Thanks very much, glad you like it!
I almost feel like i owe Antonio Tuzzi (mr. NYSTHI) an apology for not seriously playing with “NYSTHI::Poly Seven Seas” before now. It’s a wonderful wavetable oscillator, and although there’s a couple of features not really working for me, it’s crammed full of great wavetables and sounds delicious. What a treat, thanks Antonio!
So I set out to make a big patch with it, but the first voice I created sounds so lush and full that I thought I’d just share it with you as it is. You know how sometimes you make a voice in a patch, and you think to yourself - “god, I could just listen to this for hours”? Well, it’s one of those for me.
It’s Seven Seas, marinated in modulation, smothered in delay and drenched in reverb 
Kind of an “ocean of sound” type patch, and definately for putting your headphones on, closing your eyes, swimming away and forgetting all those pesky little problems. Hope you’ll enjoy it.
You’ll find the patch here if you want to play:
1 Like
A slow, generative ambient piece, from trying out the “Octet Sequencer” + CV expander from Count Modula. It’s an interesting one, and here I’m driving two voices with gate and pitch from the sequencer, whilst modulating the patterns for variation.
4 Likes
Truly beautiful!!! Like the Spanish guitar type sound, or is it just my warped hearing! 
1 Like
Thank you very much! No, it’s not your warped hearing, it definately sounds like a plucked guitar string. It’s the result of some very subtle FM between two instances of the NYSTHI::OP module - the way too slim ones at the bottom left. I’m happy you liked it!
I’ve always been fascinated with “Ambient 1/Music For Airports”, and the techniques that Brian Eno used to create it, which basically amounts to tape loops and then hands off. So here’s my first stab at playing with this technique, and since I’m not using tape but pure synthesis, I’m calling it “phase loops”, for lack of knowing a more official term for it. The two key bits to the patch are the two trigger delays (Elsker) - The first one for starting each loop at a specific time, and the second one for the length/duration of each loop. It’s an interesting technique and there’s definately more to explore here.
3 Likes
My research rabbit hole currently has me in Jean-Michel Jarre’s work. This piece makes me want to jump back to Eno. The balance between sound and space is cool. Great choice of voices. Music For Airports has very interesting techniques. I’ve only deep-dived into track 2/1, which has seven loops running at different rates.
1 Like
Thank you for the nice compliment Paul, much appreciated!
Yeah, I find it really interesting that Eno made those tracks simply with tape loops. I got inspired by this deconstruction of a couple of tracks from MFA. At first I had the delusion that I would start from a recreation of track 1/2 and then take it from there 
Then I realized that the deconstruction was only correct for the first 20 seconds and that it’s a hell of a lot of work to reverse engineer those loops from scratch. Then it dawned on me that of course the interesting thing about it is not so much the particular pieces, however beautiful they are, but more the techniques used, and so I figured I’d try and apply the techniques with my own voices and composition. My intention is to try for a few more variations, if patience permits.
I can definately understand a research into Jean-Michell. He’s certainly one of the creative, towering geniuses of the first wave of really interesting electronic music, and made some reallly unique and interesting stuff in his time. He, together with Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream and Eno, have always been true north in my musical compas, where electronic music is concerned. I have ideas and desires in my drawer for tributes to all of these, if I’ll ever get to it, but we have so many nice distractions
I have read that article before, especially the bit about 2/1 
With these multiple tape loops, I think it’s important to not just use clock divisions or regular time intervals, but to run separate clocks with different rates, and those rates vary over time.
I’ve been re-listening to Matt Berry’s interviews with JMJ; how Oxygene and Equinox were recorded in his kitchen, and how the mellotron was partially broken so that he couldn’t use all the keys.
I haven’t been releasing as much because I’ve been focused on understanding the building blocks, the underlying sound design and track construction of all those you’ve mentioned. That doesn’t mean my stuff’s any better, but I feel like I know more 
Yeah, I remember hearing that too. Stunning. I was picturing JMJ on his kitchen table with his VCS3, fiddling away with recording bit by bit to tape. It’s just… astounding. Always a good reminder that technology is never the real barrier
I miss your music Paul!
I know that urge from myself, it’s a great research. Important to keep a balance between research and making music I think, but it’s tricky.
Thanks Lars. I can’t help but think I’m emulating another of my favourite artists, Peter Gabriel or Kate Bush, when I’m leisurely with my releases
Those are two of my favorite artists as well. Do you mean emulating their highly irregular “release schedule”? The privilege of great artists
Exactly. Guess I have to get great first before I have that luxury 
Well, you’re the greatest of all the Piko’s I know
That’s a coincidence… of all the Lars Bjerregaards I know, you’re the greatest 
This is the second installment in my experimentation with the looping techniques that Brian Eno used to make “Music For Airports”. I call it “phased loops” since no tape or samples are involved. There are two different soundmakers: The first is the lovely XFX Wave oscillator, dialed in to somewhat resemble the frippertronics used on “Exposure” I realized at some point - that wasn’t planned. The second is Rings, in a kind of plucked bass strings mode. For the first time I used both outputs of Rings as a stereo channel, which happened to sound by far the best in this particular mode. Using these VCO’s are 7 loops, all running out of phase, with no clocks or synchronization used at all. The rules and challenges of using these techniques are starting to dawn on me, but I’m having a lot of fun playing with it, and find it quite rewarding. Definately a headphone piece.
4 Likes
I really like these Eno-esque explorations. That Plaits bass works very well with the XFX Wave. The variation from pluck to strum is well balanced. It’s pretty good on my hi-fi speakers too With the 7 loops at varying phase you achieve both complexity and space.
Thanks Paul, happy you like it!
Thank you, I think so as well. I love Rings, so organic with a life of its own, another genius module from Émilie if you ask me.
I’ll bet When I thought it started sounding pretty good I did think to myself - “damn, wish I had my old gear to listen to this on” - tube amps, Snell speakers, ah well…
Yeah, that’s the easy part. Making it musical and interesting is another kettle of fish I’m discovering There’s a whole rulebook here I think, that I’m trying to slowly discover. But it’s a really interesting area. I’m going to keep going for a bit and see what I can open up and get to. I’m also gaining even more respect for Eno’s work on MFA, and I’m convinced a lot of thinking went into it. If he or anyone else would claim - “I just turned it on and it worked” - I’ll call liar liar, because there’s a definate artform to this and a lot of trial and error involved.
I’m just using a mid-range system, Onkyo receiver through Dali speakers.
It’s more like Eno’s gardener analogy. “The gardener takes his seeds and scatters them, knowing what he is planting but not quite what will grow where and when - and he won’t necessarily be able to reproduce it again afterwards either.” But a gardener doesn’t just plant and walk away either; the gardener is constantly making decisions on how to make the garden grow. Prune this, train that, add fertiliser, remove weeds, allow parts to be fallow, and others to go to seed.
Yeah, that’s exactly it I think.