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.
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. ↩︎
I meant to mix these down in a slightly stereo orientation, but I simply forgot to turn the pan knobs. 😕 ↩︎
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.
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.
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.
I don’t really hate dancers, even if this patch might make you think I do.
I don’t trend towards rhythm driven music set to a time grid very often. And even when I do aim to have a rhythmic patch, it’s almost always doing something to mess with time. Jamuary 2501 is no exception.
The first patch of this wonderful Jamuary 2025 started as a desire to use an old and new piece of gear. I bought the Bizarre Jezabel Quarté a couple of years ago when I ran into several Bizarre Jezabel modules for sale at a retail shop in Germany. Until then, the only way to purchase one was to go through a labyrinthine process (for an American) of ordering directly.1 But when I first bought Quarté I didn’t get along with it well at all. I couldn’t figure out how to control the LPG, and what I got was a mess. The controls were crammed, and I sold it forthright. But a few months back I got another hankering to try the Quarté. The PT2399 delay chips are legendary for their lo-fi character, and the quad nature of it as a LPG and delay is right up my current alley of interest. I went on Reverb and grabbed the first one at a decent price, only this one was the updated Quarté Mk2, with a new wet/mixed switch, and some very clever normalizing across channels. The Mk2 can be used in several output configurations, including stereo or quad mono. But the crunch of the delay is what this module is all about.
Quarté Mk2 is not hard to use, but it is difficult to maneuver. Small, unmarked trim pots in very bad places make wiggling a chore when cables are patched in, particular the “t” and “lpgi” trim knobs. The introduction of a wet/mixed switch (which is a 50/50 mix) is very nice. The vactrol-based LPGs sound good, but are quite aggressive, and with a fairly short tail. It’s not always the right sort of strike, which is why I opted to use a Natural gate to articulate notes in this patch, with the Quarté as a delay only.
Most of this patch is pretty simple. Two outputs from the Joranalogue Generate 3 were mixed together and sent to a Natural Gate. The sequence is derived from the Joranalogue Step 8. Both the Natural Gate and Step 8 are clocked by Pam’s Pro Workout, from separate outputs clocked at different rates. The kick was made by Ringing CUNSA, and the hats were blue noise from Sapel sent through a HPF (also CUNSA). Both were triggered by a x8 click output, via the CuteLab Missed Opportunities at increasing levels of probability.
But why is this music for people who hate dancers? It’s pretty groovy. It’s a good tempo for the nightclub. But there is a wrench. At some points, there was an envelope that ripped through the sequence, disrupting the timing and jolting the groove. It’s sudden and unapologetic. The sequence always got back on the grid quickly, but not always in the same spot it was before things were rudely interrupted. It’s jolting and not conducive at all for dancing. I’m sure I’d get thrown out of the club were I to play something like this.
I do most of my patching in exactly two locations. My primary synth is located in my home studio along with a host of other instruments from guitars to kalimbas, and tuning forks to computers. My secondary synth is primarily a Make Noise-only affair, though there is a small Pod48x that has other branded modules used for effects pedal routing, a noisy reverb, an output VCA to control input levels, and an Expert Sleepers ES-10 to go to my audio interface.
But every once in a while I have the occasion to get a case out of the house and play, which is always a nice treat. I don’t gig, although perhaps one day I will, but trips provide a nice change of scenery and a fresh perspective that can oftentimes lead to wonderful patches. While my primary synth has a huge array of modules and functionalities, a travel synth forces me to make hard choices. What to include? What can I leave behind? What modules can I omit and allow plugins to carry their water? These are always hard choices that require a lot of thought, and made even more difficult when you consider that many of these travel synths will be played by two people, and not just me. My brother has been playing Eurorack for several years longer than I have, and we have very different tastes and approaches to using the modular. In addition to bringing modules I know well, I also use travel cases as an opportunity to try gear that I haven’t really learned well, or that I’d like to further explore. There’s nothing quite like necessity to force you to learn a piece of gear you have, and all of your normal, go-to gear can’t be a crutch.
