Playing around with the 4ms Ensemble Oscillator. The entire track is just the Ensemble with some Beads on an effects send recorded in one go. Pitch sequence is random, but quantized. Gate sequences not random (Metron). Some manual and automatic modulation of Root and Twist. Some Drezno shenanigans handling what Beads gets. I used the third stereo mode on Ensemble so I could record the root separately from the other voices. Minimal multitrack editing in the DAW.

Ensemble Goof

SM2 Autolag Patch Test (temporary)

SM2 Autolag Patch Test 2 (temporary)

Bongos test with two sine oscillators from the E370 through the Natural Gate. Second oscillator FMs the first. The first gets a pitch sequence from the Sapel, the second gets octave transpositions from Sapel. About 2/5 through, I pan the two voices in opposite directions. About 3/5 through, I turn up an LFO FM-ing the second oscillator, and a topographic delay send also fades up

E370/Natural Gate Bongos Test

Clep Diaz-style dynamics sequencing with Erfurt/Lipsk/Drezno

Test: Erfurt - Dynamics - Sequencing

Jammed with a couple Continuumini presets over a Vector sequence of a simple AJH voice through a Gemini bandpass. Chopped it up in Bitwig into this assembly. The modular sequence gets a heavy dose of Valhalla Delay.

Vector/Continuumini Jam (edit)

Experimenting with short fast notes, silence, and letting Erfurt/Lipsk act as arranger: controlling when each of the three parts gets to play. First two parts are E370 modulated wavetable voices, both pitched by Sinfonion from random voltages from Sapel. One of the two voice’s envelope is triggered by a clock division, while the other is triggered by a pattern from NI Variatic Erumption. The third voice is an AJH VCO through the Gemini 2412, pitched by Sinfonion from an falling ramp LFO, and its envelope is triggered by another NI Variatic Erumption pattern. Erfurt is decremented by 01111000 per clock division, with the two most significant bits muting and unmuting the first two voices. A Klavis Logica module is employed to trigger the third voice when the other two are not playing. (I did a little manual muting during recording, too.) Valhalla Room, Delay, and Supermassive applied in the DAW.

Erfurt Pizzicato (sketch)

0-CTRL and AJH Minimod + Ring SM voice, Valhalla effects

0-CTRL Sketch 2

Three similar voices, panned left, right and center. Each enveloped with same clock driving Water. Each CV output drives the pitch of one voice through a quantizer. 

I begin with all the knobs counter clockwise (all voices playing same pitch). Then I gradually turn up five knobs, one at a time, to produce a kind of melody round.

When you hear a snare drum sound, I am sending a trigger to the Rnd trig input in one Rnd mode or other, and you can hear the pattern of the sequence change.

Test/demo of Jasmine & Olive Trees Water (melodic)

One fairly dense 16-step Euclidean rhythm into the BIA. Three CV outs of Water patched to mode, fold and morph.

I begin with all the knobs counter clockwise (all drum triggers produce same sound). Then I gradually turn up five knobs, one at a time, to introduce modulation.

When you hear a high hat sound, I am sending a trigger to the Rnd trig input in Phase mode, and you can hear the timbral sequence change.

Test/demo of Jasmine & Olive Trees Water w/NE BIA

First real sketch with Moskwa II/Ostankino II. Shows off the excellent RAND PLAY feature and the decent PROBABILITY feature. RANGE (excellent feature) is modulated by SSF/DIVKID Rand Step. TRANSPOSE is modulated by hand with 0-CTRL. BIT 1 output is governing the send to Magneto. BIT 4 and BIT 6 are combined and sent to Natural Gate for the sub-bass line that appears in the background halfway through. For the main part, which is just an AJH VCO through the AJH Transistor Ladder Filter, I’m turning Moskwa’s plodding gates into variable-length gates via a Make Noise Function modulated by sample & hold. Valhalla Room added in Bitwig.

Moskwa II Sketch (Melodic)

Lightly edited/mixed modular jam featuring the WMD Arpitecht, ADDAC Stochastic Function Generator, and Panharmonium. Collab with @MoDRoy

In case you’re wondering the atonal chord-like elements are from the Panharmonium which is chewing on wet reverb material (basically what you hear alone at the tail of the track).

Compost Reverie with MoDRoy

Sample loops, sequenced voices and Mutable Instruments Rings

Blues for a Fake Planet (with MoDRoy)

First outing with the expander for the Endless Processor

The Patient Bird (with MoDRoy)

First recorded jam with the Cycle Instruments Tetrachords. This couldn’t be much simpler, as it’s just two E370 voices running through Natural Gate, with Tetrachords providing pitch and strike for both. Rhythmic triggering from Dnipro DOT. A little Valhalla Room and Delay in the DAW. Otherwise, it’s just me jamming on the Tetrachords knobs and buttons over a single pattern.

