Another one where I get the mix of guitar and synth more where I want it and there’s no spikey overloads.
I experimented with the tuning of the guitar. Using a guitar tuner, I tuned each string above the low E to be very slightly sharp relative to the next string. So the tuning is ‘stretched’ to where the high and low E are far enough apart that their harmonics flutter if you play them together. Every interval on a single string is even tempered, but every interval between notes on two different strings is slightly sharp. This gives the guitar an interesting sound, with a lot of shimmer and fighting overtones.
Recording live instruments - even when it’s a direct XLR into the Audio Interface mic input - takes some time to tune dynamics. I also have to adjust my touch when I play the gutar.
This is something that was the result of just screwing around. I’ve been fascinated with using the Nysthi ConfusingSimpler by @synthi to create a live looping effect. In this case it’s just one instance. This uses a VCV Seq3 instance to trigger recording, and an 8face next to it filled with presets for the Seq3. The presets are sequenced by a slow clock from Clocked.
This is a case where I have a straight signal - a voice based on XFX modules - and I feed it through the ConfusingSimpler into a second mixer channel. This has advantages over putting the ConfusingSimpler on a send, because I can mute signal from the “Dry channel” and the sound still gets fed into the effect channel.
A similar thing works with effects sends. If I have a delay fed by a send channel, I can bring it back into the mixer on a ‘main’ channel instead of the corresponding return inputs. Then I can do things like send it to other send channels.
No picture no patch because the rack patch is literally just an audio input through an AS Tempo delay.
The input is a Rosewood ‘solid body’ Kalimba. I clamped a Creme Dementia bottle cap contact microphone with a couple of rubber bands on the bottom under the bridge. There’s some rattling resonances and sound effects, which was just a jeweler’s screwdriver and a couple of quarters.
Feel free to sample the shit out of it. I can put a lossless 24-bit wav up if anyone wants it.
Someone could do such a thing, I think I already did that for Kontakt. I tend to not be that methodical. I’d prefer to record actual playing (or in my case “playing”) the instrument. If you put anything metal on the tines it adds a tuned rattle. You can tap the surface of the instrument and get sounds. You can’t really make an SFZ intrument that encompasses the full range of what even a limited instrument like the Kalimba can do.
Good - I think - for musicians to remember to play in both senses of the word. Play as in physically manipulate things in real time and also play as in screwing around to see what happens.
haha - good point. well, let’s put it this way - if one ever in the future one had the crazy feeling they wanted to package up some samples with a simple mapping it’s super, super easy to do in SFZ.
Is your kontakt library publicly available somewhere?
From my typo-ridden manual:
// Putting ampeg_release in a group like this will apply it to all the following regions.
<group>
ampeg_release=0.5
<region> key=c4 sample=c.wav
<region> key=d4 sample=d.wav
<region> key=e4 sample=e.wav
<region> key=f4 sample=f.wav
<region> key=g4 sample=g.wav
Here’s ‘sampling the Kalimba’ that’s a bit more up my alley. Load that 3:45 of Kalimba noodling into Confusing Simpler, turn on slicing, and then randomly choose slices to loop. It sounds super cool, especially when you live-sample & loop in another Confusing sampler!
Yeah, that does seem more fun, and probably better sounding. Maybe I need to make a module that would live sample into an SFZ so you could play the mangled samples out later… Hmmm…
No audio sample here, just wanted to show something fun to do with a Chord Module. I did it with the VCV Chord module but there are other free chord generators.
So the simplest case is you set up a chord in Chord, turn on “Polyphonic Outputs include Channels 1-N” and send the polyphonic CV into a polyphonic synth voice. You use the trigger that goes with the Chord Root input CV, and you get a 4 note chord.
Instead, I took that trigger (in this case the mono trigger out of JW GridSeq) and fed it into a random gate. I then merge the first four outputs of the Random gate to use as the polyphonic gate trigger for both the Frozen Wasteland Probably Note and the gate into the Squinky Kitchen Sink FM voice modules.
Your eyes might be glazing over, but this does a really simple but cool thing: It spreads the 4 notes of the chord output in time using the Random Gate. So it’s a kind of random arpeggiator driven by the chord module.
Even wilder, since a different note from the chord is selected with each trigger AND a different root note is used at each trigger, you’re stepping both through different root notes and chord degrees.
Man it’s hard to explain what’s happening, but give it a try. It sounds cool.
The button next to the trigger input on the Frozen Wasteland Probably Note is important because if it’s on (click it & it turns light blue) it means it uses the gate input polyphonically.
This is the most useful in the case where you’re sending Probably Note polyphonic CV/Gate. If it’s on, the note for voice N is sampled when the triggers for voice N happens. If it’s off, the note for voice N is sampled when the trigger for voice 0 happens.
In my patch, the root note of the chord changes every time there’s a trigger from JW Gridseq. But when the notes get sampled depends on the state of the ‘trigger’ button.
What this mean is a bit difficult to get your head around but it means you get different notes depending on the state of the trigger button. @almostEric added that button for me, when I noticed the issue with CV sampling of polyphonic input. But knowing Eric’s penchant for making EVERYTHING CV controllable, I’m surprised there’s no CV input for this.
This is sweet indeed! I thought about shifting the individual notes of a chord around in time, but only got as far as signal-delaying the individual v/octs…
There are all sorts of variations on this. I’ve done the signal delay on CV/gate trick to spread chords out chordsd in time, but this is something else. I like that you can look at it - it isn’t complicated - and then you listen and can’t figure out where it’s getting those note.
And that’s even before you turn up spread on the Probably Note.
No audio sample here, as it’s not anything I considered finished music. I initially was trying to create an example patch for a weird thing I’d observed with Probably Note, where switching patterns in PN with an 8Face weren’t showing up in the PN display.
This patch switches between 12 scale presets in Probably note. The polyphonic input comes from 2 gridseq (using both gate & CV outputs) and a note generated by a Squid Axon. So there’s 5 voices of polyphony driving one XFX Wave voice.
But listening to the output is fascinating. I wouldn’t call it ‘composition’ but switching scales every so often makes for some interesting ‘jazz’ sounding transitions. Some of them are awful, and some are lovely. It’s all free modules this time, too.so you can at least load the patch as long as you have the free plugins it uses.
Nice. I added some spread to all the PN 8Face settings except for the chromatic scale and it gave even more interesting results, with perhaps a bit higher “awful” frequency, depending on your taste.
I love the way those two chaotic time-based effects bounce off of the melodic synth lines. This could totally go with some drumming but I kind of want to live with this much of the track for a while to try and think of what will go best with it.
I love it! The time based effects are the percussion! Perhaps those effects could be further manipulated to make them more percussive? But they sound great as they are. It makes me want to pick up a flute and play along.
If I were to add any drums, then maybe a fairly subtle kick playing a regular pattern(s) to contrast the craziness.
