Here’s a nice little performed drone using the Make Noise 0-Coast and Strega, using an idea generated by this patch from Pete, normally Make Noise’s “Instagram guy”, on Make Noise’s YouTube channel.
It’s not a terribly complicated patch. 0-Coast > Strega with some cross modulation between them, and out through the Stratosphere Cloud Reverb by Blue Mangoo, but it is satisfying and dramatic. A choice distortion pedal would have been perfect after the Strega. Next Time.
I always seem to find myself both perplexed and captivated by my Make Noise case. Because it’s a relatively small system that’s also a walled garden, modules are limited. I’ve always scoffed a bit at the idea that a small case can spurn on creativity in a way a big case can’t. That it forces you to make deliberate choices and patch in new ways to get the most of what you do have. But with my Make Noise case that’s at least partially true. I’m not sure whether it’s the Make Noise ethos or the small case, but I find myself having to really think through patches. Even normally basic tasks, like mixing, can be a logistics challenge while patching. There are a finite number of jacks to plug, and a static few modules to work with.
After a short hiatus, the Make Noise case is back in order and with a couple of new additions. I needed the case for a travel synth, and I’ve been crazy busy since my return. I made a trip to Asheville and had a really great day at the QMMG in-store event, and I recorded a couple of tracks on the main synth and another on my new Make Noise 0-Series setup since, but I’ve straight procrastinated wrestling with the shitty M2.5 screws and sliding nuts Make Noise uses with their cases.1 Post-trip I also decided, after seeing rack rash on a couple of the travel synth modules from being screwed in without washers exactly once, that I was going to wait until I received longer screws and nylon washers to mitigate any further scratching issues. Rack rash isn’t the end of the world, but being that I move modules in and out quickly, I like for them to retain resale value, especially when it comes to factors I can control.
Once I got the case assembled I went to work. Not on creating a beautiful patch to share with the world (even if I do think the results are beautiful), but on seeing just exactly why QMMG generates the hype it does. How does it ring? Beautifully. How does it squelch? Loudly. How does it sweep? Lovely. How does it bleed? Perfectly.
I set out to re-create one of my favorite patches that encourages vactrol bleed, allowing subsequent pitches of a sequence to be heard after a step has been passed, and before the vactrol has had the time to close the gate of the LPG. These notes aren’t being gated, but sneak through at an audible level anyways as a byproduct of the slow vactrol response. Walker describes these bled notes as “[N]ot ghosts, exactly, because they have yet to exist. They’re more like premonitions or ideas; bulbs casting light on possible futures inscribed in the sequence.” Although I’ve written about this technique before, and use it often, I couldn’t resist using it with the new QMMG. I wanted to hear the vactrols for everything they are, not try and cover them up or hide their true nature. After all, Tony Rolando allegedly has said that the vactrols are the heart of QMMG, and it bleeds. It’s the module’s logo. Vactrol bleed is at the center of QMMG’s identity, and I wanted to hear it.
There are also 3 other voices in the patch. The first is a moderately modulated QPAS, pinging quietly in the background, sounding beautiful as ever. The second is the sine wave of the first DPO oscillator ring modulating the second sine oscillator of DPO in the modDemix. It only hits very infrequently, and is NOT passed through a LPG, but a VCA so that it does not ring past the current step. The third is a ripping bass part that absolutely does not fit with the rest of the patch in any way. What I was attempting did not work. Instead, I got a killer bass sequence that is contemporaneously always staying the same, yet always changing at the same time. This bass line is created with the STO’s Variable Shape output into QPAS in LP mode, with a completely ungated sequence on the X channel, which is clocked by alternating outputs on Tempi. Both of the clocks used were run at different rates, as well as having stops in Rene at different rates.
This patch is not perfect. It’s not even very good. But it’s a peek into the process understanding of how QMMG works, while trying to have a little fun at the same time. I also inadvertently learned a new bass technique for my patching library. If I were to expand on this patch, I’d certainly unmarry the bass part from the rest for its own track, but other problems exist too.