As a bit of music, it certainly would have benefitted from more development/planning, particularly if I spent any time finding some of the best note, scale, and inversion-type changes instead of just winging it. And there’s zero CV modulation in this sketch other than a couple LFOs on the wavetables. (There is some velocity modulation within Tetrachords.) But I was trying to capture what could be accomplished with Tetrachords with as little time and effort as possible. This went from utter scatch (completely unpatched) to Soundcloud in just about 30 minutes, and probably 10 minutes of that was basic post work in the DAW after recording.

Another 10–20 minutes of practicing and thought would have gone a long way, but I think this kind of captures some “baseline” results you can expect from Tetrachords out of the box.

Elementary Tetrachords Jam

This is pretty much the same patch as the prior “Elementary Tetrachords jam”, this time with the DOT euclidean sequencer swapped out for Flux, doing what Flux does best, which is spit out a firehose of exquisitely-timed gates.

Elementary Tetrachords + Flux Jam

This is just a clock passed through the Integra Funkitus gate skipper then on to trigger one track of Tetrachords in chord mode sending MIDI to a mediocre DAW plugin. I’m jamming—with only a modicum of intent—on the knobs and buttons of the two tetrachords, with a few tweaks along the way to the inversion knob and the encoder to shift the chord up or down. One take, basically zero effort. Also: FUN!

Tetrachords Piano Jam

Clocking René from Gatestorm with some extra quantized pulses thrown in for more interesting rhythm. Quantized CV buff-multed to four different voices (2x triangles, TwinPeak and Kermit). Not a lot of modulation here—just a bit on the cutoff and slope of the VSVCF which is handling the two triangle waves. Delay by Echophon. A little live mixing.

René Pulsé

Same as previous track (neo-Riemannian Study), but all three parts static in the mix, with a bit more reverb slathered on. Fades added in Logic. (This is probably the better take.)

neo-Riemannian Study – Alt Take (Ornament + Crime)

O_C’s Automatonnetz mode is driving this patch. Settings are mostly default (a few random tweaks of indeterminate effect) Outputs B, C and D are driving the base chord drone. Output A is in strum mode, sent to Braids (PLUK). A copy of output A runs to Control Forge running a fairly straightforward sample and hold programme that takes the value, glides it up an octave, waits, glides it back down an octave and then pauses; this CV drives the 1v/o of Just Friends (second drone). Various LFO and Wogglebug modulation spread around as seasoning for the voices. Clocking from Gatestorm. Some Echophon and Black Hole Reverb. Hands off recording except for fading up Just Friends voice halfway through.

Automatonnetz Sketch (Ornament + Crime, Control Forge)

Four series of ping tests, designed to be (as much as possible) apples-to-apples. In each, I’m using four different pitches while manually wiggling the Q, and manually triggering the pings.

First up is the QMMF-4, pinging only the first of the four filters. A major feature here is that I can turn Q all the way up and get remarkably long ping decays (especially at lower frequencies). Obviously, there are three more filters here I could be pinging, too.

Second up is the Epoch implementation of Twinpeak, with the dial set all the way counterclockwise to LP. You can get a lot more out of this filter than this demo presents—and I’m not taking advantage of both peaks here—but you get a sense of the “character” of Twinpeak’s ping sound, which is quite similar to the QMMF-4.

Third up is Three Sisters in crossover mode. Unlike the other two, Three Sisters will happily self-oscillate, which means that pinging it requires tweaking Q just below the self-oscillation point. (Sometimes I go too far with my manual adjustments and you hear the whine. Backing off a bit fixes it.) 

Lastly is Three Sisters in formant mode. Same deal, different sound. Note that in either mode, the output you choose on Three Sisters can sound a bit different; moreover, you could get three differently-pitched pings out of Three Sisters by using all three outputs (or All) and adjusting Span.

Ping comparison: QMMF-4, Twinpeak, Three Sisters

This is entirely Three Sisters and, after a few seconds, the Echophon. The pulse is going to the ALL input and we’re listening to the ALL output. An irregular clock (Gatestorm) advances René, which is sequencing Span. Same clock also clocks Sapél’s Sample & Hold, which is responsible for panning. A different (slow) clock advances Brains through four transpositions. 

One of the things this demo illustrates is how Q is affected by the FREQ of Three Sisters: the filter tends to be more resonant at lower FREQ, producing longer bell-like ringing, as opposed to wooden marimba-type sounds. Here, I think the difference adds interest.

