Kinsey Dulcet Patch Thread

Music & Patches
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I’m Kinsey Dulcet, a sound designer, producer and composer who’s been tinkering with synthesizers for as long as I can remember. Recently, I stumbled upon VCV Rack, and I’ve been hooked ever since. Welcome to my patches and music thread.

Generative experiments have been my latest obsession. There’s something magic about letting randomness take the wheel and seeing where it leads.

I’m just starting out but I have an arrangement I’m going to lead with:

15 Minutes of Generative House Music

https://patchstorage.com/generative-house-music/

Generative House Music
Generative House Music1920×1079 336 KB

Looking forward to getting more familiar with VCV Rack and meeting like minded people. I will update this thread with more patches as I complete them.

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Very nice. And welcome.

Now gratuitous plug for my modules. My current ones, under the Squinktronix brand, are “for algorithmic composition” - there’s only two now - you can find info here about them. A couple more coming soon.

My old line “Squinky Labs” has a multi track compressor that a) is designed to work with the mixer you use, and b) sounds good and uses very little CPU. Check that out, also, if you like. These, too, are in the library.

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Thank you, Squinky! I’ve been looking for a good compressor to use on inserts. Very much enjoying your modules!

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With three instances of Comp II you can have a separately controllable compressor on each send, metering per channel. And they are the same color as mind meld mixer. Same font, too, I think.

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Heya nice to see you here!

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Screenshot
Screenshot1920×1078 348 KB

This is a bug fix for my ArpHarmony entry this month. I used some non-free modules in the original version which have now been removed and replaced with free modules. Because the result sounds largely the same, I’m not going to update the YouTube video but I have uploaded the new patch at Patchstorage.

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Thanks, Paul! I don’t think I wouldn’t have found it if it wasn’t for the Surge Team Discord! Grateful for that community

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I’m afraid you missed one - VCV Kick - easily fixed though. Nice patch :+1:

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Oh, no! I’ll fix that today. Good looking out. I bought a handful of plugins when I started with Rack and thought the drums were free, just not the Drum Machine module. I suppose it’s good I’m going through this on my first entry so I don’t make the same mistake in the coming months.

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Haha, no worries, as @ScreenSlave said, it’s quite easy to fix. Your patch is really beautiful, even though it brings my old computer to its knees :innocent:.

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Thanks for giving the patch a listen and letting me know what’s was wrong with it!

Here’s the fixed arrangement.

Oceanic Refrains_v1.11.vcv (39.0 KB)

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I’ve tried v1.1 and v1.11, and they both sound very different from the recording - much more wonky wavering pitches, perhaps more spooky. The original had more harmonically pleasing arp sequences in the upper register. Interestingly, there are a lot of modules in the kick voice, yet you have that voice completely off in the mix of the patches and the video.

I am curious to try your original patch with the premium modules. I think I have most, perhaps all of them.

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Kinsey does something nifty with the AUX Sends, still trying to figure it out :grinning:

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Oooh - interesting!

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I see it now. There is no dry Kick, but the Aux Sends are pre fader, so the effects are getting the kick anyway. The kick aux level is also off, but the poly aux CV is dynamically adjusting the kick aux level so it can be heard.

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Yeah, I’m crazy about Pre-fader! I use it on almost everything to get the full wet sound. I’m doing it with a lot of tracks now. It makes the sends a secondary mixing board kind of cluttered but it also allows for full wet effects and makes the returns very powerful to modulate. You can right click on the Mixmaster board and choose Aux Sends > Pre-fader or use it on a per track basis as well!

I’ve attached the original mix with all the original modules. Originally, I tried to confine my edits to the Slime Child modules and the VCV Kick which were the two proprietary plugins. On the other hand, sometimes I feel like these patches and the time I spend on them is quantum in the sense that it’s irresistible to tweak and the outcomes can be unpredictable. And, in fact, when I opened up the arrangements, the Lead Arpeggio area is missing a bunch of stuff including the osc! I had a delete a number of modules and it looks like I got these by accident. I’ve been planning on doing an update anyway to remove the kick from the Patchstorage version, so I will definitely fix this! Great ears! I also thing the Zod limiter is doing a lot of heavy lifting in the first version and I backed it off later one because I thought I was hearing some artifacts so v1.1 isn’t as loud. I’m still working out the best way to mix these things but I could really use recommendations for taming dynamic patches.

By the way, what the kick is about… the kick makes the noise washes that come in from time to time. I’m running it through a large reverb and trigger a kick then hipass it and then hipass it again with an lfo to do a different take on white noise. There’s a little more in the signal chain, but that’s the idea.

I apologize for all the corrections. VCV Rack is still fairly new to me. Oceanic Refrains was maybe my second or third major arrangement but I really enjoyed the challenge and am looking forward to the next one! Hopefully the rollout next month will be smoother. Thank you to everyone helping this along, though, I’m very happy with the patch ultimately and would like to release it in another form at some point.

