I tried for once to only use free modules that most people will have. The only thing you can’t get from the Rack Library is Stoermelder (I think) and you can do without that. You just won’t be able to save snapshots until you do.
The idea I had was to do some kind of crazy arpeggiation, where I use @synthi’s Rael to take the monophonic trigger outs and spread them in time. I delay triggers by an amount. In the case of the way Rael’s clocked a delay of 1.0 with a probability of 0.5 would delay 0.5, 1.0, and 1.5 16th notes from the input. It makes it very splashy but there still seems to be a pulse going on, enforced as much by the tempo-synced delay.
I also didn’t use a mixer, to keep the patch compact. You could copy a selection and paste it in with your choice of mixer & fx.
The Probably Note quantizer spreads the notes from the sequencer out in pitch. I also use the Probably Note Octave Expander which randomly bounces between octaves.
The Stoermelder 8Face is the compositional glue that holds it together. I time tweaking everything in the patch - trigger delays, gridseq pattern, the quantizer, the Kitchen Sink FM level etch. So you can make some jarring changes where the sequence, the way the triggers are timed, the envelope release time etc. They can all get changed in an instant.
What I need to do with this is use 8Face more creatively - like start with a pattern, make a slight modification to something, save the preset. Repeat this so you can have slow morphing of the sequence; you can start, varying a note or two each step for 16 steps. Then you can step backwards through the patches to end up back where you started.
At the very end I crank the delay feed back all the way up and then play with the reverb and delay color.
This is the patch least likely for anyone to have all the stuff I use. If you use the UAD Imperial Labs Distressor in your rack packages, we should talk.
The Squonk Array should work well enough without that nonsense.
It shows off one way I operate: Take one big sound, then accompany it by a chain of effects so long that it ceases being anything you can meaningfully control. It’s like you’ve woken a beast.
Use the EOC trigger to clock a sequencer to send CV to an oscillator.
randomly modulate release time at every EOC.
Have different voices FM modulate each other. Since they all are constantly changing in amplitude, you get local maxima of FM when their peak levels coincicde.
Oh and Bohlen Pierce Tritave scale. Who knows how that changes the way harmonics are pitched.
Use vocoder with a Russian language news show as the modifier, and one of the FM voices as a carrier.
It’s actually sequenced it, though it’s hard to tell. Each voice is driven by a Squonk.
This is from an idea I had: use an envelope follower on a non-musical source - in this case shortwave radio of people speaking in different languages - and use the envelope follower to trigger a sequencer.
Then use the sequenced synth sound as the carrier and the shortwave sample as the modulator on a Mr. Blue Sky.
The melodic vocoder sound will have the same rhythm as the original speech.
This patch I use 2 samples of shortwave radio driving different vocoders. So I hope it has the character of conversation.
So VCV added the pro-FX Chorus, Flanger, and Phaser, which are cool because they seem to be aggressively polyphonic. It appears that not only does each channel in its input have a seperate instance, but you can also modulate the parameters polyphonically.
So of course I f*cked around and found out how it sounds when you modulate EVERYTHING.
I went and finished a patch with Proteus as a sequencer. It kind of does what it does but it at a level where you can modulate it a lot, and control it a bit.
I reckon I could say “this is a sequence that I like, I’ll lock it and make a snapshot of it with 8Face” but it does seem to have a consistent feel even when it’s morphing a lot. Anad also I’m adding a random offset to the pitch before quantization so … it’s a bit random.
So interesting, right? One of those generative restless processes that somehow has coherence.
Hi I’m Kent and I can’t stop making stuff with Rack.
This is the Surge Xt String Oscillator in action. Also Ice Tray doing it’s squirrelly kinda granular thing. The patch file is big because Ice Tray includes it’s current sample buffer in the patch.
If you have a chance and haven’t tried it before, try running Count Modula’s ClockedRandomGates “poly clock” output into the Bogaudio Addr-Seq clock then through a polyphonic quantizer. The ability to adjust probability per gate is pretty sweet. You could also run the random gates poly clock output through PolyChances for a global effect, which is also nice from my experience. It’s especially good for piano type chords with variation of almost ghost notes with the gate tweaking or strings.
This patch uses “one weird trick” where it takes the output of VCV Chords and spreads the notes twice into a merge module for 8 voices of chord. THEN I use AS Signal Delays to the chord gate, to produce 8 gates spread out in time. The Frozen Wasteland Probably Note quantizers takes a trigger input, so all those delayed triggers pick up different chord notes. It’s a cool effect (it’s the sustained pad sound at the beginning).
The other voices are pretty standard use of @jeremy wentworth’s NoteSeq, which is nearly perfect for doing 2-bar loops like this.
And as always 8Face is the glue that holds everything together. It lets me save multiple snapshots, comprising sequencers, quantizer and voice snapshots and lets you switch between them. It is the ultra-mega snapshot sequencer, and you can even step through it in song mode.
