When I set out to do today’s Jamuary patch I had initially planned on recreating, at least in spirit, a patch I did as a test for a travel synth during the summer. After setting up the piano portion of the patch, I changed my mind and decided against creating a sub bass sequence, or indeed using any distortion as I did in that patch. In part was because I was highly taken aback when, instead of plugging the piano output into the Qu-Bit Nautilus, as I did in that patch, I reached for the extremely lo-fi Bizarre Jezabel Quarté Mk2. The natural decay of the delay was plenty dirty in all the best of ways, and decided to go with it instead of introducing some other form of distortion. From there the patch went a very different direction. Rather than a sad yet hopeful tenor, this one is just sad.
For this patch I decided to use Stochaos as my gate producer for triggering the piano sounds, being fed by a chaotically controlled clock. I’m a fan of using chaos as a clock source. I’ve used multiple methods of using chaos to create off beat rhythms, from using Numberwang to running a chaos signal through Divide & Conquer, a clock divider than can use any signal as a clock input. Today I used, for the first time, the Nonlinearcircuits Let’s Get Fenestrated, a comparator NLC-style, fed by a heavily modulated The Hypster. This process created a perfectly ultra-wonky clock, which then fed Stochaos. Stochaos spat out four gates at the Disting NT inputs which triggered both the quantizer and the Poly Multisample player.
The audio was sent to the AI Synthesis 018 Stereo Matrix Mixer, and on to the Bizarre Jezabel Quarté Mk2 for some soul-crushingly beautiful repeats that seem to disintegrate as they decay away. I seriously contemplated just leaving the patch at that, adding in some reverb, and calling it a day, but I knew that I could add to it subtly and give it some more life. To give it some other textures to contemplate and heighten the overall mood of the piece without distracting too much from the piano and those beautiful repeats.
I started with the Qu-Bit Electronix Data Bender, but I knew I only wanted to use that sparingly and didn’t think it would add enough by itself, so opted also to send the piano notes to the Dradd(s) for some good old fashioned time stretching. This was perfect and even allowed me to use the Data Bender even more sparingly so as not to overwhelm the Piano with failure. I slowly controlled the Data Bender output in the ST Modular SVCA with a modulated LFO from the Frap Tools Falistri. To modulate the length of the LFO I used an attenuated and slightly offset Smooth Random output from Sapel into the Both CV input. An inverted copy of the LFO was sent to a second SVCA which very slightly lowered the volume of the Piano and its repeats while the Data Bender did the thing.
The Dradd(s) add tons of texture with their medium-to-short grains, re-creating the piano at a slow crawl, filling in space and adding a layer of intrigue. Like a splash in water, the Dradd(s) created a distorted view of what’s underneath: slivers of sound overlapping and rippling off each other in a beautiful chorus. I’m still infatuated with the dual Dradd(s). I’ve used lots of granular processors in Eurorack. Of the continuous processing type, those that don’t rely on pre-recording to a buffer, but instead have a continuous buffer and don’t require recording a certain bit of material to process, I have a very difficult time choosing between the Dradd(s) and the Mutable Instruments Beads. It seems like I can always find something fascinating. That I can always use it to find something beautiful inside of the audio itself.
Modules Used:
Nonlinearcircuits The Hypster
Nonlinearcircuits Let’s Get Fenestrated
Nonlinearcircuits Stochaos
Nonlinearcircuits De-Escalate
Expert Sleepers Disting NT
Bizarre Jezabel Quarté Mk2
Qu-Bit Electronix Data Bender
Pladask Elektrisk Dradd(s)
Frap Tools Falistri
Frap Tools Sapél
Vostok Instruments Asset
AI Synthesis 018 Stereo Matrix Mixer
ST Modular SVCA
Intellijel Quad VCA
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.
