along with the modulation present in the Browse, Latitude, WT Spread, and Depth parameters of the wavetables, constantly changing the timbre and voicing. This made the SWN go up and down minor scales, and have different arpeggio patterns.

The SWN was sent to the 4ms Dual Looping Delay, another first-use module this Jamuary. What a cool delay that I’ll definitely need to explore. In the process, I used the Industrial Music Electronics Malgorithm Mk2 in the feedback loop, often times a little too eagerly. I manually rode the input level to the Malgorithm. There was a sweet spot where I could get good crunch without starting to runaway with feedback. This crunched up some already fairly crunchy wavetables in a really nice way. The mix was sent to the output mixer for some reverb.

I also decided to have a second crack at the Cutlasses Gloop. Last night was loads of fun, even if the recording wasn’t perfect. What an excellent little instrument. I need to practice looping, especially when trying to use four different loops simultaneously. Looping slower or more sparse material is much easier. It’s definitely a performative skill I haven’t used much of in the past, and my meager skills show. There’s some unintended jumpiness as I tried to shorten and move the individual loops within the large loop. Though far more gracefully than yesterday’s debacle, the transition between the source and the looped recording was a little rough around the edges. I also made a boneheaded mistake with this track: I never put a reverb send on it in AUM (😬), so the only tails it had were the delays tails, which rode the edge of self-oscillation throughout the Gloop section due to giving slightly too much juice to the input level on Malgorithm. It’s better than nothing, but would have been better with reverb and not low-riding oscillation. This was not intentional. I likely mistook it for reverb, though I did know something wasn’t right.

The Shaped Dual EnvVCA and Dual EnvVCA performed all modulation in this patch. All of their outputs were modulating something. The Spread and Transpose on SWN, the Latitude, Longitude, and Depth on the SWN to navigate the wavetable sphere, as well as the Shape of two of the LFOs.

Modules Used:
4ms Spherical Wavetable Navigator
4ms Dual EnvVCA
4ms Shaped Dual EnvVCA
4ms Dual Looping Delay
Industrial Music Electronics Malgorithm Mk2
Cutlasses Gloop
AI Synthesis 018 Stereo Matrix Mixer
Intellijel Amps
ST Modular SVCA
Knob Farm Ferry

Outboard Gear Used:
Walrus Audio Slöer

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

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Jamuary 2523

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

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

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

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

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

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

Outboard Gear Used:
Walrus Audio Slöer

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Jamuary 2522

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Outboard Gear Used:
Walrus Audio Slöer

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

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Jamuary 2519

Despite having to hazard snowy conditions doing afternoon obligations, I finally had a bit of time today to patch as the sun was beginning to set on what is about to be a very cold night. Like, for real. It’s gonna be cold as balls.1

I didn’t have an idea ready to go for today, so resorted to a couple of patches that I’ve done variations of in the past and wanted to further explore. I finally used Just Friends as a six part oscillator, with a lightly modulated Nonlinearcircuits The Hypster chaotically controlling their levels in six VCAs, while also modulating Just Friends’ Shape to get subtle timbre shifts. I didn’t seek a particular harmonic relationship between the different oscillators, but I turned Intone clockwise from noon until I got something that sounded a little dark but still pleasant.

Once these waves were level modulated and mixed to stereo in an Intellijel Amps, with odd Identity outputs on the left channel and even ones on the right, the mix was sent to the Olivia Artz Modular Time Machine for some delay before being sent to the output mixer and some reverb. I also sent a passthrough of this output to the Dradd(s) for some granular synthesis in Tape mode. I initially wanted it in an octave up mode, but between the high pitched bleeps, that were further pitched up in their own delay and granular-esque process, there was too much going on in that higher frequency range and it became too much to deal with. In lieu, I went with what amounts to using a tape machine that stutters at half speed. The effect here isn’t dramatic, but it does add a lot of movement in the stereo field which is really interesting.