Oceanic Refrains_Original Mix.vcv (44.0 KB)

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Here is my take on converting your original to all free modules. I think it sounds very close, and on my machine uses a bit less CPU than the original. I’m not sure if I eliminated all the premium modules or not. The ones I found were all the Slime Child modules, plus the VCV kick drum, If there are more, let me know.

Oceanic Refrains_Dave Free.vcv (37.7 KB)

You do a lot of pitch manipulation after the just intonation quantizers, so I’m not convinced the just intonation is really making a difference. But I went ahead and implemented the JI anyway. I think it was the configuration of the Nysthi quantizer in your free version that made the patch sound so completely different. Perhaps it could be configured properly, I don’t know. I chose to use the Submarine WK-205 with the just intonation scale. It uses a different JI algorithm, but I think it is close enough. It also is fixed at tuning to a C root, whereas your patch uses D. So I subtracted 2 semitones from the incoming CV to quantize with a C root, and then afterward added 2 semitones to the result to get back to D.

Your original had one quantizer in equal temperament mode, but I suspect that was an oversight. I used JI for all.

I also noticed that you did not use the 2nd channel coming out of the Harmony module, and used the 1st channel twice. I’m not sure if that was intentional or not, but I kept it the way you have it.

I could have inplemented the sub-bass voice any number of ways, but I opted to use my Venom Harmonic Quantizer to pitch the voice down to the 4th sub-harmonic (down 2 octaves), and used the new detune option to match what you were doing with the Slime Child Subharmonic oscillator.

I also eliminated some Bogaudio Stack modules and I think a few more that were patched, but weren’t serving any purpose. I also eliminated a Bogaudio VCF that was not even patched.

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Ooof - I forgot docB Just Scaler is a perfect JI quantizer that lets you set the root. I also mistakenly thought you had JI on all the quantizers, but you only used it on the pad. So I simply used the VCV quantizer for the equal temperament. Here is my final version.

Oceanic Refrains_Dave Free2.vcv (43.8 KB)

Both the docB and Slime Child quantizers are polyphonic, so you can save a lot of space as well as some CPU. Always look at the possibility of using polyphony when you use the same module multiple times. Your original patch could have used just 3 quantizers, and fewer split and merge.

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First… Dave, this is flat-out fantastic! You absolutely captured the essence of the patch. Thank you for going through it and removing the cruft and mistakes.

I didn’t know you were working on it, so I began my own version last night and the first thing I noticed were the JI quantizers were waaaay off. It caused a radical deepening in the patch, especially with the absence of the arpeggio. I’m surprised it escaped me but I remember the patch update being the result of the late night session and with the JI accommodations, I can see how I missed it but I’m definitely looking forward to releasing an improved and corrected version.

It took me a minute to realize that with no .kbm file, the NSYTHI module defaults to C. I ended up with a transposition technique very similar to yours although I continued to use the NSYTHI module. That, and the Slime Child modules offered some octave transposition, I think. JI and Pythagorean scales are both scales I use for anything pretty and mostly diatonic so I appreciate the care in replicating the original sound. And I’m glad to have a better idea how to get the microtonal results I want with free modules.

I can see how I left the Stack modules around, I was experimenting with transposition and scale quantization a lot in the process. The use of only one of the Squinktronix Harmony out was intentional, I wanted to keep things very open but I like that module a lot! The 4 voice harmonies are impressive.

Also, I have to say I haven’t gone super deep into your collection of modules yet but the Knob 5 and VCA Mix 4 are completely essential, go-to modules for me. I think I had some important voltage realizations directly because of menus on those modules! I look forward to trying Logic and Benjolin Oscillator in particular but there’s a lot to choose from. For example, I didn’t know you had a harmonic/subharmonic module, which is great!

Regarding the patch, outside of the bass being maybe a tiny bit loud (and the original, too), I would like to release your patch in a zip with the original for my more or less final release of the patch on Patchstorage (AFAIK, my only other plans might be to do a proper mix and release on streaming but I would use the original patch for that). Regarding the challenge, I haven’t checked if they have any rules pertaining to collaboration but in the long run this version is great and the bass is growlier so it makes sense to keep everyone in the loop and update on Patchstorage, perhaps with a new video.

Thanks so much for sharing this!

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I intended the JI to be on everything, if it wasn’t that was an oversight. When I made the patch, I was unclear on polyphony worked, I only started with VCV around the top of the month but I’ve been doing sound design for a while so the patch kind of exploded. I use polyphony a lot more now. I didn’t know it had such an impact on CPU, I will definitely keep that in mind.

Your original patch is just right with the JI, been listening to it while I write! I didn’t see your second reply until now.