When I turned on my Make Noise synth tonight, I had anticipated some more experimentation with filter wobble. I had both QMMG and QPAS right in front of me, and so far in my brief experimentation, these two filters had been the best at it. And I did do some of that. It was the first thing I did for about 30 minutes. But, as it so often does, the patch sent me in a different direction. It’s still a delicate patch, but not in that kind of way.
This patch won’t get the full patch breakdown, but I’ll lay out the basic framework.
René X Channel > Spectraphon B (stereo outputs) > QPAS (Smile Pass 😁) > X-Pan Spectraphon B (Sub) > QMMG Ch 2 (LPG) > QMMG Ch 1 (VCA) > X-Pan The recording starts out with only the QPAS outputs, before bringing in the LPD’d version. Both are crossfaded once the LPG’d version is brought in. The resonance, particularly on QPAS, got a smidge out of hand, but nothing ear screaming or offensive.
René Y channel > Spectraphon A (stereo outputs) > QMMG Ch 3 & 4 (LPF) > X-Pan (Aux) This is the slower, lower voice that was brought in last. Spectraphon’s A side Focus and Slide were modulated by Wogglebug. Once bright in, this voice was only level controlled by the cutoff of the filter in QMMG. I slowly brought up the envelope amount in Maths to open it further and further.
X-Pan (stereo outputs) > Mimeophon > Output
Maths is doing a lot of work, modulating the filter cutoff of both Both QPAS and QMMG, Radiate on QPAS, controlling the envelope level to the QMMG in LPG mode, as well as the crossfading of the continuous playing sequence and the pinged one. I need to find a better way to activate the crossfader. Since I was using a copy of a Maths Unity output in both of X-Pan’s Crossfade CV inputs, I couldn’t just attenuate it to 0v then introduce the crossfading by turning a knob. So I inserted the cables when I was ready to introduce the voice. You can hear that little fumble as that voice is brought in.
I used a reverb send from my mixer to the Maneco Labs Otterley Reverb for some reverb (duh) as well as a touch of granular treatment.
When I finished Jamuary I was resigned to taking time off before patching again. Jamuary was exhausting, and I’m tired. I wasn’t sure how long it might be before I patched again. It turns out the answer was “immediately.” By 10pm on February 1st I was bored, and so decided to put something together on the iPad for fun. I had no intention to record it. I was just playing around with a few things to see how they work. The same thing happened on the 2nd. I started to watch a YouTube video, and decided that I’d rather just do a patch on the synth that was sitting not eight feet from me than watch someone else do one. And so I did.
The patch started with Tempi. The base tempo was ~60bpm:
Channel 1 (x1) > Mimeophon
Channel 2 (x1) > René X Clock
Channel 3 (x2) > René Y Clock
Channel 5 (/5) > René X Mod
Channel 6 (/7) > René Y Mod
René received the clocks and Mod gates from Tempi on both the X and Y channels. Mod on both channels was set to Start/Stop on the Fun page. When the gate is low at their respective Mod inputs, the sequence moves forward, when it’s high, it stops. Since all four clocks are at different times, there is no continuous repeating pattern, each channel starting and stopping every bar and change. Gates and Access were adjusted for both channels throughout the performance to guard against becoming stagnant. René controlled all four voices in the patch, using just two oscillators, Spectraphon and STO. As far as I know, the scale is in C Lydian, but it sounds like I may have neglected to make the key change between C Major and C Lydian in one (or more 😬) of the channels. It doesn’t happen often, but we get a hint of dissonance on occasion.
The X Channel sent pitch CV to Spectraphon’s A side, and the trigger from the X Gate output to DXG’s Channel 1 Strike input. The Y channel was routed similarly to Spectraphon’s B side and DXG’s Channel 2 respectively. These two oscillators form the first voice, comprised of fairly sparse pings in the DXG. The mixed outputs from Spectraphon A and B were sent to DXG in a way to remain discrete left and right with their separate gate patterns. When you plug something into the Left input on any DXG channel, it normalizes to the Right channel and becomes a mono signal at the output. In order for the Left (mono) input to remain in the left channel only, a dummy cable should be plugged into the Right input. This dummy cable breaks the normalization, and will send audio at the Left channel input to only the Left channel at the output. I plugged Spectraphon’s A side Mix output into DXG’s Left input on Channel 1, along with a dummy cable in the Right input. Spectraphon’s B side Mix output went to DXG’s Right input on Channel 2. This kept the A side pings on the left side of the stereo field, and the B side pings on the right for a delightfully stereo experience of pings and echoes.