The second voice was a simple triangle wave from a Falistri, using the other generator as its envelope and trigger source in the Rabid Elephant Natural Gate. The EOC output also triggered Sapel, which supplied both a new fall time for the envelope, as well as pitch for the oscillator, varying both note pitch and length. Although this sub-patch worked as it should, it was weirdly patched. It could have been great simplified without any penalty whatsoever. The inefficiency is due to it being what was left from other ideas. Rather than re-patching, I recycled what was already going on. I initially combined both generators’ bipolar outputs in Falistri’s four quadrant multiplier for some ring modulated tones, but ultimately opted for a sparkly sound over the marimba sound. The output from Natural Gate was sent to the Holocene Electronics Non-Linear Memory Machine for some delay and buffer freezing, which created some really cool effects, especially the aliasing on the pitched up notes. I wanted to devise a way to scan the buffer only while it was frozen, but couldn’t quite figure out how to do that with the current patch and gating technique. It definitely stumped me. I’ve done a recent patch where I was able to scan the buffer only when it was frozen, but it used an entirely different triggering mechanism and today I didn’t have there wherewithal to work together an algorithm to get it done. That said, the effect it does create is very cool. Almost Data Bender-like, which appeals to me.

I ran into a dreaded problem while recording today’s patch. It doesn’t occur often, only a handful of times that I can remember, but it is a problems channel bleed/crosstalk in my mixer. It can be clearly heard for at least the first two minutes and 20 seconds, and intermittently throughout the recording. It only happens under circumstances like today, with much lower pitched audio in one input, and much higher pitched audio in some other channel. Think sparkles. You know, kind of like in today’s patch. It’s really annoying, even if I don’t notice it in most circumstances. Fortunately the builder is super-responsive, and we’ll see if he has a fix or mitigation for it.

Modules Used:
Mannequins Just Friends
Nonlinearcircuits The Hypster
Nonlinearcircuits De-Escalate
CuteLab Missed Opportunities
Intellijel Amps
Olivia Artz Modular Time Machine
Frap Tools Falistri
Frap Tools Sapel
Rabit Elephant Natural Gate
Holocene Electronics Non-Linear Memory Machine
AI Synthesis 018 Stereo Matrix Mixer
Knob Farm Ferry
ST Modular SVCA

Outboard Gear Used:
Walrus Audio Slöer

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

  1. In America, at least for my generation where I grew up (South Florida), “as balls” is a popular unit of measurement. You can use it similarly to “as fuck”, although “as balls” isn’t quite as flexible. It works, however, under many circumstances. Hot as balls. Cold as balls. Busy as balls. Heavy as balls. Far as balls. It can also sometimes be used in a slightly different form as an adjective. (E.g., balls cold, balls hot). ↩︎
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Jamuary 2517

Today’s patch was a long time coming. Several years ago I saw a patch from scratch video by Omri Cohen which used a Befaco Rampage as the base of everything else. It dictated volume, speed, when pitch changes would happen, timbres, and lots of others things besides. I was inspired, and immediately purchased a Rampage. Only I never tried that patch, and moved on to other great things.

Even though I no longer even have that Rampage, I do have several other Function Generators with many of the same features, and after watching the video again recently, I decided today was the day. Only I cheated a little bit. Rather than patch up various Sample and Hold modules to vary envelope length for the higher Brenso voice, I used the Addac506 Stochastic Function Generator which accomplished the same effect. I initially tried using a Falistri but the pitch was always changing a fraction too late for the cycling envelope, and I’d hear that pitch change. I worked on it for a bit, but decided to move on once I realized I wasn’t getting anywhere. To be fair, it was similar with the Addac506, but since I can negatively offset its functions directly, I was able to make it so that always happened in silence, and didn’t give a noticeable blip. I could have accomplished the same thing using a separate offset with the Falistri envelopes, but in a bit of laziness decided I didn’t want to patch it. I did use a certain kind of Sample and Hold for pitch voltage, via Quantermain for quantization into D# Phyrigian (which gives it a dark, mystical feel – like were walking through a dark elvish den), from the Nonlinearcircuits Helvetica Scenario. It differs from a standard Sample and Hold module in one unique way. Rather than using a noise source for sampling voltages, Helvetica Scenario uses a Jerk Chaos circuit running at 300Hz, which, from a practical standpoint, is similar enough.