For travel synths I like to have at least four dedicated voices (with other modules like filters also capable of being a sound source), ample modulation, at least four VCAs, a sequencer, some form of touch control, some gate producers, a multifunction module, and at least a delay for effects (even if a plugin could handle that task). I use plugins for reverb, EQ, and granular synthesis. I don’t want the case to be too specific in its task because it’s a case about exploration, but it also has to make sense as an instrument.
For this year’s Xmas Synth, I chose to deploy the legendary Synthesis Technology E370 quad wavetable oscillator and Frap Tools CUNSA quad multimode filter extraordinaire as the core of the case around which the remainder was built. This takes care of the four voices, filtering, VCAs for those signals, as well as various levels of mixing those signals. CUNSA can also handle drum duty via pinging, or be fully fledged oscillators themselves. Both are incredibly advanced and bring a lot of functionality to the case.
It’s with this synth that my brother and I will be exploring over the next several days as we celebrate Christmas with our parents. Last year’s synth produced some interesting sounds. I’m sure this year will be even better.
I’ve used all kinds of slow modulation sources in my patches. Wave simulators, chaos, and slow, free-running LFOs are all staples in my modular practice, and I’ve used all of them as the engine that drives an entire patch. But one thing I’ve never tried in a lead role in a patch is good, old fashioned random modulation. Sure, I’ve used sample and hold or smooth random generators like the Frap Tools Sapél, Mutable Instruments Marbles, or Make Noise Wogglebug for specific tasks within a patch, but outside of Marbles > Rings-type patches, I’ve never based a patch on staochastic movement before.
Random is, well, random, and it’s hard to be intentional when you can’t really expect what’s going to happen next. In some circumstances, that unpredictability is perfect. In other cases, it just makes a really big mess. There are certainly ways to corral in a random signal to fit within particular parameters to allow for more predictability. That’s the basis of stochastics. Sapél has a range probability knob which directs it to choose output values predominantly from a particular range. Marbles has a switch for voltage ranges. Wogglebug similarly has a mechanism for more or less drastic changes. You can even hone random voltage in on your own with a little offset and attenuation. But it’s still random, and even if completely random might work for certain facets of a patch, using it as the main driver becomes difficult while still remaining musical.1 But I was determined to make it work, and I had just the module to help.
The Addac506 Stochastic Function Generator is a powerhouse modulation source made up of four function generators, and most of the bells a whistles one could want. Need cycling envelopes? Check. Slew limiter? Check. One shot envelopes? Check. Audio rate to very slow? Check. EOR and EOC trigger outputs. Check. Offset and attenuation to get your generated functions in the exact range you need it? Check? Some comparator action for related modulation? Check? And this checklist of features goes on and on. But the killer app of the Stochastic Function Generator is its ability to set a very precise range for both Rise and Fall times. This ability allows for some very compelling modulation that changes every cycle, but, particularly when using very slow modulation, does so organically in a way that seems transparent. It can be set to no random generation (standard envelopes), a very wide range with wildly changing Rise and Fall times, or a very narrow range where changes are subtle, and each of these can be done in three modes, slow, medium, or fast (per generator). The Addac506 is a very powerful module with a compelling feature set that can drive entire patches.
I had set out to make another E370 patch using slow modulation to fade the four wavetable oscillators in and out to create a cloud of a chord that is constantly shifting, yet still always the same. I’d been using slow moving bipolar signals for this purpose on several patches of late, but I wanted to try something a little different this time around. I’ve used chaotic systems, and I’d used both free running and synced LFOs, but I’d had problems using cycling unipolar functions in the past because no voice is ever truly out for very long. It’s a constant chord where each note changes volume, but is almost always audible. Mystery, drama, and tension are minimized; each note like a yo-yo rather than a graceful flow in and out and back in again. But the Addac506 is a little different. Unlike most function generators, with the Stochastic Function Generator you can tailor the outputs to any range you want. Those functions needn’t be unipolar, nor with wide ranging levels, and the ability to offset and attenuate signals allows one to shape your function to suit your destination without issue, and it’s this ability to perfectly condition CV before ever leaving the module that enabled me to use it in this slow fading movement I was looking for.