The delay is too forward in the mix. With the initial sequence and its premonitions, QPAS’ pinging, and ring modulated sine waves all going through the delay, it got very busy in the mix, sometimes obscuring the bleeding vactrols of QMMG, which was the entire point of the patch in the first place. I also ran into an inherent problem with using DXG, even as just a mixer. I’ve had my fair share of complaints about the DXG’s inability to not mix. I feel like it’s an extremely important piece of gear in the history of modern Eurorack, but with some serious flaws. It’s the first stereo LPG in existence (as far as I can tell), and made by the LPG legends at Make Noise who made Optomix (two versions), QMMG (two versions), LxD, MMG, RxMx, Dynamix, and the brilliant transistor-based LPG in the Strega, yet despite its importance and lineage DXG is a tragically imperfect piece of kit. As a LPG mixer, it raises and lowers both the volume and the harmonic content of the input simultaneously, more closely mimicking how sounds work in nature. As a sound gets louder, there is more higher harmonic content. As that sound gets softer, it loses harmonic content. And that’s great when you want to create sounds, but when you mix already created sounds together you generally want to control the volume, while leaving the harmonic content intact at every level. The DXG doesn’t allow you to do that. I noticed this phenomena most directly when trying to mix a full wet Mimeophon return signal on Ch 1 from with the dry signal on Ch 2 using its send outputs. Because I didn’t want what amounts to a 50/50 dry/wet mix, I wanted my repeats much softer than the dry signal, the repeats from Mimeophon were not only quieter (good) when patched through the DXG, but also near bereft of its upper harmonic content (very bad). All that pretty Color and Halo being added in Mimeophon, shat upon by the DXG. Although I was able to mitigate this problem by patching the output of the full mixer, rather than only the Ch 2 send output, to Mimeophon, and patching it as an insert using Mimeophon’s mix control rather than as an AUX send with a full wet return as originally intended, this necessary workaround seems to greatly minimize the utility of the Ch 2 send outputs. Traditionally, one would patch the dry signal to Ch 2, the Ch 2 send outputs to Mimeophon with its outputs patched back to Ch 1, and mixed with the original dry signal at the mixer’s sum output. However, losing valuable harmonic content from Mimeophon’s output when I only want to lose volume makes that a far less than ideal use case scenario for me. They work great as mixers, but only if you want to mix inputs at relatively even, loud levels.
Overall I’m pleased with the patch. Not the outcome, per se, but that the process of patching taught a couple of valuable lessons about the gear I’m using so that I might better use it in the future. The QMMG sounds fantastic, both as a LPG and a filter, and I’m slowly learning how to control the Final output of the DPO. Not every patch will turn out well, and that’s okay.
I’m clearly a Make Noise enthusiast, but that by no means makes their products perfect. There is no good excuse for sliding nuts and un-washered M2.5 screws in an otherwise premium case. ↩︎
One thing you hear a lot in modular synth circles is you should take things slowly when you get a new module. Tease it, tickle it, and abuse it until you can find out what makes it unique, and how you might reasonably use it in your work. It’s good advice. Even simple modules can be incredibly complex, or have particular idiosyncrasies that keep you from the results you were expecting despite being fully within the module’s capabilities. It’s good practice to take the time to learn a module.
Except I’m terrible at that. I almost immediately look to try some difficult to make patch that’s hard to set up. Something well above my technical skill level or that I have no experience with. The sort of thing that can make you sell a module quick. Last night was one of those nights. Sort of. Rather than the teasing or tickling I might have been better advised to do, I decided to try an advanced patch straight out of the box, and it taught me a lesson on ingenuity in the face of scarcity.
Having been fully immersed in Make Noise land for the last several months, including a trip to Asheville where I was able to get the lauded QMMG, I got curious about their line of standalone synths, lovingly known as the Make Noise Easel, a trio of two monosynths and a touch controller/sequencer.1 I hadn’t paid much attention to these instruments until recently. In fact, I pretty much immediately dismissed them as something I’d never really want. I have over 2000hp of modular synth, including ~300hp of Make Noise modules. Why would I want a basic monosynth, or a single oscillator synth with a noisy delay? What can those things do that the main modular can’t? What can they do that my Make Noise system can’t?
It turns out the Make Noise 0-Series can do a lot. Certainly a lot more than I initially imagined, including being a paraphonic subharmonic chord machine.2 It’s not that the Make Noise 0-Series is any more capable than a full modular synth. They’re definitely not. But they are designed as self-contained instruments to be played together as a unit, and are all capable of beautiful results individually, and mindblowingly awesome results when played together.
My curiosity piqued, I began to put the pieces together. A Strega and 0-CTRL arrived the same day, though to my dismay, the 0-CTRL arrived with a malfunction pot.3 That first night I explored the Strega, but regretfully didn’t record it. The following day I received the 0-Coast and immediately plugged them in. After initially probing the 0-Coast a bit to get a sense of how it works, I dove in. Not with some simple drone or quickly sequenced up jam, but with turning my new single oscillator semi-modular synth into a three oscillator subharmonic chord machine, while sending it into Strega to get a full four note chord.