That varying envelope and pitch control a Frap Tools Brenso, with its wave shape being modulated, along with a slight bit of modulation to the wavefolder. I’ll be the first to admit that I haven’t used Brenso very much. Not nearly as often as I should. I’m generally a bit intimidated by complex oscillators, and have mostly used them as two separate oscillators without the FM or waveshaping features, but in the spirit of loving my Frap Tools case and generally trying new things during Jamuary, I decided to give it a bit of a shot by using the waveshaper and wavefolder features. At least a little bit. I would have used some FM too, but decided to leave that for another day. I did note, however, that while patching Brenso, how beautiful the sound was. Reedy in some ways, at least before running it through the noisy PT2399 delay chip of the Bizarre Jezabel Quarté Mk2. I then ran it through to ST Modular Sum Mix & Pan to slowly pan the signal across the stereo field.

This voice was doubled by the Dradd(s) in Grain mode, time stretching the Brenso part, but at a fairly high clock rate to both shorten the buffer, and produce shorter grains.. I’ve really enjoyed using the Dradd(s) this way of late.

The ever oozing chord base underneath is the Humble Audio Quad Operator with a set chord of the one, three, five, and seven of D# Phrygian (D#, F#, A#, and B). I initially used three cycling envelopes from a pair of Falistris to control the level of those notes, but opted in the end to use a cycle similar to the one I used in Jamuary 2505 and 2511, where the End of Rise gate would trigger the next envelope, allowing the next note to fade in while the current note fades out. I should have used Sample and Hold on these envelopes to vary their length, but opted not to in the end to allow the main Brenso voice to monopolize attention. All four oscillators were mixed to mono in Intellijel Amps, and sent to the Bizarre Jezabel Pkhi Mk3 for low pass filtering before the output. The low passed audio signal was also sent to a the Venus Instruments Veno-Echo, which had its high pass filtering enabled in the feedback loop so as not to muddy the sound. I was never fully happy with how this voice turned out. The mix was too easily blown out, giving it a much darker and grittier feel than I initially intended, though after a bit of struggle, decided to lean into it a bit. I need to find a different way for gentler chord washes like this using saw waves. Some of the individual tones were buried in the mix, and at times the chord is lost.

My forgetfulness finally caught up to this Jamuary day. I forgot to take pictures of this patch before I had to turn everything off for the night so my wife could go to bed, so no pretty eye candy tonight. I may add some tomorrow. If I remember anyways.

Modules Used:
Frap Tools Brenso
Frap Tools Falistri
Addac Systems Addac506 Stochastic Function Generator
Intellijel Amps
Humble Audio Quad Operator
Nonlinearcircuits Helvetica Scenario
Nonlinearcircuits De-Escalate
Nonlinearcircuits Triple Sloths
Bizarre Jezabel Quarté Mk2
Bizarre Jezabel Pkhi Mk3
ST Modular Sum Mix & Pan
Venus Instruments Veno-Echo
Befaco/DivKid Stereo Strip
AI Synthesis 018 Stereo Matrix Mixer
Knob Farm Ferry

Outboard Gear Used:
Walrus Audio Slöer

Plugins Used:
Toneboosters TB Equalizer 4

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

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Jamuary 2515

Today’s Jamuary was hard. I’m tired, and I made the fatal mistake of waiting until the last minute. The result isn’t bad. I actually like it, even if I’d make changes in a future revision. But in the spirit of using some unfamiliar gear during Jamuary, I ran into unfamiliar problems. I couldn’t find a filter I liked, had a hard time choosing delays, and had to patch and re-patch several times, only to arrive at a fairly simple audio chain and control scheme. I made dumb mistakes that hampered the effort and made it much more difficult than it should be.

Jamuary 2513 and 2514 were both rhythmic driven patches, and cool as they were, I was ready for something slow today. Up in the top right corner of my synth (as it’s currently configured) sits the revered Mannequins Just Friends. I haven’t had it too long, perhaps three or four months, but I hadn’t had the occasion to use it yet and I figured there’s no better time than right now to pop that particular cherry. Though I know Just Friends is many things, including a harmonic oscillator, I wanted to try its modulation capabilities during my premier with it. From all reports, it’s utterly fantastic in that role. So I set it at a slow yet still moving Time, and let it loose. The Hypster, via De-Escalate, modulated both Intone and Curve to keep the movement of each function in constant flux.