Setting the stochastic functions on the Addac506 is simple: set minimum and maximum Rise and Fall times, and call it a day. At the instantiation of every cycle both Rise and Fall will receive a random value between those set minimum and maximum times, and that stochastically determined envelope will come out. Flick the cycling switch and every cycle is something different. And the Addac506 gives us that, times four. It should be noted that this behavior can be replicated in any function generator that has both End Of Rise and End Of Cycle gate/trigger outputs, plus CV inputs to control the rise and fall times independently. You’ll need to add in a sample and hold or random voltage generator, plus a module for offset and attenuation to define the range of random. All this times four is a lot of patching, and a lot of modules. The Addac506 does it all seamlessly under the panel.
At first I was a little confused. Although I hadn’t initially set any offset, the output was still silent until the voltage as somewhere between 1-2 volts.2 I had anticipated needing to use negative offset to create some space between the fading out of one wave and when it will become audible again, but instead found myself using positive offset to get the flow I was after. Fortunately the flexibility of the Addac506 allowed for quick and easy adjustments to put each wave in the right zone. I added a fair amount of positive offset to the bass note of the chord so that it was always audible, while still having level changes to keep it moving. The other three oscillators used a very slight positive offset. Combining their need to get to somewhere between one and two volts before becoming audible, with the very slow nature of these ever-evolving functions determined the use of positive offset. Up to 40% of their positive range was already inaudible. Giving the functions a bit of a voltage floor rise was in order, lest far too much silence ensue.
Having already decided on my four oscillators for this chord soup, the quad wavetable oscillators of the Synthesis Technology E370, and having had the level control roughly framed out, it was time to look at modulating the wavetables to create movement within each note. The pitch of each oscillator would remain static, and to accompany the change in level, a change in timbre is natural (especially with a morphing wavetable oscillator). Having already used up the outputs of the Addac506, I looked to a familiar module, and one right next to the Stochastic Function Generator, the Addac508 Swell Physics.
Although Swell Physics is definitionally a chaos-based system, and not a random one, the uneven flow up and down of each output was perfect for the job. The bass note oscillator received modulation only on its Detune CV input, while the other three oscillators received both Wave and Detune modulation, the former from Swell Physics and the latter three free running sine wave LFOs from Batumi II. The triangle wave LFOs from Batumi II were used to pan these same three signals slowly through the stereo field with the ST Modular Sum Mix & Pan, while the bass note was planted firmly in the center. Once mixed down to stereo, the four oscillator cloud went to the AI Synthesis 018 Stereo Matrix Mixer.
Once in the matrix mixer it was time to smooth out some of the rough edges with the Holocene Electronics Non-Linear Memory Machine, a favorite of mine since it went in the rack. As a non-clockable delay I found it a wonderful tool for long, drawn out ambient delays, especially with how it can smear repeats into an almost reverb-like sound. Although I tend to pretty heavily modulate the NLMM, I chose to go with no modulation in this patch, with smearing at about 12 o’clock on the knob, and feedback at around 11 o’clock. The NLMM was mixed with the dry signal in the matrix mixer at about a 50:50 ratio, and perhaps even favoring a bit more delay than dry signal.
This mixed signal was sent to both the output mixer and The Dradds for some broken tape machine treatment. Both sides, left and right, or light and dark as it exists in my case, were set to Tape mode at an octave up, with each side behaving slightly differently. The left side tends to randomly switch between forward and backwards playback at double-speed, while the right side randomly switches both direction and speed, although both sides were lightly modulated and sometimes change temporarily. Although I’ve always been enamored by the Dradd(s), it wasn’t until I really started to learn it have my results been what I was always hoping for. Since I sat down to really understand the Dradd(s), my patching has had an opportunity to be more intentional, with my results more satisfying and effective. Plus, having dual Dradds for a stereo field really maximizes the movement and variation it creates.
A heaping portion of distortion, courtesy of the Bizarre Jezabel Mimosa, was also used towards the end of the patch, which created occasional blips and stutters, and a sense of heavy drama. It was only used on the chord cloud and the Dradds, and even then I chose to keep a fair bit of the original dry signal in the mix. I really like the resulting sound, but something is happening that I don’t quite understand. As distortion was introduced into the mix, I did not lower the dry signal. I would have expected the volume would rise, yet it didn’t. The volume got lower, even once the dry and wet distortion signals were nearing full volume in the matrix mixer. It wasn’t until I started to lower the dry signal (the chord, its delayed signal from the NLMM, and the Dradds) that the overall volume started to become louder. My guess is there is some form of phase cancellation happening, although I don’t really know what phenomenon might explain it. You can hear it starting at about the 10 minute mark, with me starting to lower the dry level at about the 11:22 mark, which corresponded in a total output level rise. Curious, that.
