Nice one Dave that’s quite a performance. It reminded me of the Kyrie by Ligeti.
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I was looking at my old Dark Love Energy patch, as well as the video with flute, and I wondered if my VCO Unit could be used to get similar results. It would also be a good test of my understanding of how Geodesics Dark Energy works.
So I created a partial emulation (not all features implemented), and substituted the emulation into the original patch. It is not exactly the same as the original patch, but I am very happy with the results.
Dark Venom Energy With Love.vcv (37.5 KB)
If I ever extended the emulation to support the Dark Energy VCA functionality, then I think I could make use of the Level VCA built into VCO Unit. But it did not work for the RM because I also needed the output before any RM.
The patch uses the Dawsome Love plugin running inside the pemium Host module.
For the Love settings I started with the default Dawsome Lovely preset and reduced the Shimmer to ~5% (nearly off), the Delay to ~60%, and the Clouds to ~40%.
If you don’t have Love you can use the free Valhalla SuperMassive plugin running in the Host.
Or if you don’t have Host, then patch the filter outputs to your favorite stereo reverb, and patch that output to the Audio inputs.
9 Likes
what a great patch, Dave 
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Last night I was at a synth event in Baltimore (a hot bed of experimental music) and learned about a (non)rhythmic style coined Relabi by John Berndt. It is chaotic (not random), with a sense of almost having an organized rhythm, but in a way that we cannot quite grasp.
The discussion centered about creating that style using three sine LFOs at different frequencies that FM each other, and then window comparators are used to extract gates or triggers. I went home that night and tried patching one up, and here is the result. The sound is intentionally very raw.
Venom Autogenerative Relabi.vcv (6.3 KB)
I opted to use only modules from my Venom plugin, with the addition of one polyphonic Unstabile filter from Vult. I extracted 6 independent gates from the three LFOs (one polyphonic LFO with 3 channels). A second comparator extracts triggers from both the rising and falling gate edges that trigger polyphonic sample and hold, with summed pairs of the LFO signals as data input. The gates ping the polyphonic resonant filter, and the S&H output controls the filter cutoff. The output is replicated, with one set going directly to the mixer, and the other running through a wave folder first. An independent set of S&H random CV values control the folder VCAs (fold amount), and the LFOs control the folder bias. So except for the random fold amount, all CV and triggers are derived from the three LFO signals.
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Explorations along the edges of the definitions of music. But still under my broader definition of ‘any intented ordering of sounds in time’, I guess. Although that definition would exclude John Cage’s 4′33″. Nor does it include any single continuous spectrum/sound. But it sure includes these explorations along the borders where more conventional and narrower definitions of '‘music’ are challenged, in sound/spectrum, tonality and ordering in time.
I guess nothing really revolutionary or new, of course. Hearkens back to the early days of experimenting and exploring (electronic) music in the 40s, 50s and 60s.
As a Duthman, it reminded me of some of the works on this 2004 4CD box release of “Popular Electronics : Early Dutch Electronic Music From Philips Research Laboratories (1956 - 1963)”.
Representing the early days of explorations into electronic music at the then worldrenowned Dutch Philips Natuurkundig Laboratorium, NatLab (Philips Physics Lab, also the birthplace of the Compact Casette, CD and DVD).
Experiments in the mysterious Room 306 by the likes of Kid Baltan (anadrome/pseudonym for Dick Raaijmakers at NatLab), Henk Badings and Tom Dissevelt.