Demo: Pinging Three Sisters

I had little time to do this, but here’s a quickie “response” to Elinch’s delightful minimalist patch with the verbos harmonic oscillator (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvS9TrhRJjI). 
Other than the clicky noise (Sapél through the Springray2), this entire track is Just Friends set to harmonic series, with four outputs tapped and passed individually through the QMMF-4. The levels of each four are modulated by Batumi in divide mode. A simple 1v/o transposing sequence is provided by Brains/Pressure Points, quantized in O&C, slewed in Math, and sent on to Just Friends. A second envelope is used—later in the piece—to modulate the RAMP parameter of Just Friends for brassy harmonics. Lots of Big Sky Bloom reverb.

minimal (just friends harmonic oscillator)

Somewhat of a tossed-off megapatch. Core is a random quantized pitch series from Sapél passed to Ornament & Crime’s Copier Machine, and the resulting four pitch parts doled out to various destinations, beginning with the four pinged filters of the QMMF-4. The Zularic Repetitor (CHACHAR) is triggering pretty much everything in the patch except the “bells” (Braids)—I roped in the Numeric Repetitor for that. The WMD SSM is rotating the pings to the different filters individually. The rest of the percussion is from various Noise Engineering modules and noise being pinged in the Optomix. Lots of modulation from Just Friends and Sapél. 
Pressure Points is used to choose different “parts” during recording. A little twiddling of Beast’s Chalkboard to modify the octaves in play. Echophon on the bells. Big Sky Cloud on some of the channels.

Pings & Bells (Zularic Repetitor, O&C, QMMF-4)

I was listening to Timoka’s great stuff today, so… filter pings! The Integra Solum is pretty much driving this patch, with some additional clocking from Gatestorm and bursts (to trigger “bird sounds”) from the Variatic Erumption. I’ve got a pitch sequence out of René in snake mode heading into O&C Copier Maschine to provide several related pitches that I route to the QMMF-4 (three filters), Three Sisters and Ripples. The latter two get envelopes on their Q for “bird call” sounds. The QMMF-4 is just straight up pinged, except that one of the channels is getting FM’d with a sine wave. A couple Basimili provide some basic drums toward the end. A little live mixing. Echophon and Big Sky.

Canopy Groove (Integra Solum, Variatic Erumption)

This is pretty goofy and only semi-successful, but what the hell. Using same envelope as for VCA to modulate the Q on E352’s tuned noise to produce something vaguely like a pan flute sound. The sequence itself is just random pitches from Sapél and random gating via Integra Funkitus. Magneto and Big Sky add “interest” (maybe).

Test: E352 “Pan Flute” (tuned noise with enveloped Q)

All I’m doing here is feeding two tossed-off 8-step sequences from the Komplex into two basic saw wave voices built around the Gemini (acting as dual filters) and then fooling around with the knobs. Magneto send. What an awesome filter!

Test: AJH Gemini 2412

This is just a simulation of “patch surveillance” as an example within the Patching Cold Mac document (http://doudoroff.com/cold-mac/)

Rudimentary Example: Cold Mac Patch Surveillance

E370 stereo drone animated with both morph (equal) and phase (independent). Bursts of FM from ZADAR. Periodic Birdlike peeping MINIMOD modulated by a second ZADAR channel. Pitch for all above is from Pressure Points (played manually) through O&C Quantermain, distributed via Shifty (left and right E370 voices are not always playing same note) and slewed. Effects help from Big Sky and Magneto. Later on, Braids’ PRTC mode shows up to close out the sketch. Lead voice is just me noodling on the ContinuuMini (Synth Lead 4 patch). Recorded in one take with some live mixing to two stereo tracks. EQ & compression in Logic.

Wet Noodle (modular + ContinuuMini)

saw wave into one channel of X-Pan; panning by Batumi triangle wave

X-Pan Pan Test

The idea here was to take two basic (triangle) oscillators and slightly detune them to create beating, then mix a copy of that beating signal and run it through a comparator (Joranalogue Compare 2) to derive a gate pattern, then use that gate pattern to produce notes. So, initially what you here is the dry, beating oscillators playing a random melody courtesy of Sapél. Then I fade in the BIA, which is banging out the gate pattern from the comparator. If you’re paying attention, you’ll note that the notes more or less fall on the beating peaks of the two oscillators, and the frequency of the beating is pitch-dependent, so you get more notes out of the BIA as the pitch of the sequence rises. (The BIA gets the same melody.) Then I switch on the effects and bring in a third part (E370 through struck Optomix and Echophon), none of which has anything to do with the experiment. Just fooling around. Oh, the BIA is run through Prism for comb filter effects, also modulated by Sapél. Varying levels of H9 reverb on everything.

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