Modular Synthesis

We were at the fair, playing aunt and uncle to some of our friend's kids, and I brought my zoom recorder along. The best sample I got was of this grouchy turkey. I remember getting nipped by a turkey at the fair as a kid. Perhaps that's why this track ended up sounding so chaotic and evil. Bad turkeys.

Nip The Fingers

When I think of glitches, I mostly think of interruptions, stopping something in the middle before it's finished. This is annoying on your computer, but in music you can use the stops and starts and glitches to make something new. 

I usually cringe at stock sounds that come with music gear, I'd rather make something completely new, however my 4ms Stereo Triggered Sampler came with some pretty good samples, perfect for cutting to shreds.

This track is focused mostly on two banks of stock samples I found in my sampler module, I used misc other control devices to constantly mess with the start time, sample length, sample selection, and pitch of these banks, glitching them beyond recognition. I threw in some fairly randomized oscillator sequences as well to add some extra chaos.

Some of the sounds I came up with I think I could certainly use in some more structured music.

Stock Shock [disquiet0349]

In my electronic music journey, I definitely lean towards the aggressive and gritty. This was a welcome change to that Idea, and I'm definitely planning on making more tracks like this. I really enjoyed it.

For me, music has to be pretty repetitive to be able to sleep to, but if it's too repetitive I'll find myself getting more annoyed than sleepy. This was basically a bunch of different cycled elements, with some intentional subtle randomness thrown in to keep it from getting annoying. I had to resist the temptation to mess with the elements too much, and I even made sure I stepped away from the rig for a while to let it play out. Bringing elements in and out was done in a way as to be completely unsurprising to the listener, I've never turned knobs so slowly in my life.

I'm very pleased with the result, I got a little sleepy while making it.

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More on this 350th weekly Disquiet Junto project (Selected Insomniac Works / The Assignment: Make very quiet music for very late at night for very fragile psyches) at:

https://disquiet.com/0350/ 3

More on the Disquiet Junto at:

https://disquiet.com/junto/ 4

Subscribe to project announcements here:

http://tinyletter.com/disquiet-junto/

Project discussion takes place on llllllll.co 4:

https://llllllll.co/t/disquiet-junto-project-0350-selected-insomniac-works/ 2

There’s also a Junto Slack. Send your email address to twitter.com/disquiet to join in.

Image associated with this project is by Helen Cassidy, used thanks to Flickr and a Creative Commons license:

https://flic.kr/p/69oCuU

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/

Eighth Inch Lullaby [disquiet0350]

My first Podular Modcast challenge. You learn things when doing things like this. For example, I learned after I started the 15 minute timer to do this challenge, that I had no idea how to use the record function of my STS. You learn something new every day I suppose.

Bellicose Kitten

First off, thanks a zillion to samarobryn for converting the image to MIDI for me! That was an enormous help. Check out samaobryn's bandcamp at https://samarobryn.bandcamp.com/

Basically I took the midi files and loaded them into Reaper, and used my mutant brain to control my eurorack. So all external controls on this track come from the MIDI files generated from the image. All sound was generated from the rack.

I tried to add elements that semi-spontaneously added some "Warp and Weft to the piece, in the way I interpreted it. Random enough to keep it interesting, but predictable enough to lull you in a bit. It reminded me a bit of the "Music for Insomniac's" Junto we did a few weeks ago.

I'm working on an aggressive electro-metal project, that I hope to be my main focus, but i'm enjoying the more laid-back atmospheric stuff more than I thought. Perhaps I'll simultaneously work on something for chilling out. Either way, it's fun to expand your horizons.

Shawl [disquiet0353]

With December 2018 being full of sick days and holidays, I hadn't gotten to make a lot of noise. I FINALLY got back at it with a piece in honor of the diseases that kept us at bay. Bratcher Haus of Plague is in three short, but distinct movements: 
1) Food Poisoning
2) Influenza
3) Ear Infection

Most of the sound in this piece came from the delightfully chaotic Schlappi Engineering Interstellar Radio

Bratcher Haus Of Plague

Based on a 7,2,5 beat pattern. Since the original pattern ended up being 14 beats, I added a 4 beat (2x2) and a 10 beat (2x5) pattern. Then the first pattern is played 7x, second is played 2x, and third is played 5x. Then it loops. Thus 7,2,5 is a theme woven throughout the whole track. Perhaps whoever takes this to it's next step can use those numbers to influence their work? Just a thought.