Because both of 0-Coast’s function generators, Slope and Contour, can run at audio rates, they can function as oscillators. They can even both have their pitch modulated via their Time and Decay CV inputs respectfully. But this patch uses both function generators as subharmonic oscillators, using the main oscillator’s square wave out put as a trigger, while lengthening the attack of each function generator until its output is a subharmonic tone of the main oscillator’s pitch. Set the Rise and Fall of Slope, and the Onset, Sustain, and Decay parameters at full CCW, and patch the square wave output of the main oscillator to the Trigger and Gate inputs of Slope and Contour, and monitor from the Slope and Contour outputs. Slowly turn the Rise and Onset knobs clockwise until your hear the tone drop an octave. If you turn more it will drop another 5th. Experiment with these tones until you’re happy with the result. Because these oscillators are being triggered by the main oscillator they should (almost) always be in tune.
The trick to patching your newly made subharmonic tones to the output is via mixing. Patch the Slope output to an input of the Voltage Math, and the Contour output to the other channel. Then patch your output from the Voltage Math to the Balance input, and mix to taste. Because you’ve broken the normalization from the main oscillator’s triangle wave to the output mixer, you only have your Overtones to mix with the subharmonic oscillators. Be careful to minimize harmonics in your main oscillator to keep a clean mix. If you use too many upper harmonics in the main oscillator, they will drown out your subharmonic oscillators in the mix pretty quickly.
There are downsides, however. Mixing these three oscillators is not particularly simple, and there is no mechanism for altering the timbre of the tones generated by the function generators. Fortunately Strega transforms everything that goes through its input such that it might not matter. Another downside is that you lose every source of modulation you have, except the underwhelming Strega agitator, when you make the choice to use your only two function generators as oscillators, leaving me only with the choice to use 0-Coast’s clock output to strike the Dynamic input. I could have used amplitude modulation via any of the oscillator outputs, but since this was more a technical patching exercise than a musical venture, I chose to allow the alarm-sounding tones to wail away.4
I didn’t document most of this patch in writing, although the overhead pic should reveal other parts not discussed here. For the most part the rest of the patch is window dressing for the main technical exercise of getting my new monosynth to be a parasynth, so its not all that interesting.
You can also make any 3 note paraphonic chords you want if you have a non-quantized sequencer with at least three voltage outputs per step, like the 0-CTRL. I’ll document that patch in a later post. ↩︎
The pitch pot on the 6th step would only send out voltage if I was physically pressing down on the pot. I suspect there’s a missed or cold solder connection. ↩︎
If I were just a little smarter I might have used the 0-Coast’s Midi B output as a LFO, but I didn’t know it was possible or how to do it until afterwards. ↩︎
Eurorack can be a funny space. We have thousands of modules available to us to do any number of amazing things with sound. Sometimes these modules are bullshit copies of a worthy predecessor, while others are completely unique and have a cult-like following that stands the test of time and the ever-increasing number of new modules released almost daily.
And then there’s a very small handful of modules that attain legendary status in the community for being something much greater than the sum of its transistors, capacitors, and resistors. Those modules that transcend its intended purpose and becomes an instrument unto itself. The Make Noise Maths is a meme at this point, being the solution for so many Eurorack conundrums. If you need to perform some difficult (or easy) control scheme, chances are “Maths does that.” The Modcan Quad LFO and Rabid Elephant Natural Gate are other examples. But arguably no other module in all of Eurorack approaches the iconic status of the Make Noise QMMG.
Originally billed as a spin on the Buchla 292c, the QMMG (Quad Multi Mode Gate) is a quad set of VCAs, low pass gates, resonant low pass filters, and resonant high pass filters, with clever normalizations and mixing schemes that make it ideal for controlling and mixing both audio and CV. On the surface QMMG isn’t anything special. It looks simple enough, like most quad filters out there. But under the hood is some circuitry magic that does “something” to the sound that elevates QMMG to its current pedestal atop almost everyone’s Eurorack wishlist. A quick peek at Reverb will show a seldomly sold module that goes for several times more than its original retail cost, with buyers eager to plunk down thousands, and happy to have the chance to own one of these fabled modules, even if only for a short time.
