the devil's fork

my home is not my home

I don't know whether to dance or take a nap.

recline

J.S. Bach Prelude #1 in C from The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1 ... played with pitch CV inverted & offset on a modular synth.

I made this recording in 2011 or so. I played it by hand and only did one or two takes, so it's a little rough in spots. One synth voice with delay.

bachsidedown

Here's a clip from my super fun set at Eurobar. It was a great crowd, I can't wait to do it again. ¡Viva México!

Live at Eurobar, Ensenada BC México 19 Feb 2016 (excerpt)

This is the second part of my live set at Kava Lounge in San Diego, California in support of AMULETS.

Live at Kava Lounge 16 Mar 2016

Here's a clip from near the end of my second surprise (to me, haha) set at the LA Modular show at Whistle Stop in San Diego, California. It's all live and improvised on a modular synthesizer as usual. :-)

live at whistle stop 29 Mar 2016 (second set/clip)

Clip from the end of my set at "Astrojump" at Whistle Stop in San Diego, California. Eurorack modular and Roland TR-8, no computers, all improvised. :-)

Live At Whistle Stop 19 May 2016

Just a snip from about midway through my set in Detroit at "Ain't No Party Like A Detroit Party", hosted by Underground Mafia and Army of Techno.

Live In Detroit 29 May 2016 (clip)

live at open oscillator 20 july 2016

grind

Live at Open Oscillator 3 April 2019

Live At The Modern House May 11th 2019

Keep chasing the perfect sunset.

Mastered by Shawn Hatfield of AudibleOddities. ( http://audibleoddities.com )

westbound

My modular synth just does these things sometimes.

hydrogen alpha

next year it will be better

Live to two track recording of my Eurorack modular: no keyboards/MIDI/computers, etc., and no editing. I rub sticks together to make fire, too.

The whole track is variations on an 8 step sequence manipulated in realtime and quantized by my prototype microtuning quantizer. The scale is an (I think) Indian scale of some sort called "Sa-Grama".

I messed up and recorded this to MP3 format, so no hi-rez dowloads. :-/


dust and shadow

This is an excerpt demo of the Subconscious Communications/Plan B Model 15 Complex Oscillator and Model 37 Low Frequency Oscillator working together.

The main sound is the M15 and M37 through a Make Noise ModDemix. The M37 gets a sync from the M15's pulse output (timbre will change with pulse width). M15 gets 1V/octave from a Doepfer A-156 quantizer, while the M37 gets pitch CV from a Maths channel 1 in a slow self-cycle; this creates the "sweeping" sound. The output of the ModDemix goes to a Make Noise Optomix--there is no "voltage controlled filter" as such in this patch.

Supporting cast is a pair of Doepfer A-143-9 quadrature LFOs: the "bass" oscillator is self-modulated from the inverted output (Optomix output again), and the higher pitched part is just the straight sine through a Doepfer A-101-2 lowpass gate in VCA mode.

Effects are just a TC Nova Delay for the complex part and a TC Hall of Fame reverb to created a spacey cavern.

It's a rough mix of something I patched up last night, I don't know if it will turn into anything.

steam powered starships

Fiery the angels fell; deep thunder rolled around their shores; burning with the fires of Orc.

fiery the angels fell

Working under the name prettyhowtown multi-instrumentalist John Noble creates sound and music on a modular synthesizer. John's music ranges from radio-friendly nostalgic techno influenced beats to microtonal soundscapes, trance-inducing generative works, and beyond. prettyhowtown has been featured on WNUR 89.3FM (Chicago), and he appeared as guest artist on Open Lab Radio's Beyond Corners on 89.9FM Ibiza and Formentera (Spain). Notable live performances include opening for techno super duo Octave One ( http://www.octaveone.com/ ) in Detroit and San Diego, improvisational techno collaborations with Violin Girl ( https://www.violingirl.net/ ), and widely varied sets at the San Diego area festival series "Eternal". John is proud to be a Magnatune artist, see link below.

John is primarily a performance artist and frequently plays in clubs and at music festivals. Using no computers, samplers, or other modern musical aids, John improvises music on the fly using the knobs, switches and wires on the instrument itself. The result is a journey of exploration for artist and audience alike.

prettyhowtown's recorded music is made the same way: every track was recorded live to a stereo recorder, usually in one take, and is presented without editing. John feels this best preserves the spirit of his music: intensely, spiritually, and imperfectly made by a man rather than a machine.

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