I downloaded your Benjolin patch, and it’s silent until you put an effect in the host-fx right before the master recorder. FYI. Took me a minute to work that out.
Sorry for being stupid but where are the Stoermelder-P1 modules from?
There are links scattered in many places in this forum. But I included a link for the Stoermelder modules at the bottom of my PatchStorage post in the original post from this topic - the same place where you can get my original patch.
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Got it. Thanks!
Great! Ben’s collection of modules is amazing, and there is a horde of people eagerly awaiting the official release for Rack version 2. But thankfully we can still use them early if we are willing to use a plugin that has not been fully tested.
I can’t imagine building my benjolin without them. The uINFIX and INFIX make it really easy to create a clean patch bay with inputs that have normaled connections. I could have used other means, though perhaps not as elegantly.
But even more important is the GLUE that provides beautiful labels. I spent a long time arranging and labeling so the user interface is in two places (controls upper left, patch bay upper right), and avoided cables that cover any of the controls or inputs. The ability to place labels directly on any module is really a game changer. It really facilitates a clear, easy to use and understandle UI.
There is soooo. much more in his collection. One of my favorites is TRANSIT, which lets you take snapshots of parameters scattered throughout your patch, and beautifully morph between settings upon demand.
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Definitely a simplified version, but I imagine it still demonstrates some chaos nicely.
My goal was to emulate all the functionality from the After Later Audio version.
Thanks for the manual reference. I found that module, but dismissed it out of hand for my benjolin because I didn’t want to take the time to figure out how it worked, and I knew how to build one from other modules.
But now that I have seen the manual (and also did some testing), there is a critical difference between the Hetrick module and the original rungler design (and all variants since then).
The true rungler input is an XOR of the last stage of the shift register with the external input. This is an important aspect of the pseudo random data that it creates. The original simply took the pulse from oscillator 1 and XORed with the exiting shift register value. Later versions provided a switch to use the osc1 pulse, constant 0, or constant 10. The osc1 input creates pseudo random values, the 0 input loops the 8 steps, and the 1 input loops the steps, but alternates between original values and inverted values (16 steps instead of 8). The final version that is used in most implementations I have seen, including the ALA module that I emulated, is to switch to using the OSC2 triangle fed into a comparator with a variable threshold, and then XOR that result with the exiting shift register value. The two comparator extremes replicate the 0 and 1 options, and everything in between gives varying degrees of probability of looping, or using a pseudo random value.
The Hetrick “rungler” uses the comparator, but fails to implement the XOR.
Count Modula has a nearly identical module from a functionality standpoint - the Gated Comparator, which is an emulator of a CGS module made by Ken Stones
The gated comparator uses OR instead of XOR, which is still a major difference. A nice feature is it lets you choose which bits are used by the DAC. But it is striking how similar the gated comparator is to the rungler.
As far as I can tell from reading various sources, both Rob’s rungler and Ken’s gated comparator were developed in the 80’s. I’m curious who was influenced by whom? Or did they both happen to dream up the same basic design at roughly the same time?
The benjolin oscillators span between 18 and 19 octaves. I chose the Nysthi LFO, (and later the VCV Fundamental LFO) because they each can cover that range continuously to better emulate the hardware. I think I tested Bogaudio, and it could not cover the full range without switching. The benjolin is designed to go from 45 seconds per pulse, to about 8kHz.
I also intentionally set the FM attenuation at ~.93 because the benjolin is supposed to not quite track 1V/Octave.
Absoultely - Vault filters are amazing! It looks like you used the Steiner Parker mode. I chose the Unstabile module because the benjolin is designed to use a 2 pole state variable filter. I also tried Sabile, but got better results with the former.
I spent some time calibrating the resonance control so that it would not self oscillate unless you feed back the BP filter output into the external input, as described in the hardware manual. The Unstabile creates some gorgeous pings.
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I remember when you were making a Subharmonicon and I asked why you didn’t use mine. The answer was that mine didn’t allow the two sides to be used independently. I had never heard that before. Perhaps when you find these things you could log an issue or ask if it’s intentional? I’ll bet that would be useful to some people
I did check the CGS documentation for the actual hardware, and indeed Adam’s module appears to be a faithful emulation that uses OR.
I also put a feature request into the CountModula github a few days ago, asking for XOR as a context menu option!
oh, cool. Those devs are lucky to get your input.
Yeah - I did not document that version quite as well as some of the others. Glad you got it working.
As I tersely mentioned in the PatchStorage post, the effect I used is the free Valhalla SuperMassive, with the Dark Horse preset (preset found under SFX/Nebulae)
WooHoo! - Adam just replied on github that he implemented the enhancement for the next release!
That can certainly simplify my benjolin emulator 
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Hi Dave,
I am a fan of generative sounds, so i could not resist to try my version
of the Benjolin. It’s not a correct build of the original Benjolin as you did,
but it sounds quite chaotic without being too harsh. Ctrl-R is your friend 
Wish you a lot of fun with it
Sound example: https://voca.ro/11dHqutqtDnn
Patch: Benjolin.5.3.vcv (4.6 KB)
Some nice sounds in that recording. I had a go with the patch. The chaos is good from a pitch and timing standpoint, but I had trouble discovering a wide variety of textures, and I could not get the filter to ping at all.
I hope you had a chance to try my Benjolin out. It really is a blast to play with.
After seeing your video, I decided to have a go at adding some delay to my Benjolin to go with the reverb. Before now I had been going for a fairly stripped down sound to showcase the power of the Benjolin on its own. But the delay sure does bring another dimension.
Here is the patch - The Benjolin is almost identical to my most recent on Patch Storage - I just swapped 2 Bogaudio switch modules for 4 VCV FADE modules to conserve a bit of space.
Benjolin with delay-reverb.vcv (12.0 KB)
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Thank you for answering
Creating a bunch of textures with my patch seems indeed not easy and i played for hours with it… Now i get your patch and i try to learn something more.
Cool. The link for the After Later Audio Eurorack Benjolin manual in the opening post is really instructive and translates well to my patch. Not only did it help me immensely when building the patch, it also helped give me ideas on how to use it. Then once I got a comfort level, it was time to freely explore. The YouTube reviews in that post are good as well.
Of course stoermelder plugins are irreplacable! Hoping to see them in the library soon.
In the meantime I’ve seen some people (including Omri) replace GLUE with some of these modules. Its not the same as having the label directly on the module, but it does the main job which is remembering which knob / module does what =)
Rip Rob Hordijk.
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Thanks for sharing that tragic news. I only just discovered who he was this year, and was thinking I might contact him - opportunity lost. I was intrigued by what I read about him and his designs.
Darn that is too young to die.
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I finally have released my much improved Benjolin patch version 3 that features the great Mind Meld Patch Master to create a clean user interface. It also adds a new Resonance CV input to the patch bay. The demo video shows how the resonance CV can produce some really satisfying swells.
Most of my Benjolin videos show static patching and settings, but it is great fun to play this patch live. It pairs well with a midi controller. I’ve used this patch quite a few times at a monthly experimental music gathering in Baltimore called the Volunteer’s Collective - The patch is definitely a hit.
There are extensive notes about the patch on Patch Storage.
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Hi Dave. This looks cool. I started to download the patch(es) from YouTube a few minutes ago but am confused about how to install. The download is a zip file that contains multiple things. Into what directory should I extract the zip? You may have explained this at some point, but I seem to have missed that.
Thanks