Although this story is largely accurate, I’d be remiss to omit one simple fact: although the QMMG has been around in one form or another since 2008, so few of them have been made that scarcity plays a large role in its status, as well as almost all of these modules. It’s no coincidence that so many legendary-status modules fetch obscene prices on the secondary market. There just aren’t very many of them. They’re unicorns. Unicorns to the point that their scarcity adds to the legend. Some of these shortages are the result of these modules being made by hand in small workshops by as few as one person. Costs in a small operation are already very high. Scaling production simply isn’t an option for many.1 Some are the result of a company having stopped making them long ago. Others, like QMMG, are the result of the parts being both difficult to source, as well as being expensive when you can find them. Add in a serious variability differential between nominally the same exact parts, and it’s just plain hard to build them in any sort of real quantity. So far as anyone can tell, far fewer than 1000 QMMGs have been made since its original release in 2008. Originals are scarce and fetch very high prices. There was a 10th anniversary run in 2018 which resulted in perhaps 100 units, but nothing since. The only place to get one is on the secondary market at collectors prices.
Until now.
In mid-August Make Noise announced that although QMMG is a difficult module to build on any sort of scale, they had spent the better part of the last several years sourcing and testing as many parts as they could find in order to try and fill the gap. That QMMG would make a return, even if only in another limited release. It would go on sale in stores worldwide on September 9, 2024, with a popup sale event on September 7, 2024 at the Make Noise headquarters in Asheville, NC.
Make Noise is a staple in the Eurorack community, and has been for a very long time. They helped usher in the modern era of Eurorack with modules like Maths, QMMG, and Rene, and have been stewards of modular music, making hundreds of demonstration and tutorial videos. Walker Farrell, Make Noise’s YouTube video host, is known throughout the modular world as an ambassador of not only Make Noise as a company, but the entire genre of modular music. Very few Eurorack synths don’t have at least one Make Noise module. Without Make Noise, Eurorack would not be what it is today. Yet despite their enormous success, Make Noise understands that this community is small, and still seeks to interact directly with their customers. Not only do they occasionally open up their HQ in Asheville for special releases like QMMG, but they often use that opportunity to help proselytize Eurorack and modular synthesis as a whole in a way that is more than than just promoting their brand and bottom line. Today that sense of community building came in the form of a free modular performance at a local brewery and beer garden, Cellarest, where about 100 Eurorack geeks got to hang out with people we’ve never met, and never would have met without the QMMG event, to enjoy something special outside of being one of the few who were fortunate enough to purchase one of the most revered modules of all time at retail pricing, straight from Tony Rolando himself.
Being that this was the first time I’ve been to a modular performance, it wasn’t at all what I expected. When I sat down with my first Crescent 9 seltzer, I was expecting boots and pants, or some approximation, but instead got three freeform modular improvisations by three experienced modular performers, which was a rare treat. I hadn’t anticipated that, like me, their creative interests would lie in something far less structured and free flowing. The patches were clearly premade, but the performances spontaneous and raw. Although I’m not sure I’d play their performed pieces on repeat, it was an eye opening peek into a live creative process, and I’m glad I was able to share that space and enjoy that process with them.
I feel very fortunate that I was able to attend the pop-up sale event and snag a revered and highly sought after module that’s been high on my want list since I first got into modular synths. When I first looked into getting a QMMG, I was resigned to never having one. I knew that no matter how good, I was never going to buy one on the secondary market at collectors prices, and with Make Noise, along with much of the rest of the modular universe, beginning to move away from vactrols because of asinine EU regulations, I didn’t anticipate they’d make another run. Yet here we are, and with ideal circumstances to finally have a good chance to snag from straight from the source. I’m very privileged to be in the position I am. And, perhaps even better, I was able to meet new people, including a couple of very cool guys who were in line behind me, and experience my first modular performance. It was a very good day, and I hope Make Noise has many more release events like this in the future.
Even though both Mannequins and Rabid Elephant have found new ways of scaling production beyond a few dozen per cycle, it hasn’t been until this year, almost a decade after they were originally released. ↩︎
After a fantastic morning of sailing through Glacier Bay, I decided to spend the afternoon and evening patching while I watched the beautiful southeast Alaskan coast float by outside my cabin window, door ajar for the the sound and smell of the sea as inspiration. The first patch started simply enough, the Swell Physics four wave outputs into Quad Operator’s four gain inputs, through some delay and reverb, and out for your pleasure. But this time I decided to add a bit of variation via Batumi’s various wave shapes to modulate the wave shape of each of the operators. This modulation had the unanticipated effect of also modulating the apparent volume of the output as well, which created a very cool phasing effect of the individual waves as both their levels and wave shapes were being modulated at separate rates.
