Another musical daydream based on experiments with modular synthesis, starting with various arpeggiated chords from the E370 internal sequencer and explorations of the Xoac digital frequency shifter, useful for making dramatic bass sounds. The piece finishes quietly with a nighttime field recording of Echo Lake (Maine) set to musical accompaniment  - you can hear some loon calls if you listen carefully. 

Much has happened in the last few months: a move required the studio be put in storage for months, then when it was fully restored in our new home, the music computer died. Now that the new music work station is installed and ready for action, I'm finally back in business again. Some of the clips used here were developed in the computer's absence, hence an experiment in DAW-less sound design, which I must admit, isn't my favorite way to work.

So thanks for listening, it's much appreciated.

Introspection

Erfurt is the capital and largest city of the Central German state of Thuringia, whose old town is one of the best preserved medieval city centres in Germany. It's also the name of a bi-directional digital counter made by Xaoc that can do some remarkable things. 

The Erfurt can steadily increment upwards to a maximum value at which point the counter resets to zero, creating a digital saw wave that can be further modified by front panel patching between Erfurt and Drezno, which itself converts the resulting digital pattern into audio. As you can hear, the patching can add harmonics and whispy textures to the sound which can produce dramatic timbral events. 

Here the Erfurt / Drezno combo is the sole sound source, multi-tracked, with some processing by Xaoc's Sarajewo delay, Koszalin frequency shifter, Zagrzeb stereo filter and a dash of pitch shifting in Ableton. 

Two excellent videos one by Tom Churchill  & another by BRiES provide an inspiring introduction to the Leibniz system: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuXGlSHvyUc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG07mePIKYA

Erfurt Coat of Arms illustration credit: By Wappen und Flaggen des Freistaats Thüringen und seiner Landkreise sowie kreisfreien Städte , Landeszentrale für politische Bildung Thüringen, 2000file converted to SVG by ChristianBier, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3439281

Ode to Erfurt

In ancient Roman times an augur or diviner, sought omens from things like the flights of birds to ascertain auspicious days when new work would go well.The pieces listed here represent the results of personal 'fastus' days, my best days.&#13;
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Fastus appears on the Kosmo netlabel compilation "Vapors of Ambient" - check the promo video here: <a href="http://youtu.be/F8fTbY_csYI" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://youtu.be/F8fTbY_csYI</a>

These are modular sketches & demos. Full sized/complete pieces on my Fastus page.

Thrilled to announce the new Fastus release - "Into the Light" -DL or physical media! [see link below]

New tracks tagged #Xoạc