I am coming from standard daw sequencing, and I’m trying to find out how to spice up my gate sequences. Any resources for programming IDM style gate sequences would be greatly appreciated. Videos, suggested articles/posts are what I’m looking for
I am having trouble manipulating my basic clocks into interesting, almost generative rhythms. If you could share your favorite modules for this and any work flows you use to manipulate simple rhythms into complex rhythms it would be great. Is there a module that can quickly add swing? I would use a gate delay, but I’m wondering if they can offset ahead of the beat.
I recently ordered patch and tweak so I intend to comb through that when it arrives and see if I get anything out of it. I can quickly program these glitchy drum patterns in a daw, but I’m still coming to grips with it in vcv.
If you want specific patterns then the gate sequencer from Impromptu is good (has probability which is nice). If you want something more random then I tend to add clocks to a bernoulli gate and and combine in a logic module to get interesting patterns. There is also GateSeq by Starling, and Laundry Soup by Computerscare which is really powerful and can be fun to add to logic.
I’m a fan of Impromptu’s Gateseq, you can still control what’s going on, but also introduce Step probability à la Elektron sequencer.
I also use Bernoulli gates a lot . Euclidian sequencers might be a good option too, they can make interesting drum patterns ( i like the frozen wasteland one a lot)
I’ve recently made táncor, which might be interesting if you want swing or more irregular beats.
It can be driven by phase signals instead of step triggers. For example the clocks from ZZC are a good fit, and they are very versatile on their own as well for combining different meters etc. (they also have swing)
You might want to look into logic modules and switches in general, they are useful for manipulating a couple of simpler gate patterns into something more interesting.
Life Form Modular’s blog is a bit confusing to navigate, but I think all of their modules are there. Since they don’t have an index to the blog, you have to scroll through the prev/next posts to find the module you want.
More confusing is knowing there is a blog in the first place as the Library points only to Github which doesn’t appear to point anywhere else or have documentation. Googling again, however, I do see the wordpress site appear down the list. Thanks for pointing this out!
great tips, just wondering with the first suggestion (turning clocks on and off) how would I do this in vcv? I could of course buy floats, but there has to be a way with free modules.
For percussion a trick I like to do is have three or more “trigger” tracks for one instrument.
The first trigger track would have the beats / hits that you always want in the sequence, e.g. the very first downbeat. That gives the sequence some kind of “structure” to hang on to.
For the other trigger tracks I then put each trigger through a “chance” module, like the Audible Instruments Bernoulli Gate, and set them so that they only fire every now and then.
Then I use a mixer module (e.g. VCV Unity) to merge the triggers together and send them as one trigger track to the module making the noise, like a kick drum module.
This makes for some good variations on sequences without everything being just super random, which can get boring.
Edit: Whoops. I’m pretty much repeating what @markcwirt has already said in this thread. Apologies.
. Euclidian sequencers might be a good option too, they can make interesting drum patterns ( i like the frozen wasteland one a lot)