The four Quad Operator outputs are mixed down to stereo, then sent through QPAS which had moderately heavy modulation to the cutoff, both Radiance CV inputs, and with gates to both !!¡¡ inputs. I mixed both the LowPass and Smile Pass outputs at about a 75/25 ratio for some very cool stereo imaging, and sent the signal to Nautilus.
Although I’ve used the Chroma feature of the Qu-Bit Nautilus a lot, I’d never used the wavefolder in the feedback path. I’d never used it because I never said to myself, “Man, what this feedback path needs is wavefolding!” Overdrive, distortion, and bitcrushing sure, but unfortunately wavefolding was ignored. A pretty aqua color in the kelp light show on the panel between the orange overdrive and red distortion. This oversight was a dumb and tragic mistake, alleviated by the conscious choice to use wavefolding in this patch. Wavefolding in the feedback path sounds fantastic! Controlling feedback and the Depth of the Chroma is crucial because wavefolding, like distortion and bitcrushing, can create runaway feedback quickly if the balance between feedback and wavefolder isn’t closely watched. The effect, as modulated by a highly attenuated triangle wave from Batumi, created a mix between a nasally and almost fuzz-like tone where there are some edges of the sound starting to leak and sputter, particularly on lower tones.
As accompaniment I went with the LABS Choir samples in the Disting Ex SD Multisample algorithm, using three of the Swell Physics wave outputs for pitch, and the 1 < 2 and 3 > 4 gate outputs through the CuteLab Missed Opportunities as triggers. What I was watching go by as our ship rolled along the grand Alaskan coastline called for drama. Something that could create tension and with some occasional resolution. Although I might better tune the gates to get just the right amount of action if I were to record this patch again, it’s often too sparse, and with not enough harmonization, I feel like the Choir more or less created the effect I imagined, even if it sometimes veered from dramatic to an uneasy suspense. It’s a feel as much as anything else.
Both the Quad Operator > QPAS > Nautilus and the Disting Ex voices went to the mixer, and on to the Stratosphere Cloud Reverb.
Overall I like the direction of this patch, but it needs work. The waves from Swell Physics are often way too slow (a common occurrence once the simulation has been running for a while), and although the modulation from Batumi created some very cool phasing effects, it all combined into a slow moving soup. A soup with promise, but a soup nonetheless. There’s just no pace. Perhaps that’s a reflection of the glaciers I’d been watching all morning, but by the time I’d hit the Stop Recording button in AUM the patch seemed to have come to a crawl, begging for an ending. With time, this patch can be exquisite, but I need to put in the work to get it there.
The Night Time Patch
Once I’d hit stop recording on the daytime patch, I’d become slightly frustrated that I couldn’t get it where I wanted to take it. Either through lack of food, time, patience, feel, or some combination thereof, the patch ended with a whimper. I wasn’t satisfied. Having done several slow, ambient patches for the last several weeks, I knew I needed a change. I needed something to shake that ass to. Something to temper my disappointment in the daytime patch, and something to quell my desire to create something. But only after a visit to the buffet to both feed my body and cleanse my musical palette.
When I started patching again that evening I wasn’t exactly sure what I was going for. I knew I wanted something rhythmic and fun, but started in a way similar to how I’ve started lots of patches recently: four Batumi outputs going to the four gain inputs on the Quad Operator. But this time was different. Rather than using slow, randomly paced waves, as I would do in an ambient patch, I used clock divided LFOs to create a rhythm. Not only did each individual LFO create individual notes directly by lowering and raising the gain on each operator, but also created a rhythm via FM modulation.
With the Quad Operator, when you’re using the Gain CV inputs, each operator is available at its output when the gain input has positive voltage, just like with any VCA. Likewise, each operator is also only able to act as a modulating oscillator for Frequency Modulation to the other operators via the Quad Operator’s FM Matrix when its gain is positive (or the Gain CV input is not patched), making each Gain CV input have an effect on more than just that operator’s output. Each Gain CV input also controls timbre in other operators’ outputs as well, drastically changing the complexion of the overall sound as these various LFOs fade in and out at different, but related speeds, and with differently shaped waves. Sometimes an operator is being FM’d. Sometimes not. It’s a nice way of being able to use all four of the Quad Operator’s outputs, even if tuning can get complex, rather than sacrificing operators to modulation duties only. It doesn’t make sense to use a FM synth like the Quad Operator in this fashion very often, but it works well in some styles of patching. The four operator outputs are routed to the Mutable Instruments Veils for a stereo mix down before going to the final mixer. From there it’s sent to the Blue Mangoo Stratosphere Cloud Reverb.