I thought about using virtually every multi-oscillator module I had. The E370, Falistri(s), 4Vox, CUNSA, Harmonic Oscillator, Quad Operator, and several others. But for some reason, I settled on using a Calsynth Changes, a very excellent 1:1 Mutable Instruments Stages clone, in Harmonic Oscillator (AKA Ouroboros mode). It’s not really a conventional choice for use as an oscillator, though it does the job great, and has the added benefit of having exactly six oscillators with six shapes (I used triangle waves), conveniently matching the six outputs of Just Friends.

Initially I tried to control the levels of each oscillator directly on Changes, but it doesn’t work great that way, so I opted to patch each output to a individual VCAs to be modulated by Just Friends, with the odd harmonics left and the even harmonics right. The output goes directly to the Bizarre Jezabel Mimosa, then Quarté Mk2 for a bit of lo-fi-ification. I had two looping triangle envelopes modulating time on both delay channels for some vibrato (even if I couldn’t hone in the modulation to my satisfaction), and, as the performance progressed, fed a slow looping stochastic function from the Addac506 to Mimosa’s wet/dry CV input. The noisy delay made Mimosa superfluous in some ways, but the effect is still nice, though probably not necessary, especially since I was also overdriving the VCAs with hot envelopes and, for much of the performance, with the attenuator wide open.

As a last minute addition, I also added a send to the Dradd brothers (in Grain mode) for some more gritty texture. This patch is full of texture. I tried to send the Dradd(s) through a delay, but couldn’t find one I liked quickly enough, and so abandoned the idea and ran it straight to the mixer for some reverb treatment.

The result is a pretty epic drone, perhaps a bit reminiscent of Alessandro Cortini (if I may be so bold), especially with the signature noisy PT2399 sound from the delay chips.

Modules Used:
Mannequins Just Friends
Calsynth Changes
Bizarre Jezabel Mimosa
Bizarre Jezabel Quarté Mk2
Pladask Elektrisk Dradd(s)
Nonlinearcircuits The Hypster
Nonlinearcircuits De-Escalate
Intellijel Amps
AI Synthesis 018 Stereo Matrix Mixer
Addac Systems Addac506 Stochastic Function Generator
Knob Farm Ferry

Outboard Gear Used:
Walrus Audio Slöer

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

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Jamuary 2514

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Outboard Gear Used:
Vongon Ultrasheer

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

  1. I actually used all eight VCAs in my Amps chain to dynamically control four triggers and four snappy, stochastic envelopes from the Addac506 Stochastic Function Generator which were patched to the Natural Gates’ Control CV inputs. ↩︎
  2. I meant to mix these down in a slightly stereo orientation, but I simply forgot to turn the pan knobs. 😕 ↩︎
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Jamuary 2509

Today I decided to go back to a technique I’ve rarely used, and on a much grander scale. I don’t use noise very often, and when I do it tends to be for the obvious use cases. Hit hats, wind and ocean sounds, sprays, etc. I seldomly use it for modulation, and only once have I used noise of any flavor to amplitude modulate an oscillators wave. Today I would do it again, times eight.

I conceived of using noise to modulate all eight harmonics of the Verbos Harmonic Oscillator this morning as my wife was talking to me. I even popped up a bit at the idea, and she took notice.

Wife: “What?”

Me: “Nothing. Just had a thought occur to me. Not even sure if it’s worth a shit.”

I spent the better part of the morning and early afternoon thinking about how I wanted to do this patch. I knew that just noise into each harmonic’s VCA wasn’t it. Then it occurred to me: Chaos! As soon as this though hit my brain I knew what to do, and immediately went to the synth to start patching.

