Introducing Venom Chaos Boxes

Announcements
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I am thrilled to announce Venom Chaos Boxes is now in the VCV Library !

Chaos Boxes Collection
Chaos Boxes Collection1711×988 204 KB

Chaos Boxes is a collection of modules emulating small hardware synths that thrive on chaos generated by a few simple circuits with lots of feedback paths. There are three base modules, along with two variants, plus two expanders that work with the digital shift registers within all the base modules.

Thanks to the makers of the hardware synths for giving me permission to release Chaos Boxes and reference their wonderful creations.

The Hybrid Knot is available for $15.
The Venjolin with its Plus variant is available for $15.
The Vlippoo Box with its Plus variant is available for $20.
Or the entire collection can be purchased for $40 (20% discount).

Both expanders are included with any purchase.

For fan’s of Rob Hordijk’s work, the Vlippoo Box may be the most exciting module in the collection. His legendary Blippoo Box is highly sought after, but hard to find, as only a few hundred were built prior to Rob’s untimely death. His friend Biyi Amez inherited rights to all Rob’s designs, and Biyi has re-released the 2018 version as the Blippoo Box Legacy. But it is still rather expensive (though highly worth it!)

I actually purchased a Blippoo Box Legacy so I could take measurements and make the Vlippoo Box digital emulation as accurate as possible. Of course the Twin Peaks filter is nearly impossible to emulate, and so the Vlippoo Box sound is not identical. But I think it sounds incredible never-the-less.

I have recreated 5 BiyiBlip Blippoo Box Legacy patches using the Vlippoo Box, and created a video so you can compare the sound and behavior of the Vlippoo Box vs the Blippoo Box hardware. Of course these patches barely begin to scratch the surface of what the Vlippoo Box (or Blippoo Box) can do!

Here is the original Blippoo Box video:

And here are those same patches recreated with the Vlippoo Box:

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Congratulations, I know you have been working on these a very long while. My first impression is entirely favorable, I lost ( or perhaps gained ) an hour with Vlippoo without realizing it.

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Yes. Same here: I combined the Vlippoo Box with Audible Instuments Texture Synthesizer (Mutable Instruments Clouds), turned some knobs and suddenly it is two hours later :grinning_face:

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vlippoo_into_clouds.vcv (1.9 KB)

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Oh yes! You should maybe record some and post a video (or just audio if you prefer). I think others would enjoy hearing it!

Were you occasionally twisting a knob or two? Or did you just let it run? I let it run for ~20 minutes with the saved settings you sent, and it was deliciously shifting and transforming within a general vibe. But making a few changes suddenly takes it to a whole different world. Very fun!

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Oh man, that is a fun patch!

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These modules are so cool! I can make unique sounds and loops even without knowing what I am doing :slight_smile:

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I let it run for a few minutes. But then I also twisted the knobs.

I recorded a short video:

(just quick and dirty direct from OBS Studio to Youtube without trimming the beginning and end of the video)

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Very nice!

If you edit your post and put the YouTube link on a separate line then it should embed your video within the post.

EDIT - Perfect!

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Thank you :folded_hands:

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awesome!

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Thank you Rob Hordijk for the Blippoo Box, Émilie Gilllet for Clouds and of course @DaveVenom for all the Venom modules :+1:

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here is some techno thingy with the new modules

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Love this beat! It’s like a rave inside the Star Wars trash compactor.

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Gained 2 hours with Hybrid Knot, these are rabbit hole modules, I was intending to patch the examples from the official Lorre mill manual and ended up just goofing around and sampling the results for a couple hours lol

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that would be fun!

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Heck yeah - this is awesome! I love seeing applications outside of my wheelhouse!

Knowing what you are doing doesn’t really help (or hurt)! That is the beauty of the Hordijk designs. You can make suggestions via knobs and CV, but you never really know what you are going to get! Occasionally you can dial in a specific sound, often times you can guide them into a general vibe, and sometimes you are genuinely and happily shocked by the unexpected result!

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Any video(s) forthcoming ?! :wink:

I’m not sure how closely you can follow the Lorre Mill example patches from the manual. The Hybrid Knot does not replicate all the features of any one version of the Double Knot. It takes components of version 2 and version 3, modifies some of them, adds additional ideas, and blends them into something unique unto itself. That being said, the heritage remains obvious both in design and general results.

In contrast, for the Venjolin and Vlippoo Box I did my best to emulate the functional design of the Benjolin and Blippoo Box as closely as possible, and only then added some extensions. With these you should be able to follow hardware patch guides and obtain comparable results with the Venom emulations. They are still not clones, but definitely close siblings.

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Yes video is coming, there are so many great new toys I’m a little over whelmed at the moment. I may not follow everything, but I think I see the divergent paths from the hardware. I will def read your documentation.

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This is great. I’ve made similar sounds by manually patching multichannel feedback, but it’s pretty cool to have a module that does it all for you.

@DaveVenom I really admire your dedication to emulating these, the modules sound absolutely nuts!

@jeremy awesome techno patch too

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