If I were to do a patch like this again, I would probably process one or more the Quad Operator outputs individually to add some spice, rather than immediately mixing them to stereo. To treat each of those outputs as individual entities unto themselves, rather than assimilating them into a larger body immediately after their creation, never allowing each to have their own existence. Sending one output or another through a separate effect or process than the others might help create something special that is lost once an individual signal is married to another in a mixer.
The kick drum is about as simple as it gets. A /2 square wave output from Batumi to Plaits, twist the knobs a bit until you find the timbre, decay, and pitch you want, and turn the FM trimmer to taste. One of the wonders of Plaits, and Braids before it, is its versatility. It can be almost anything you want it to be. From a FM oscillator to speech synthesis to kick drums and plucked strings, Plaits can make a whole lot of sounds and be the main voice in any patch. If you have something like the Jasmine And Olive Trees Traffic, or if you’re savvy with CV processing, Plaits can be many things at once. Today, however, Plaits was just a humble kick drum.
I had hoped to use QPAS in a more exciting manner. One of my favorite ways to use QPAS is by pinging it. But because QPAS normally lives isolated in a Make Noise only case, I haven’t really experimented much with pinging it without the using the nice, wide gates of both Tempi and René v2. But my clock in this case, the Sitka Gravity, doesn’t have any of those, and my sequencer, the T12, was already being used. Gravity outputs short triggers, about 15ms, which are great for telling something else it’s time to do its thing, but virtually useless as direct modulation, and the ability to use the gate’s length to help control modulation, such as with an ADSR envelope, is lost. I could ping the input with a trigger easily enough, but instead decided to use a probability gated square wave from Batumi via the CuteLab Missed Opportunities, which wasn’t quite the same as using the 50% duty cycle gates Tempi spits out. Although the developer of the Gravity has said that a gate mode, wherein the duty cycle of the gate will be adjustable, for now it’s all triggers. I could (should) have just used the triggers from Gravity to sync to Batumi and trigger envelopes from that unused Changes sitting there wondering why he was left out of the party, but it just didn’t occur to me until I was too deep in the patch to bother with changing it. With the Batumi square wave, the pronouncement of the modulation and ease of switching up the gate patterns just wasn’t there. You can hear the modulation well enough in isolation, but it’s almost nonexistent in the mix.
Despite my lack of imagination in modulating QPAS with unfamiliar tools, its role in the patch, however, is crucial. Its LP outputs add a marimba-like percussive element (thanks to feedback patching the left HP output to the highly attenuated Freq 1 input) to accompany the kick drum, and contribute a party-like atmosphere in the patch.
There are also two new-to-me elements to this patch that I hadn’t yet tried. The first is to use the Doboz T12 as an arpeggiator. Since the T12 is brand new, there are a lot of new things to try. It’s a deep, highly versatile module. I’ve used it as a sequencer, and as a touch controller (my over-70 mom also had a great time using it as a touch controller). In this patch I’d use it as an arpeggiator with the second new-to-me element: using the Poly Wavetable algorithm on the Disting Ex.
The T12 is turning out to be something akin to the greatest in-case touch controller in Eurorack. Of course I haven’t used many others, and those that I have used never tried to be quite as much as the T12 strives after, but the T12 seems to have some serious chops in terms of immediately challenging Eurorack mainstays like the Make Noise Pressure Points or Doboz’s own TSNM MKII. The T12’s main limitations are its inputs and outputs, and that it requires some level of menu diving . It only has three inputs and outputs. A pitch CV, an AUX CV, and a gate output, with clock and reset inputs, along with one solitary CV input. Something like Pressure Points can put out several voltages from several “channels” simultaneously, which is not something the T12 can do, but the T12 more than makes up for these shortcomings with flexibility, the customizability of each mode, and the ultra-intuitive user interface. The T12 is, by far, the easiest module I’ve used that has a screen based UI. Virtually all of the options for each mode are changed on the surface menu level, without any real diving at all. Doboz did a knockout job with designing the interface to be powerful, expansive, and super easy to navigate.
The T12 in use as an arpeggiator is smooth and ultra-fun. It will arpeggiate as many notes as you can get your fingers on, and the touch plates are very responsive when making changes. There’s generally enough space to maneuver use three or four fingers of one hand to make your note changes, but there are some button combos that require some serious hand dexterity, or the use of two hands. But once you get a feel for how to move your hand in the space, muscle memory starts to take over, and it’s nothing but pure fun. As with most arpeggiators there are several directions or patterns you can choose. This patch started with a forward pattern, and a 20% probability that a gate will be skipped, then, at some point, switched to a random direction, with a 20% probability that a gate will be skipped. There are many options I could have investigated, like the probability and range of pitch variability (by step or overall), or transposition, or using the AUX CV output, but I chose to keep it simple, and, quite frankly, I was having a really good time spending my night doing something simple and performative.