7,2,5 [disquiet0367]

Ahh the joy's of modular synthesis! @lcalytrix laid down this excellent generative exploration of sound using several modules in a "Krell patch". According to learningmodular.com: "Recreating this patch is a challenge many modular musicians like to tackle. It is based on the 1959 movie Forbidden Planet, in a segment where they supposedly play the music of the ancient Krell race. In general terms, each note has a random pitch, envelope, and duration."

To add contrast to this, I added some more sonic explorations using a single module, the enigmatic "Interstellar Radio" by Schlappi Engineering. https://schlappiengineering.com/products/interstellar-radio/ I ran into Eric Schlappi at a Modular Nights concert in Seattle and he told me he discovered after releasing it that if you patch the error out into the signal in of the module, all kinds of crazy things will happen. He was right. All sounds on the right channel came from this patch with no other external control. The only other thing I did was run it through a mixer to control the volume.

The manual for the Interstellar Radio tells you to plug this module in and "Converse with infinite space". Sounds like something aliens would do.

The Krell Conversing with Infinite Space [disquiet0368]

Disquiet 0369 The Final Trio

Left Track: https://soundcloud.com/anoddhue/spaceriff-leftpan-disquiet0367

Left + Right Track: https://soundcloud.com/plusch/spaceriff-duo-disquiet0368?in=disquiet/sets/disquiet-junto-project-0368

It started with @anoddhue laying down a happy bouncy synth track, followed by @plusch added some spacey wavetable arppegiation. I had a hard time nailing down the tempo, but when I did, I used my Drumbrute Impact and ran some of the outputs through my eurorack using the Hertz Donut, Interstellar Radio, Wasp Filter and AI OTA VCF.

Things got a little crazy.

Interstellar Insanity [disquiet 0369]

Left Track: https://soundcloud.com/tedthetrumpet/cade-disquiet0367

Right Track: https://soundcloud.com/zeromeaning2/the-rotting-disquiet0368?in=disquiet/sets/disquiet-junto-project-0368

The rich and haunting tracks by @tedthetrumpet and @ZeroMeaning formed the basis for this work. There was room in the high frequency range so I added some extra sound to add to the creep factor. 

I know i've used the Schlappi Engineering "Interstellar Radio" on every single track I've done for this trio project, but.... It's just so fun to use!! In fact these are some of the coolest sounds I've gotten from it. I ran the error out into the signal in, as recommended by the designer, then split the output into two filters: The doepfer wasp filter and the AI Synthesis OTA Filter, then mixed the outputs. After that it was just turning knobs and trying to contact the dead.

The result reminded me a lot of the video game "Oxenfree" so I named the track "Kanaloa" which has a significance to the plot of the game. (No spoilers I haven't finished the game yet!)

This track, and entire project, has given me the most fun and inspiration I've had with Junto so far. Let's do more like this!!

Kanaloa [disquiet0369]

I made 4 musical Pi's and put them together.

3 pi's are electronic instruments, each playing through the first 32 digits of pi at different speeds. Notes are based on a 1-12 digit scale, so a 0 would be C, a 3 would be Eb and so on.

1 instrument is a drum set that goes through a 10 beat cycle, but how much of that cycle plays depends on the number of Pi that is next. So it would play3 beats, then 1 beat, then 4, then 1, etc.

I programmed all of these into my Synthstrom deluge, then plugged it into the modular for a bit more depth of sound.

This project was constructed on stream! Check my music streams at www.twitch.tv/untilledsound

Here are the specific videos.
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/396064563
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/397629895

I have a new album! Check it out at www.bandcamp.com/untilledsound

Cheers Y'all.

