Nice one Dave that’s quite a performance. It reminded me of the Kyrie by Ligeti.
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.
what a great patch, Dave
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.
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.
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.