I just switch patches manually when I’m recording this so the patterns repeat in a way that makes sense to me.
I randomly modulate the chorus rate and delay time in the chorus that’s on the 4 note chord pad. This really spreads the sound around in an appealing way.
This one puts together all my current cliches together:
Using JW NoteSeqFu as an interesting polyphonic sequencer. I love when two melodic lines loop at different lengths, so the shift against each other as they loop.
Using Confusing Sampler as a randomly varying granular looper.
Different delays applied to different signals. Lashings of reverb.
Sound recorded of shortwave broadcasts.
using 8Face to record snapshot of the whole patch, more or less, so you can assign patterns to keys on a keyboard.
This was based on another discussion about how to sync to live audio. I recorded someone speaking French on shortwave radio, and then fed that into an envelope follower.
Then I used Random Gates to split this clock signal derived from the recording to different sounds. You’ll notice the synths and the drums never hit on top of each other. You’ll also notice that it’s super, super random.
It’s held together a bit by having sequencers driving the bass synth and chord sound, so even if the rhythm is wonky, the music repeats the same patterns, just unstuck in time a bit.
The ‘performance’ is using channel mutes in the mixer to bring sounds in and out, and changing 8Face presets covering the synth voices & drum ‘sequence.’
I have to listen hard to hear how the rhythm of the French dude talking is related to everything it’s triggering. Mostly I used the Nysthi CLOCK MULT DIV on the triggers from the envelope follower to multiply the clocks.
This is really a dirty trick because CLOCK MULT DIV derives the current BPM from the triggers on input. When this is driven by a French guy blathering on, the BPM jumps around spastically and I can’t even analyze if the subdivided triggers are spaced between the incoming triggers properly.
It comes down to what @synthi programmed in for BPM detection and how he implemented the clock multiplier. Suffice it to say it’s a bit chaotic.
@synthi asked me to figure out what I could do with Rael.
Rael is a really radical clock source. Each source is a trigger source, whose duration is determined by the length parameter. and you can use the ‘Start of Gate’ output to (as I do here) trigger sequencers.
All clocks for Rael are either free-running and you either set the BPM with a knob, or it can derive it from a clock.
In this patch I clock RAEL from the 1/4 note output of Clocked. Then each row has a length that determines the frequency as a ratio to the clock inptu.
This is another of my ‘multiple Kitchen Sink oscillators FM-ing each other’ patches. So if voice 2 has a note going, it will FM voice one. The way the different voices follow different clocks means they overlap in a deterministic but complex way.
This time when I sampled shortwave I sampled some CW Morse code signals, which gives you a monotone rhythmic pattern. I pitch these around for variety, and also run them through a Confusing Simpler in live granular sampling mode.
New version of the same patch. More shortwave recording.
I like the way that the shortwave noise and distortion seems to blend with the noises FM modulation adds to the synth sound. It’s like the shortwave noise cancels or masks the FM noise.
This is my test of two new-to-me plugins: The Syntheis Technology modules and the PathSet x Omri Cohen modules. Really just scratching the surface but the results are kind of on the very edge of being musically useful.
I like to pile a lot of processing on sound until it’s interesting and organically textured. But it’s maybe not the best example of the Truffle module’s possibility. It can be a pretty overwhelming sound if you get it cranked, which is why I thin it out with Vult Slap VCA/Envelope combination.
I also think Rack is corroding my sense of what makes sense in terms of tonality. The pitch of slices in Truffle is constantly modulated.
In other words a bit of the random and off key sounds is more texture.
The latest iteration of me making goofy beat music with deconstructed samples of shortwave. I am always tempted to go hog-wild with the Audio Damage Replicant, which is one of the best ways to completely rearrange and rearrange live audio.
Usually I resist adding lots of parts to a mix, but this one just grew. I’m impressed by the combination of MindMeld Mixmaster, MindMeld EQMasterSquinky Labs Comp2, and RackWindows Console. Having mixed music in a lot of environments, I have to say I can handle a busy mix in Rack with these tools almost easier than with Ableton Live or another DAW.
This one gets its flavor from samples: A recording of the Civil Defense Siren during a Thunderstorm Warning, a contact microphone on a Stanley steel water bottle filled with icewater, and the drone of some kind of equipment I captured in a parking ramp. Somehow these stand out from each other and also mush into a synthetic ambience that serves the harmonic and rhythmic parts.
There’s some rhythmic effect wonkiness from AudioDamage Replicant 3. 2 instances, one is an effect send, and the other is applied directly to one of the sounds.
I used to have effects just on mixer sends, but I like the flexibility of mixing a sound and wet effects on that sound in the mixer. This opens up interesting possiblities:
muting the dry signal, leaving the wet signal in the mix
adding more FX and using another mixer channel for the double-effected signal.
sending the wet FX signals to mixer aux sends.
individual EQ on the dry and wet signal, something you really miss if you just use the effect on a channel and tune the dry/wet ratio.