4 Pi's [disquiet0376]

I was a tad confused by the directions for this one. It says to re-do the algorithm with two notes. But I can't use notes that are unused in the second iteration, because all notes are already used when you add the two melodies together. So I tried adding different diads, then triads, then 4 note chords, making sure when replacing chords to use ones never used before. I ended up making them semi-arpegiated chords and squeezed all the notes for each note in the melody in the time frame it already took up.

After that I hooked the whole thing up to my modular system and added some extra noise.

This project was done on stream: Check out the videos:
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/399592453
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/401191622

Amalgorithm [disquiet0377]

Disquiet tempted me, and lured me away from the blessed hilltops of analogue signal flow, down into the unholy valley of virtual modular instrumentation. This exercise in wretched debauchery began with almost an hour of confusion and frustration, untilled I finally discovered how these cursed devices operate.

Joking aside. I do like what some digital modular can do, but good gravy is it unintuitive. I am planning on finding a way to add some virtual tools to my tangible rack someday, but this won't be it. I found the setup strange and restrictive.

Oh well. I can't say I didn't try.

Heathen Offering [disquiet0381]

I got lucky with this one, as I had just completed a similar idea in a previous patch, so I got to use some of the elements from that patch in this one. I'm hoping to release the first one in a series of "Sleep-Aid" tracks later this year.

This was a generative patch, so I hooked it up, hit record and went to go get drinks with some friends. I ended up recording about three hours, but I figured I should trim it down a bit. But when I came back everything was acting as it did before. I think I might want to try setting up a patch before going to sleep sometime.

I felt like the soft beeping sound and the ships engine sounds turned out pretty good, I tried to put the sound of semi-random occasionally passing ships. It turned out ok, but I definitely want to revisit this concept once I have some more control modules and a stereo mixer. I think there's a lot more I can do with this idea.

Space Cruiser Nap Chamber [disquiet0383]

I had to end today's live-stream early because my internet was crappy, but here's a jolly little patch I was working on at the time.

Video Giant

Made a jam on my 35th birthday during my stream. Here it is.

Birthday Jam #35

While making this patch on stream, a buddy looked at my modular and said it looked I was patching the Millennium Falcon's Hyperdrive. Hence the name.

Made in eurorack, relying mostly on the Make Noise Tempi and the Noise Engineering Basimilas Iteritas Alter.

Hyperdrive [disquiet0429]

One more grand experiment with the Basimilus Iteritas Alter by @noiseeng. This is "Air, Air is a Smelt Subtitle". All drum sounds came from a single BIA.

Air, Air is a Smelt Subtitle

I ended up doing a bit more of a scattered gradient than a straight one. I love playing with uneven clock sources. This patch was mainly made using the Olegtron 4060E.(https://www.perfectcircuit.com/olegtron-4060e.html) which is a cool little device where you can plug electronic components directly into the module, basically live circuit bending. I used this as both a sound source and an irregular clock, timing the Synthstrom Deluge. The "Gradient" was first slowing down the speed of the Olegtron, which in turn slowed the Deluge, Then bringing a new "Gradient" up by increasing the number of drum sounds on the Deluge. The result was not straightforward, but I ended up with some super interesting sounds.

The title comes from a time years ago during an easter celebration, where one of my friends kids uttered the phrase "That Hits Me Right in the Deeps." That phrase has stuck with me.

That Hits Me Right in the Deeps

That Hits Me Right In The Deeps [Disquiet0463]

I'm posting this over a week late, so I don't remember how exactly I did this patch. I do remember it involved trying to slow down the very unpredictable Trogotronic m/679 "Gran Fury", which lended to some interesting results. It also sounds like I used the Basimlas Iteritas Alter and Polaris filter quite a bit too.

While the term "Corpsicles" has been coined by many, I remember it mostly from the end of "Shards of Honor" by Lois McMaster-Bujold. There's a very moving scene where a cleanup crew after a space battle is searching for dead bodies in the wreckage. Highly recommend all of her "Vorkosigan Saga" novels.

Corpsicles

Corpsicles [disquiet0432]

Sonic exploration and creation from Seattle, Washington. Discovering new materials, patterns, and concepts for music composition.

Modular Synthesis

Feldspark