If I’m being honest, this patch was the first time I’ve used the Disting Ex in any algorithm other than the SD Multisample. The Disting Ex too is a deep, highly versatile module, to put it lightly, but I traded away a 1010 Music Bitbox Micro for a Disting Ex because of its capability as a multisample player, specifically that it can play eight simultaneous voices of polyphonic multisamples via pitch CV and gate inputs. No other module can do that in quite the same way. But I’d already used SD Multisample in my first patch on the trip, the Daytime Patch before this one, as well as my test patch before leaving. Every patch I’d made with this case included SD Multisample, and I wanted to try something new with this synth.
Because the patch was lively, I wanted to use a lively sound source for my arpeggios. Quad Operator was already in full use, and Plaits was thumping along as a kick drum, so I knew I needed to find another algorithm in the Disting Ex. If QPAS could self oscillate (without help), and if it could follow v/oct pitch CV, I probably would have used it as the arpeggiator voice either by pinging it (which QPAS does fantastically, as this patch shows), or as a sine wave oscillator through a VCA using the envelopes created by the T12. But QPAS doesn’t self oscillate or follow v/oct pitch CV, so the Disting Ex was the way. I could have chosen a completely unpatched CalSynth Changes, a very excellent MI Stages 1:1 clone, loaded with the latest quimem firmware in Ouroboros (Harmonic Oscillator) mode, but by the time I decided I wasn’t going to use Changes as a modulation source I was already set on using the Poly Wavetable algorithm in the Disting Ex.
Fortunately, Poly Wavetable is very similar to SD Multisample in how it functions. Poly Wavetable can take 3 CV sources and 3 gates and play up to 8 simultaneous voices polyphonically. That said, the weakness of the Disting UI and very small display becomes glaringly magnified when you need to make parameter changes, especially with nearly-50 eyes. You get a slew of options, several dozen, and a very tiny screen with which to navigate and make changes. I would have greatly preferred to control envelopes and such with a dedicated envelope generator outside of the Disting in a VCA or LPG, but I elected to use the internal envelope because I didn’t have any more VCAs to use, much less two of them. The 8 VCA channels (plus VCAs within modules like QPAS and Quad Operator) I brought with me were already in use doing other things, so fumbling through the menu system was the only way. Don’t get me wrong: the Disting Ex is incredibly powerful, and each algorithm is highly customizable. It sounds fantastic, and it can do dozens of operations from polyphonic multisample player to a pitch to CV generator, matrix mixer, or lots of other tasks. The Disting line, but particularly the Ex, is truly is the ultimate Swiss Army knife of Eurorack. Such a broad tool, that is also quite deep, is bound to be awkward sometimes. Since they’re built to do everything, it’s impossible to also have a UI that will match a good workflow for all of the algorithm functionality (perhaps, some might argue, for any of them). That said, the UI manages to be fairly simple to navigate. If you can see it. Most of the options are controlled on the surface level of the menu. You turn one encoder to change options, a second to change a parameter within that option, and click a third to save it.
Having listened back to the recording several times, I definitely wish that I had a pair of LPGs available to me in the case. That attack and intoxicating decay from a LPG would have been just the thing. The arpeggios in the Night Time patch are enunciated, but only just adequately. I never really got to shaping the internal ADSR envelope beyond shortening the release a bit, and the UI is actively hostile to changing while trying to perform. The UI really hindered me there, (I was trying to booty shake, not squint my eyes at a tiny screen trying to optimize my envelope), and that unused Changes was still staring at me with that sad face one gets when everyone except you were invited to the party. I know there are 3rd party screens for the Disting that alleviate the problem, this one came with one when I traded for it, but of the ~2200hp in my synth, my only 1u row is in the Make Noise 4 Zone Bus Case, which is occupied by a CV Bus Mk2, so it’s out of the question unless I decide to get two Distings.
This patch was a lot of fun to build and perform. I hope to patch in this same vein on my full synth soon enough.
One last tool that I used on this trip that I hadn’t really written much about, and that I bought specifically for this trip, is the Bolanle PH400 4-Channel Headphone Amp. Since the plan was to use this synth with my brother, I wanted a means to have independent volume control. I loathe having to share volume control of headphones, and so decided on a small headphone amplifier. Although the PH400 is certainly not something I’d call studio worthy, I can say that it’s a good piece of kit, and it met all of my requirements. It had to be powered by USB C, small and portable, and it had to have individual control, and it had to sound good or better. I wanted something with both sized headphone outputs for each channel to avoid adapters, and the PH400 has that. Each channel also has its own mute button. As an added bonus, the LED light show is cool. This thing works great.