Both sides of Spectraphon were tuned to C one octave apart. Spectraphon was modulated in three places, but only moderately. The A Side Focus and Slide were modulated by a Maths envelope and Wogglebug’s Stepped outputs respectively. The B Side Slide was modulated by the Maths OR output. The slight modulation helped to have subtle timbre changes on the pinged notes, some brighter and others darker. Both sides also FM’d each other slightly. The FM Bus Index for both channels were around 8:30 on the knobs. There’s some FM, but not very much at all. Just enough to give notes a kind of bounciness once struck in the LPG. One really nice feature of the Spectraphon’s FM capability is that its sine waves always stay pure in order to avoid the problems associated with cross-modulating oscillators. No matter how much one might FM Side A, its sine wave can still modulate the B side with a clean sine wave rather than one that is FM’d. Most oscillators, once they become carriers, are useless as modulators. Not so with Spectraphon where both oscillators can be both modulator and carrier oscillators at the same time. Very nifty.
René’s Cartesian Channel performed an identical role with STO and QMMG as the X and Y channels with Spectraphon and DXG. I wanted something well above the predominant audio register in the patch. High pitched tings and drips, in the same manner as the Spectraphon pings, only even more sparse. These were designed to be ornamental notes, not the star. The Cartesian Channel CV output sent pitch CV to STO’s v/oct input, and its trigger output went to Channel 2 of QMMG for similar pinging with the Cartesian trigger. The STO’s sine output was used to keep the notes with as soft a texture as I could with pings. One interesting difference between using the QMMG and DXG as a LPG is that QMMG’s decay, at least my QMMG’s decay,1 is noticeably longer on higher pitched notes than the DXG when pinged with a trigger. In the DXG, higher pitched notes are sometimes just barely blips. This sort of behavior is generally expected with just about every LPG because of how they filter the upper harmonics. But through the QMMG, those high notes are seemingly longer. It’s certainly a result of the those juicy QMMG vactrols, and a good argument for keeping vactrol LPGs around, cadmium eaters be damned. These pings in the QMMG were mixed in with the Spectraphon A and B side pings via the Aux input in the DXG.
After I worked up the pinging I was after, I knew I wanted something more, but it had to be complementary and juxtapose itself against the very delicate pings. I was in a stream of consciousness-like trance when building this patch, and so even though I’ve documented all of the final patch connections for the entire patch, I’m not exactly sure what thought process led me to how I was going to fill in the space in a graceful way. A bit of experimentation, some clever routing, and tinkering seemed to be the answer.
I first decided I wanted to use QPAS. I’m not sure how I decided on it being heavy filtering, but I knew I needed the voice to be subtle so as not to overtake light pinging happening in the stereo field. I sent Spectraphon’s A side Sine wave to the L input on QPAS, and the B side Sub output to QPAS’s Right input. The trick was to have both oscillators filtered by QPAS, yet remain separate in the outputs. QPAS essentially became a dual mono filter with shared controls.2 The frequency knob on QPAS, for most of the performance, was moderately low, around 10 o’clock on the knob, though it was being modulated by an unsync’d Wogglebug’s Smooth output, while both Radiate knobs were being modulated by the Woggle output.
QPAS’ Left and Right outputs would become completely separate voices, unfettered by any gating or enveloping, being tamed and shaped only by the filter cutoff(s) and resonance(s) before going straight to the output. Because these outputs weren’t being gated or enveloped, they were always present, moving along with their respective pitch sequences from René, Spectraphon’s A side following the X Channel, and the B side following the Y channel. I remember really liking the sound of the voices and the feel they added, but struggled to find a solution to these sequences droning along overtaking the pings. The answer was simple: only send as much volume to QPAS’ inputs as is absolutely necessary, and allow the resonance to do some of the lifting. It’s a delicate balance between not being audible and drowning out everything else; the output needed to be always present, but delicate enough to not use all of the space in the sonic field.
