Very special thanks to Kaanchee Gandhi for the artwork and design, and Kevin Sweeney for mastering and "air".

Just an excerpt of something in progress.

Just Friends is in cycle mode slightly FM'd by itself, being ran through a state variable filter which has it's outputs mixed and is getting passed into Warps' vocoder sections.  The raw signal is send only.

That is passed into the pedal board with "4 delays" (Delayla, Infinite Jets in swell, Polymoon, and RE-20),  at different time divisions creating the rhythm.  This is in the main mix.

That is passed into the Elements in chord mode, which is also in the main mix, as well as passed back into the pedals.  Feedback is controlled through some max for live lfos (level of signal passed back into pedals), as well as some parameters on the pedal itself (brightness, damping, and space all can be used to maintain control of the feedback).

Just Friends + Warps + Pedals + MI Elements - controlled feedback

instagram here https://www.instagram.com/p/Bmw4796AmsR/?taken-by=midcenturymodular

Exploring the rebound app on norns.  Using the korg nanokontrol2 to have control over the engine (params like cutoff, release, resonance, and pulse width).  serial delays (polymoon -> re-20) create the ping ponging.

will it be

#feedbackfeb 4 This one is plaits' chord mode, fed back into it's morph and timbre inputs (running through 3sisters).  Interesting fuzzy textures emerged from this, as well as melodic ideas.  I distorted RIP (by passing it a voltage offset), which I think helped dull the harsh digital edges that come up frequently when doing feedback with digital sources.

break

#feedbackfeb 7 more intense noise-y feedback (this time cross feedback between mangrove, three sisters and warps).  I really loved what I was seeing on the oscilloscope (video here - https://www.instagram.com/p/B8Sp69GhK4g/ )

images

#feedbackfeb 9 feedback between plaits and warps (back into fm) to create the tuning looseness of this.

back 2

#feedbackfeb 8 feedback between plaits and warps...the feedback adds major adjustments to the ryhthms in this.

back 1

#feedbackfeb 10 I started this was less focused on the feedback, and more focused on utilizing out some new max for live devices I've been messing around with recently @pATCHES survey (which I used as a pitch sequencer) @dr.katz strokes (for the trigger patterns) and some of @dan_derks crow (dual ^^duals for converting the ableton stuff to cv/gate.

The voices are mostly just simple, blippy mangrove and plaits, but I'm doing some feedback modulation by multing out of them, into warps, and then taking the processed signal and FM'ing each.  I'm sweeping (in time to the rhyhthm) warps' algorithm...some of them hardly do anything, others are quite aggressive, but only cause things to break for a brief second before everything chills back out.

Some light tweaking of things over time to make some compositional movement but that's all pretty rough.

begin

Recorded live at 1pm EDT on 03/29.  Originally streamed at https://twitch.tv/midcenturymodular

monome crow controlling mangrove and just friends.  chords from plaits.  lots of wild stuff from meris polymoon and mercury7 delay/reverb pedals.

crow script here: https://gist.github.com/jlmitch5/9b2d1ae4925e924323e968b8507f4ac0

Live Stream 1 - 3 29 20

created using the m18s.lua sequence script I made for monome crow.  This script is an emulation of the stage-based sequencer by RYK, the M-185.

The sounds here are plaits (higher) and mangrove (lower), through the 3 sisters filter and delays/reverb with the meris polymoon/mercury7

m18s

I finally got my breadboarded gerassic organ working like it is supposed to!   just 3 non-synced lfos turning the 3 buttons on and off.  Then ran through mannequins 3 sisters filter and meris polymoon/mercury7 pedals (and some in the box mixing cleanup).

gerrassic studies 1 (vibes mix)

This track was created using note informattion generated by the api of the soon to be released python sequencing environment, warpseq.

The sounds are sample-based instruments (wasp for the higher notes, 2600 for the two bass-y lines, and the vp330 for the high swells).  I processed the sounds with ableton's echo and glue compressor, valhalla's plate and vintage verbs), and fabfilter pro-q 3.  Finally, I bounced the mix to my teac 22-4 1/4" reel to reel.

fields

the gerassic organ is playing the melody line, triggered from tides.  tides is also changing the rate of an lfo from stages, which is sent as a dc offset added to the gerassic audio signal...it. creates the kick drum-esque pulse, noise and ultrasonic stuff.  the bass notes are fed in from mangrove, ripples and three sisters.

gerassic studies 2

More experiments with my expanded gerassic organ breadboard, which now has 3 CV inputs: 1 for pitch and 2 for "decay" (which also can add some chaos, and strange vocoding sounds).  Using a bunch of LFOs out of MI stages to control these things, as well as trigger the buttons on the gerassic organ.

These are all raw sound of the organ as I was testing things out...just did some level setting and chopping up to get to the more interesting bits.

As you can see from the picture, I think I have reached the point of breadboard saturation and can no longer add any more stuff without giving myself an aneurism.

gerassic studies 3

garner, nc ~ ambient music ~ booking, questions, etc.: midcenturymodular@gmail.com
goldenchoraleband@gmail.com

this page collects demos and experiments.  released discography:

2021
midcentury modular - snow (upcoming)
https://midcenturymodular.bandcamp.com/album/snow

2020
midcentury modular - a weekend
https://midcenturymodular.bandcamp.com/album/a-weekend

2019
golden chorale - midnight - https://goldenchorale.bandcamp.com/album/midnight

2018
midcentury modular - drones https://midcenturymodular.bandcamp.com/album/drones
midcentury modular - summit https://nomadexqui.site/album/summit-1
midcentury modular - arps https://midcenturymodular.bandcamp.com/album/arps

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