Putting the Macumbista Benjolin and Elby Euro-Serge sidecar through their paces. A simple patch diary of single-take, single-track recordings, presented in chronological order. Liable to be salvaged and repurposed into "proper" recordings at a later date.

Beelzebenjolin Demonstrations

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

As per the title. No patch notes this time since I kept changing it all on the fly. Four excerpts from one continuous session.

Eventide EQ65 to clean up sub-bass gunk, Cherry Audio Stardust 201 and Logic Space Designer for delay/reverb.

666th Class Electronium (The Beelzebenjolin Meets the Metasonix TM-1)

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)

for sketches and sundries that don't warrant commercial releases

666th Class Electronium (The Beelzebenjolin Meets the Metasonix TM-1)

EVEN MORE MAOIST THAN CORNELIUS CARDEW