The Right Low Pass and Smile Pass outputs went straight to X-Pan Channel 2 A and B inputs where they were crossfaded and slowly panned across the stereo field (by the same cycling envelope). This melody carried a mostly present sequence from the Y channel, though quite muffled by the filter and constantly swirling with the crossfading, and smoothed out with resonance, then copious amounts of Mimeophon with Halo. From the time it was introduced, this Y melody is omnipresent, filtered to various degrees, and allowed to drift through the stereo field.
The Left outputs is where the routing became a bit of voodoo. I know what connections led to this sound, but I’m not sure I understand the mechanisms that led to the result. It was a sine wave playing a sequence heavily filtered by QPAS,3 and then very heavily filtered again by QMMG. The Left Low Pass and Smile Pass outputs were routed first to QMMG channels 3 and 4. I tried all four modes, but only the Low Pass mode gave me the specter of a ghost lightly singing in the background, occasionally wavering and trembling as the pitch of the input, slowly moving filter cutoff, and resonance interacted with one another. When the voice was introduced, the filter on QMMG was completely closed, only being modulated by a cycling Maths envelope. Resonance started at about 8:30 on each knob. I slowly added more resonance, then more again, before also slowly raising the cutoff. By the time I hit stop on the recording, both the cutoff and resonance for both channels were at about 1 o’clock on the knobs. It sounds as if it’s a feedback patch, though, outside of the copious amounts of resonance in the QPAS and QMMG signal paths, tamed by the controlled input into QPAS, there is no feedback patching.4 These two outputs from QMMG were crossfaded in X-Pan, so that the sound constantly drifted and resonated in interesting ways. This led to wavering cries that occasionally had a smidge of growl enough to resonate through the Mimeophon in an incredibly beautiful way.
This voice, although the most subtle and delicate, as well as the least present, is by far my favorite part of this patch. It brings the patch to life. It’s one of the coolest sounds I’ve gotten from any patch. When I first heard that sound I stood tall and stared straight at the QMMG as if to ask it to teach me its wizardry. It was the first time I’ve looked at the QMMG as an instrument; as something more than a set VCAs, LPGs, and filters, with a mix output.
All four voices were mixed in the X-Pan, and sent to the Mimeophon for some delay-ification and Halo, the soft noise of the Mimeophon cushioning the edges in subtle ways.
Like so many patches I made during Jamuary, this patch is an open testament to a cohesive Make Noise system being a fluid instrument. It’s an absolute pleasure to play.
One small issue I had, which reinforces my desire for a couple of VCAs than can boost levels before going to the ES-9, was that the recording was ultra-quiet. The pings are very quiet, which necessitated a low volume for everything else in the patch. I needed to add a full 12.5dB in post in order to bring my peaks up to ~ -12dB in AUM.
Each QMMG will have a different response because of the natural variability of vactrols. Make Noise does a great job of matching vactrols in an individual unit as closely as possible, but there are (sometimes noticeable) differences in the decay length between different units. This is the same for all vactrol-based LPGs. ↩︎
Definitely a first time using QPAS in this way. ↩︎
Filtering a sine wave is about as pedestrian a job as a filter can do. It’s normally unremarkable as filters thrive on upper harmonics. ↩︎
If the input level was much louder, I’m confident the resonance, particularly in QMMG, would have been screaming. Both filters have a very pronounced resonance that can run away quickly. ↩︎
A completely ripped off note progression (E, F#, G#, B) from Alessandro Cortini’s piece titled ERA on the Make Noise Records release Strega Musica.
0-Control fed the pitch sequence to Strega, which Strega-fied it. Strega’s triangle wave output was copied and patched to channels one and two of QMMG for some low pass filtering, with slightly different cutoff frequencies and differently attenuated modulation to helped create a stereo effect in the note progression. I first tried feeding it through QPAS, but it simply didn’t sound very good.