As I’m preparing to take a trip with the Make Noise 4 Zone CV Bus Case, I’ve been wanting to give it a test run. To try and figure out some of the logistics of traveling with a full synth and all its necessary accoutrements like cables and power supplies. When I go on my trip later this summer I’ll have a completely different synth than the full Make Noise setup currently in the case, but those details matter less than the case itself. We’ll call it a proof of concept trial run, only taking place on the road during a busy summer baseball season and not a cruise.
My first thought about traveling with a record-ready modular synth is that it’s a lot of extra “stuff.” There’s the Make Noise case itself, plus patch cables, power supplies, an audio interface, and headphones, Although all of the extra stuff that goes with the synth fits in a smallish book tote bag, it’s still an extra bag that will be more difficult to bring along during a cross-country flight. Thankfully my plan, solidified after these first two trial runs, was to eliminate all of the extra baggage by using an Expert Sleepers ES-9, as opposed to an external audio interface.1 The ES-9 takes up a rather substantial portion of the 208hp case, but it eliminates the need for at least 2 pieces of bulky equipment, the accompanying cables, plus the need for at least as much HP in in-the-case mixers. I can transport patch cables in the synth itself, and recording/listening headphones can go in the suitcase.
Although I’d set out to make high quality patches on this trip, I never really had quite the time to experiment I might have liked. Combining the time constraints with trying to learn the DPO in 1 go led to a rather pedestrian patch, with an odd audio waveform I can’t quite figure out.2
This patch starts as a take on Walker Farrell’s “Selected Ambient Sequence Locations” patch from late 2023. I had no intentions of a direct replication, or even some form of approximation, but I did want to use this technique of allowing notes to bleed through vactrol strikes. It was this technique which guided the rest of the patch, even if there are alterations on the technique itself.
Since the DPO is a new addition to the case, replacing a STO, Optomix, and a MMG, I knew I wanted to dig in and give this complex oscillator a test run. Not really being familiar with how the waveform Strike input behaves was my first challenge. It took some fiddling, and ultimately led to using an envelope instead of a gate, choosing to spend some more quality time on this experimentation with gates at home in my chair. With a sound I was okay with, and having set different clocks on Tempi, I was off.
Similar to Walker’s patch I used differently timed clocks, but I think the X and Y clocks were the same, which led to some repetition I’d rather not have. At least not throughout. Having time constraints often leads to making hasty decisions or settling for “good enough.” It’s the nature of the beast.
The vactrol plucked DPO melody of notes and premonitions created by vactrol bleed of the Optomix are split and sent first to the X-Pan to have it float to and fro in the stereo space, and then to both the mixer (DXG) and Morphagene. The Morphagene, set to full wet, is also sent to the mixer, and the mixer output is sent through the Mimeophon before going to the output.
The marimba type sounds are created using sparse gates from Rene to ping QPAS’ input. There is also other modulation to various QPAS CV inputs that I can’t quite remember. Gates from Tempi. FM from Rene, as well as self-patching the left HP output. Other stuff.
The result is a sort of creepy video game landscape. My oldest son, with whom I’m doing all of this baseball travel, maintains that everything I make with the Make Noise case sounds like something from Terraria. He can even pick out different scenes or atmospheres he sees in the game when he hear my patches. I’ll take that as a complement.
Improvised and recorded in 1 take on iPad in AUM via the Expert Sleepers ES-9.
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My current travel audio interface is the Arturia AudioFuse. It’s a high quality interface with lots of cool options, including dual headphone out jacks with their own volume control, which is a nice touch when using it with a second person (and my synth playing brother is slated to be there).
I don’t have any explanation for why it’s so heavy on the negative half of the waveform, but the spikes are there. I also notice a lot of noise in the recording. Not sure if it’s a result of sketchy hotel power, an offset I don’t know about leaking into the audio path, the unbalanced output of the MN case, the Mimeophon, or something else altogether. I’ve used this exact setup at home and not experienced any sort of problems, but today weirdness abounds.
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.
Improvised and recorded in 1 take on the iPad in AUM via an Arturia AudioFuse.
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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.
Although the CV Bus is little more than a glorified passive multiple, its implementation is incredibly well thought out and unendingly useful.