Although I was quite happy with my shifting chord after a whole lot of tinkering with envelopes and CV input attenuators, I knew something was missing. I had blips of granular synthesis to break things up, but it needed more. I was hesitant to use SD Multisample as I’ve done a lot of that, but wanted something in a similar vein. Reaching back to one of my very first patches, an attempt at creating a wind chime-like sound and pattern, I decided to add in a randomly created, toy piano sound (or baby R2-D2 sounds as my oldest relayed ). I really enjoyed making that patch when I did it the first time around. It was the first patching technique I’d ever figured out on my own, and a sense of nostalgia pushed me over the edge, even if only to see if I could remember how to replicate it.
This part of the patch started at the Stochastic Function Generator’s “Average” output. This output was patched to the input of the Joranalogue Compare 2. When the Average out from the Addac506 was inside the comparator window, it spat out a gate to the cycling input on a Frap Tools Falistri. While the function was cycling, the End Of Cycle gate triggered Sapel and Quantermain. Sapel sent a value from the N2 output to both Quantermain, in order to send quantized pitch CV, and the Decay CV input of Falistri that would change the envelope length with each note. The VCO changed pitch, and the cycling envelope opened the VCA, each note with a different pitch and length. The sound went from the first VCA to the output mixer, as well as a second VCA which panned the signal to two separate delays, which were then mixed and sent to the output mixer to be mixed with the dry signal and the rest of the patch.
Although the method I ultimately used in this patch is very different than the first time around, the results are similar. The sounds are much higher in pitch, much faster, and much shorter than my original version, but the theory behind creating the sounds was the same, even if I took a different route to get there.3 I wanted short, uneven bursts, and I got them. It’s quite often these days that I realize there are many routes to the same end. Overall, this part of the patch played a very minor role, but an important one. After several listens, I’d probably integrate this part differently were I to do it again. I’d definitely have it more forward for most of the mix rather than hanging around the background. It seems to get lost sometimes, when it should be more prominent. I would also not mess up a patch connection with my second delay, the Qu-Bit Electronix Nautilus, where I plugged into the Right input, and not the left, which, with the feedback pattern chosen, put virtually all of the delay signal from Nautilus on only the Left side. Some might not even notice, but it bothers the shit out of me.
The last part of this patch is the periodic “bubble burst” with accompanying echoes (courtesy of the Xaoc Devices Sarajewo). I stole this idea straight from one of my favorite patches on the Make Noise channel. It’s a simple sound that is both unobtrusive, and only very periodic. The sound was created by pinging (ringing?) CUNSA, which also had its frequency modulated by the highly attenuated HP output of the same filter (another trick I stole from Make Noise – Thanks, Walker!). It was triggered by using a Stackcable to combine three separate gate outputs from the Stochastic Function Generator. These long functions output only very periodic gates at a random interval, so there’s no overcrowding. It also helped provide a sense of scale and depth of the musical space.
Everything ended with a round trip through the Walrus Audio Slöer, which is quickly becoming my favorite reverb. Although I’ve tended towards one of the pitch shifting algorithms, I ultimately decided on using the Dream algorithm, though the Rain algorithm also sounded nice.
I really enjoyed this patch, even if there are a few things I would definitely change. It was both challenging and highly rewarding. It offers answers to some questions, but also to more questions to explore in a future patch.
Although what is or isn’t “musical” is certainly subject to wide interpretation, I think we can still make useful generalizations, while drawing lines between something most would call musical, with yet other examples most would call sound(s) or noise. ↩︎
I’m not sure, but I suspect that the VCA/mixer I was using to process the audio has a logarithmic response, delaying its response with slow(er) signals. The manual doesn’t illuminate the VCA topography, unfortunately. ↩︎
After looking at a patch diagram of the original patch, the methods used between these two patches was quite different, even if it started similarly. It’s nice to know that there is generally more than one way to accomplish some patching goal. ↩︎
