mostly free-running self-generating vcv rack patch based on analog vosim synthesis implementation ideas from doug slocum and dakota melín + neural computing ideas from andrew fitch + ancient tape delay ideas from pauline oliveros and terry riley

vcv rack vosim étude

was pointed towards the free GRM Player software 'cause it got an update recently, the interface is absolutely deranged but I managed to wrangle this out of it eventually with the random sequence tool and my own composerly discretion

alternate title: "collage #1 (candy-striped suede from that one seinfeld episode)"

Willems Mix

a second quick and dirty grm player étude

Killian's Sticks

third in the triptych of semi-aleatoric grm player sketches

Trillium Twix

Okay, maybe it's not a "triptych" anymore.

The Astounding Pleonasm

I recently put together a small Elby EuroSerge sidecar to accompany the Macumbista Benjolin, with the help of the good folks at Noisebug. This is the first patch with the setup that I felt was worth recording, in that classic Todd Barton Krell stylee but with lots of knob tweaks to nudge it between states. Messy patch notes in the image (pretend the external audio input on the ersatz Euro Benjolin is the clock input). A little EQ (Eventide EQ65), overdrive (Soundtoys Little Radiator), and delay (Soundtoys PrimalTap) were applied in Logic, but the one take is unedited.

Krellkrellkrellkrellkrellkrell (the space god of smooth music and seafaring)

Demonstrating the system's filter pinging capabilities is of course another key rite of passage for the so-called "West Coast" (ugh) synthesizer and synthesist. I stumbled onto this rubber band/bouncing ball type patch that reminded me of "Bowery Bum" or "Le Tombeau d'Edgar Poe" by İlhan Mimaroğlu, one of my favorite composers from one of my favorite early electronic music studios (Columbia-Princeton); I chose to name it after the latter piece given that I live only about a mile from Poe's grave in downtown Baltimore.

The rubber band effect is accentuated by a long, heavily modulated stereo delay from Soundtoys PrimalTap, as well as some faux-spring reverb from Logic's Space Designer for '60s flavor. The dry signal from the synthesizer is also mildly massaged by Klanghelm MJUC for transient shaping and overdrive. The patch was not altered during the take except to momentarily stop/start it near the end of this recording.

Study after "Le Tombeau d'Edgar Poe"

An exercise in long tones, provided by a cycling Smooth Generator FMing a Benjolin oscillator. The Rungler voltage sent to modulate the pitch of the former is slewed by the Voltage Controlled Slope for those lovely timbral glissandi for which the study is named. The patch is left to run entirely on its own until the five-minute mark. Valhalla FreqEcho and Logic's Space Designer provide space, while Soundtoys Little Radiator eats into those beat frequencies and Eventide EQ65 provides simple high- and low-pass filtering to clean up the spectrum.

At this point (about a week and a half into using the system) I feel myself coming down the first peak of the Dunning-Kruger curve, struck by how much I don't know and how much I have to wrestle with the instrument to get an interesting result. This is, of course, true of all instruments with any depth. I stopped playing the cello in high school because when I hit that point on the instrument I realized that I didn't have the finesse in my hands to push beyond it, let alone to the point of being able to play repertoire I was interested in, but with electronic instruments of that depth (e.g. Ciat-Lonbarde) I have found myself eventually pushing to the other side and being rewarded with a new sense of musicality.

Lots and Lots of Tearing Sidebands

The low-pass filter design used in the Benjolin and as one half of the Twinpeak filter in the Blippoo Box and Hordijk modular systems is designed to exhibit certain chaotic properties when overdriven. By overdriving the Benjolin's line-level external audio input with the "modular level" square wave output of the first oscillator (which becomes saw-like with the addition of even harmonics from said overdrive), resonant bifurcations are created as audible subharmonics of the oscillator frequency as the filter resonance is increased and the cutoff frequency is modulated.

The control portion of the patch began as a crude attempt to imitate the Blippoo Box's sample-and-hold arrangement by using the XOR output of the Benjolin to trigger the Stepped Generator, which is sampling a mix of signals from throughout the patch; extensive cross-modulation to and from the Benjolin, the Smooth Generator, and the Voltage Controlled Slope is in play. The patch is played in real time, with numerous knob turns and manipulation of the Cycle switch on the VCS and the Loop switch on the Benjolin.