Trailer documentary: Room 306
Dutch Electronic Music from the Philips Research laboratory 1956-1960. From 1956 to 1960 the NatLab enjoyed exceptional development. At the instigation of Walter Maas, head of the Gaudeamus Foundatioin at the time, Roelof Vermeulen, head of the Acoustic group at Philips, agreed to set up an electronic music studio in the Philips NatLab. This 70-minute documentary examines the background and the motives of the composers, technicians and colleagues involved in this development. For more information: loftmatic.com/_pages/Portfolio/Projects/kamer306/kamer306_01.html Trailer Room 306 | Kamer 306
That time and place, also the birth of…
Edgar Varèse - Poème électronique (1958)
Commisioned by the Philips corporation and served to be the musical backdrop in the Philips Pavilion, designed by Le Corbusier, at the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair
Maybe more general maybe the early days of Musique concrète with influental proponents like Pierre Schaeffer, Pierre Henry, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Edgard Varèse, and Iannis Xenakis
Karl Heinz Stockhausen - Etude (1952)]
Karl Heinz Stockhausen - Gesang der Jünglinge (1956)
Iannis Xenakis - Pithoprakta (1955)
Pierre Schaeffer & Pierre Henry - Partita (1950)
If you like Relabi and/or lfo’s modulating eachother in a ring,check out the Quantussy by Peter Blasser (who used to live in Baltimore but moved to Berlin a few years ago) Here is a nice expanation of its genious design by Pugix:
I own a Cocoquantus and the quantussy section of it is really wonderful as a modulation source.
Quantussy emulation in VCV Rack (Nik Jewell, 2018)
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I’d like a VCV emulation of the lowfi delay in the Coco.
Agreed, I was thinking the same. But it was a fun and instructive experiment to try, both from a patching standpoint, and from a musical result standpoint. I truly enjoy listening to the result - I find beauty in it.
Definitely lots to learn by looking at the work of prior generations.
Yes, many of the experimental music crowd in Baltimore have worked with Peter Blasser, I believe including John Berndt. Peter’s name comes up fairly consistently. I never met him, as I chanced upon the scene only within the last couple years.
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Oh man, are we ever spoiled by polyphony in VCV!
I was thinking all the polyphonic merge and split patching made my patch ungainly and difficult to trace. But then I took it upon myself to recreate the patch with the same modules, but without using polyphony. Ugh!
An artist like HAINBACH regularly features Peter Blasser’s Ciat-Lonbarde instruments in his music and videos. Some videos feature Peter Blasser himself. Hainbach is very much into experimental, unusual instruments and techniques, including yesteryears tools, like old analog signal generators/switches/filters, obscure test equipment, tapeloops and feedback.
Here’s an example of Hainbach playing the Ciat-Lonbarde Benjolin/Peterlin, combined with the Serge Resonant EQ. Much has been said on Rob Hordijk’s Benjolin (and Blippo Box) here already. Crossmodulation, Rungler, Resonant filters and such. The Serge VC Resonant EQ (Eurorack) is something I would love to see in VCV Rack.
Ciat Lonbarde Peterlin meets Serge VC Resonant Equalizer
Speaking of Serge. How about fellow Dutchman Thomas Ankersmit on the Serge Modular?
Here, regular and irregular patterns generally emerge from (de)tuning, signal mixing and feedback loops. Not so much from triggers/pulses.
[LIVE] THOMAS ANKERSMIT / SERGE MODULAR #6
Here is my latest creation - Venomous Drone II - a return to the nascent Drone series.
The patch is at
The patch features my new Venom Cross Fade 3D module. There are three CV inputs to cross fade 8 inputs arranged on a virtual cube across 3 dimension. Each dimension can cross fade between four inputs on one cube face and four inputs on the opposite face. With each of X, Y, and Z faded to an extreme position, a single input from the 8 will be selected. With all three at 50%, each input will contribute 12.5% to the total output.
I use one polyphonic VCO Unit to generate all eight pitched sine inputs. I use the Poly Offset configured to quantize in semitones to generate the V/Oct pitches I wanted.
I use another polyphonic VCO Unit to generate 16 slow LFO signals. Nine of the LFOs are used polyphonically to generate three simultaneous dynamic mixes of the eight inputs (X,Y,Z times three).
I wanted each dimension to spend a significant time statically at one extreme or the other, and a limited time transitioning between the extremes. 5 Volts will go to one extreme, and -5 Volts the other. So I amplified the LFO signals by a factor of two, and shaped the LFO sign wave with a bit of S curve to create a sort of rounded off triangle. This results in about 33% spent transitioning, and 67% on a specific face.