The blip bloops were a failed experiment. I was hoping for sporadic, sparkly bits that would ornament the droning note sequence, but it ended up not really at all what I’d hoped. Jamuary inherently comes with struggles, and sometime the time demands that you push record, ready or not. I probably should have had those notes be simple sine or triangle waves from Spectraphon. Instead I tried to be cute by using the even and odd mixed outputs with some heavy handed modulation to Slide and Focus on both sides. It didn’t really work. It exists, and juxtaposes itself against the dark drone, but that’s about it. I added to the confusion by using the Sample and Hold feature to control both the X and Y channels of René,, and haphazardly at that.
Well call today’s patch…a Time/Filter Experiment gone wrong.
Long day at work so this will be a quick and dirty patch notes….
The Make Noise system has my back again.
QPAS pinging away. Sequenced and pinged by René. Smile Pass and Bandpass outputs both sent to X-Pan and crossfaded, although I don’t know there’s much difference between them in the output. Spectraphon supplied both ring modulated and FM tones. For FM tones, Spectraphon A is on left, Spectraphon B on right. They are tuned an octave apart. Both mixes enveloped by a Fall modulated Maths functions in DXG.
Both QPAS and Spectraphon had every CV input modulated by…something. Wogglebug, René, Maths, Tempi, Maths Functions, the OR and SUM outputs on Maths, and just about anything else I could find.
Everything mixed in DXG and sent to Mimeophon for some delay and a decent amount of Halo. Had a little too much fun using the 0-Coast Slope output to modulate Mimeophon’s uTime CV input.
Kick was created by the 0-Coast. A steady clock from Tempi triggered the Contour on the 0-Coast. The Contour output was attenuated and sent to the v/oct input to give the kick some punch. The kick is dry in the mix.
I worked today, but got off earlier than normal. Even still I was short for time, but I decided pretty early in the day that I was going to put together one of my favorite patches in my little Make Noise ecosystem. This patch was inspired by a patch by Walker Farrell at Make Noise. The idea is to lean into vactrol bleed as an asset, rather than trying to defeat it somehow. I’ve done a patch like this before, but it was just okay. I wanted another at-bat, so-to-speak, and today was the day.
This patch is comprised of three separate voices. The first voice is a sine wave from STO, being sequenced by René’s Cartesian Channel, only striking the vactrol in QMMG infrequently. At no time were more than three gates active, and most of the time it was only two gates. And because both the X and Y channel were being clocked at two different speeds, as were both channels’ Stop/Run parameter via the X and Y Mod inputs, the sequence started and stopped in interesting ways. But because vactrols bleed, that is they take a second for the vactrol to completely close, any pitch changes that occur as part of the sequence will still be audible, though not gated at full volume. Not notes, per se, but also existing as pseudo-notes.
The second voice was made of two sine waves from Spectraphon being ring modulated in ModDemix, and enveloped by Function, before being panned in the stereo field by a slowly cycling envelope from Maths in X-Pan. Spectraphon’s oscillator A was tuned to the same pitch as STO, with the B side tuned an octave above for a pretty standard 1:2 ratio. Both oscillators received the same pitch information from René’s Y Channel.
For both of these voices I was regularly changing the sequence. Which steps were gated and which weren’t, which steps were active and which weren’t, and occasionally adjusted pitches on some of the steps. This created a stream of change that isn’t always noticeable, but keeps the performance moving.
The third voice was QPAS, pinging away. It had a steady gate hitting the input, but it was being level controlled by a slow envelope from Maths that was being triggered infrequently by René’s X Channel. When the trigger would hit Maths, it would send a slow envelope to QPAS’s VCA input which would control when and how long QPAS would be heard. I arranged the Resonate knobs to get a nice marimba sound, and added some self-modulation from the HP output back to the Frequency input.
Everything is mixed together in X-Pan and goes through Mimeophon before going to the output.
I’ve always loved the concept of this patch, but it wasn’t until today that I felt like I’ve done it some justice. I’ve butchered it a couple of times before, but not this day. And what’s more interesting (to me at least) was that patching was easy today. Ideas flowed freely, and patch cables followed. It’s a testament to the fluidity of a full Make Noise system. It’s a complete instrument unto itself.