This recording is one improvised take. Eventide EQ65 provides some corrective EQ, Cherry Audio Stardust provides delay and reverb, and Martinic Colorsound Tremolo indulges my toxic boomer trait of liking a little slow auto-panning now and then.

Dedicated to Rob Hordijk shortly after the anniversary of his passing. Rungle with you on the other side, space cowboy.

Recursion and Bifurcation (for Rob Hordijk)

Messed around with recursive sequencing techniques using nonlinear analog* shift register feedback and microtonal scale quantization (here Archytas' diatonic scale on C for all you fellow Harry Partch fans, though the way the chips fell I ended up hearing it as quasi-Lydian with more or less D-flat as the root) in VCV Rack and accidentally ended up making something that sounded very similar to one of the redoubtable Doug Lynner's classic Paperface Serge tutorials (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uc5kD0rh37w). Documented here as an homage, and cause Canons Pretty.

Audio path is two Plaits in wavetable mode through Frozen Wasteland Just a Phase(r) and Alright Devices Chronoblob 2. Control path is far too complicated to untangle, but the Nysthi SOUtils (x2) and Poly Scala Quantizer are doing the heavy lifting of turning the clustercirclejerk into pitch and timbre control data, and an Erica Octasource is providing amplitude control data for even more pretty stereo swirlies.

*can it be an "analog shift register" in a software environment? why do they call it oven when you of in the cold food of out hot eat the food? has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?

Study After Doug Lynner's "Arabesque Performance Patch"

Rings into Clouds. A venerable dead horse of a punchline. But what about Rings and Clouds in a feedback loop, an ouroboros where "into" is a meaningless signifier? I had to investigate. And add a phaser.

Francis Dhomont Cosplay

A VCV Rack patch dry and resynthesized by Unfiltered Audio SpecOps. For the pizza guy down the street, you know who you are.

What's so insane about being a regular customer?

An experiment in creating bird sounds with minimal resources in RTcmix that accidentally turned into a pastiche of Pauline Oliveros' electronic works circa 1966 with the aid of some delays, ring modulation, and soft clipping.

Bird Bog, or a Needlessly Specific Exercise in Pastiche

A brief evening improvisation with the redoubtable BugBrand Board Chirper, treated with Unfiltered Audio Fault (delay/frequency shifting) and Soundtoys Little Radiator (overdrive).

BugBrand Board Chirper Improvisation 3/24

Two unedited takes of improvisation on the BugBrand Postcard Weevil panned left and right. EQ, delay, reverb, and limiting ITB.

Two Weevils

An old David Tudor patch on Softube Modular controlled by a Lorenz attractor, double pendulum, and random walk from GS DSP MMMm. Delay, reverb, and phaser for good measure.

lorenz pendula

And now for something completely different. Solo guitar rendition/interpretation/whatever of the venerable Ellington/Strayhorn chestnut (largely taking after Mary Halvorson's playing on the Trevor Dunn's Trio-Convulsant version from "Sister Phantom Owl Fish"). It was late and I was bored and melancholic. Maybe there will be more where this came from.

Please forgive the 60-cycle hum.

The Single Petal of a Rose

RCA Mark II Tribute Act

A shower thought with the Macumbista Benjolin: how much variation can I get out of a patch while controlling it only with the instrument's switches rather than any of its knobs? Some delays, reverb, compression ITB. Titled as it is because it ended up reminding me a bit of Cary's "3 4 5 – A Study on Limited Resources".

Patch notes:
XOR -> Osc 1 CV
Osc 1 Square -> Osc 2 CV
Osc 1 Triangle -> Filter CV

Tristram Cary's Benjolin

Early test of the synthesis capabilities of GRM Tools Atelier, feeling almost a little "we have Rashad Becker at home" like. Was in quad at first, but, well, headphones. SoundCloud. SoundCloud bots. Phone speakers. Not everyone is in a state-funded institution with 50 billion Genelecs.

EQ, compression, and reverb applied to the master in Logic. If Mr. GRM himself is listening, your product should have these built in I think.

Forgetting the TikTok Hype House Cultural Soft Power Nexus

Another GRM Tools Atelier test, but this time with much more processing after the fact (including from another instance of that plugin). please please please add that master compression section so I don't have to finesse things so carefully in Logic

Atelier 2: Comb Filter and Glitchy Delay Boogaloo

for sketches and sundries that don't warrant commercial releases

EVEN MORE MAOIST THAN CORNELIUS CARDEW

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