I ran blue noise from Sapel to input 1 of the Intellijel Amps. Amps is a special sort of VCA. Everything cascades. All inputs cascade, as do CV inputs, and there are mixing outputs as well. It’s incredibly flexible. I have four of them chained together to be an eight channel “super VCA/submixer” and it’s been a great choice. Since each input cascades, I only needed one noise input to run this entire section of the patch. Every other channel received that same blue noise input as well. Into each channel’s CV input I patched one of the eight outputs from Nonlinearcircuits The Hypster to chaotically modulate the noise levels of all eight channels independently. Once that was patched, I ran each Amps output to its own Harmonic Oscillator VCA input at random. The only part of this patch that was planned were the first and fifth harmonics, which received their noise modulation from the U and -U outputs on The Hypster as they’re the outputs with the highest amplitude. Each harmonic was slowly brought in by slowly adjusting each CV attenuator individually at random until they were all playing. The nature of chaos means that cycles, even if semi-regular at times, don’t repeat exactly the same, and the harmonics never played the same twice, which kept movement interesting. There were often pauses or redirections in motion for each harmonic. Wonderful.

The mixed HO output was patched to the Multi-Delay Processor. I’ve been taken in by the earthy sound of the Harmonic Oscillator. Each harmonic sine wave has a little hair on it once you give them a little push. The drive in the MultixDelay Processor, both on the input and on each tap output, accentuates that hair in all the right ways. This Verbos ecosystem is warm and inviting, but it can also roar. Taps four and eight were patched to the Verbos Scan & Pan, hard panned left and right, and the output of the MDP, which only had the dry signal, was patched to be in the middle of the mix. This mix created a strong signal with some subtle stereo movement which ended up being fantastic. This stereo signal was then patched to the stereo matrix mixer to be spread around to different effects.

The Rossum Panharmonium fed the Holocene Electronics Non-Linear Memory Machine, which was set with a fairly slow delay and full clockwise smearing, which really smoothed out the Panharmonium’s output for an accompanying drone that floats along beside the ever moving Harmonic Oscillator. This output then fed the Dradd(s), which did its thing in Grain Mode (although I think I forgot to turn on the modulation to both P1 and P2 on both Dradds 😬 – I’m also not convinced it isn’t lost in the mix).

I’m very pleased with how this patch turned out and was a great success at using this technique which I’ll be sure to use more often.

Modules Used:
Nonlinearcircuits The Hypster
Nonlinearcircuits Triple Sloths
Intellijel Amps
Frap Tools Sapel
Verbos Harmonic Oscillator
Verbos Multi-Delay Processor
Verbos Scan & Pan
AI Synthesis 018 Stereo Matrix Mixer
Rossum Electro-Music Panharmonium
Holocene Electronics Non-Linear Memory Machine
Pladask Elektrisk Dradd(s)
Knob Farm Ferry

Outboard Gear Used:
Walrus Audio Slöer

Plugins Used:
Toneboosters TB Equalizer

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

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Jamuary 2506

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.

Modules Used:
Industrial Music Electronics Kermit Mk3
Synthesis Technology E370
Nonlinearcircuits The Hypster
Nonlinearcircuits Let’s Splosh
Verbos Multi-Delay Processor
Verbos Scan and Pan
Addac Systems Addac506 Stochastic Function Generator
ST Modular Sum Mix & Pan
Frap Tools Falistri
Frap Tools Sapel
Holocene Electronics Non-Linear Memory Machine
Pladask Elektrisk Dradd(s)
Intellijel Amps
AI Synthesis 018 Stereo Matrix Mixer
Knob Farm Ferry

Outboard Gear Used:
Walrus Audio Slöer

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

  1. Delays have long been used as preamps without the delay, and the MDP will be no exception. ↩︎
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Jamuary 2505 – Two Versions

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.

Modules Used:
Verbos Polyphonic Envelope
Verbos Harmonic Oscillator
Verbos Amp & Tone
Verbos Multi-Delay Processor
Verbos Scan & Pan
Verbos Voltage Multistage
Frap Tools Sapel
Frap Tools Falistri
Intellijel Amps
AI Synthesis 018 Stereo Matrix Mixer
Knob Farm Ferry
Rossum Electro-Music Panharmonium
Bizarre Jezabel Pkhia
Addac Systems Addac506 Stochastic Function Generator
Pladask Elektrisk Dradd(s)

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

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