I use the remaining seven LFOs, plus one borrowed from the cross fade collection, to modulate the shape of the 8 audio inputs, as well as control the depth of linear through zero feedback FM.
In a future version of the Venom plugin I will add options for the CV attenuverter scale so I don’t need to use an external VCA to get the CV scale that I want.
8 Likes
Oof… that’s a good one Dave! Some lovely timbres and wave shapes there, and great fading. I love minimal patches that does and sounds a lot. You really are the poly master 
Reminder to self: I really need to dig in to the Venom plugin soon. I used multi split in my last patch, and after a little initial head scratching I must say it’s really a very clever and flexible module. Will definately use it again.
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Thanks Lars! I didn’t have any clear idea of what I might produce with Cross Fade 3D or Pan 3D - I just thought they were cool concepts. This was my first attempt at creating a piece of music with one of them, and I am very happy with the result.
Subharmonicon Emulation v6
I finally gave into the urge, and completely redesigned my Subharmonicon emulation to take advantage of the MindMeld PatchMaster user interface capabilities in addition to the Venom patch bay capabilities. This is so much cleaner and more fun to use than before. No need to look at the messy cables used to implement all the features – the guts are completely isolated from the UI.
There is one slight exception – I included the harmonic quantizers in the UI so you can see the selected harmonic display. This is particularly useful when modulating the selected harmonic. Just leave all those black cables alone!
I used 6 Venom VCO Units for the voices to provide a huge range of sound sculpting and modulation possibilities. Between the UI and patch bay, each oscillator can be independently configured with any of the following:
- Select any of the basic waveforms: sine, triangle, square, saw
- Select any of the shape modulation options: they vary by waveform. There is a lot more than just PWM!
- Linear through zero FM
- Hard sync
- Soft sync
- Level modulation, with support for audio rate amplitude modulation or ring modulation
- Assign sequence 1, or 2, or both, or none, to the oscillator (or sub)
- Sub oscillators have an attenuator for the sequence amount to better control the subharmonic selection
- Main oscillators have an octave selector
- Each oscillator can be muted in the mix without disturbing your mix ratios.
The white indicator light shows whether the clock is running or not. It does not respond to pressing. Use the “Trigger Run” button to start and stop the clock.
The sequencers have step buttons that dynamically light up to indicate which step is active. But they can also be pressed so you can instantly select any step at any time! This is great when trying to setup a pleasing sequence.
The envelope generators in the guts are interesting concepts. Each has two inputs:
- A trigger input that functions as an Attack Decay envelope. Once triggered, the attack phase always goes to completion. It cannot be retriggered until reaching the Decay phase.
- A gate input for the EG Hold feature that functions as an Attack Release envelope. The EG jumps to the release (decay) stage immediately as soon as the gate goes low. If the attack stage completes, the EG will remain full on for as long as the gate is high. All triggers are blocked while EG hold is enabled. If a trigger is received before a gate, then the attack phase always goes to completion.
In the patch bay, the few inputs that have internal connections show the normalled source in parentheses. Patching the input breaks the internal connection.
Feel free to add additional modules via the patch bay. Just leave the emulation internal guts that are two rows down alone!
The video and patch file shows how to patch in reverb through the patch bay. The Final Audio Ins (insert) output is normalled to both the Left and Right Audio Ins inputs.
Have fun exploring this new emulation! I am sure it doesn’t sound like a Subharmonicon. But pretty much all the features are available (though many are accessed differently). And it has a much wider pallet of sounds than what is available to the hardware.
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Oh, that’s great!
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Brilliant stuff Dave 
Whoa, now that is quite a feat! Nicely done!
Genius stuff, can’t way to play with it!
Been playing with it for hours now, it’s brilliant!
Tempted to pick it apart a bit, at least to mix the voices with panning (or some v/oct slew?) but it’s such a neat package!
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