Hello all.
I have been messing around with VCV Rack for over a year now, slowly familiarizing myself with modular synthesis and having a wonderful time in the process. This thread will serve as a journal for patches / sounds I am particularly proud of. I am totally open to critiques, tips, or comments.
For the first installment… enter a bug world.
This was my first successful attempt at creating a self-contained, complete, semi-random, “ambient” patch. Originally an offshoot of another project, it quickly morphed into its own thing.
The backbone of the patch is the VCV convolver. I fed multiple measures of a synth-lead from the original patch into the convolver and saved it as the impulse response. I then ran some blue noise through it to produce a wall of sound that became the main drone.
Various other bug-like sounds evolved afterwards, most of them dependent on the original drone (either through delay-feedback and/or pitch-shifting). I began to imagine myself stepping off of a spacecraft onto a comfortable but unfamiliar alien world, busy with all kinds of bugs.
The most satisfying element was the tactile bagpipe / reed instrument that I could use to solo over the drone. I was loving the reedy sounds I was getting from Dark Energy and I had fun messing around with the XYPAD from JW. A lovely way to add expression. I began to imagine a small bug soloist amongst the commotion of bug migration.
I did some minimal orchestration during recording, but mostly let voices come and go as dictated by the smooth random CV generator. The result is more of an amorphous soundscape than an organized song.
While I was listening to it play one day, I was inspired to do a little lyrical writing as well:
listen up all you muffin toppers and bug squashers
listen to what I say, I’ll say
the cold ain’t so bad and the warm wont burn you
its a bug world but the worms won’t hurt you
slow down snow there’s no rush to land
rain check on the stove, simmer down till then
do the bumblebees sleep in honeybee beds?
do wasps drink dew? do worms hold heads?
are beetles in love with weevils with lashes?
and do ladybug-partners go through rough patches?
under the sun its the same unless the clouds burn through
storm and rain rinse the bug world too
Hope you enjoy.
Very enjoyable and great use of stereo/soundstage!
Experience the flowering of the Jummm tree: a magical tree that only blooms every eon or so and is powered by pure randomness!
I started this patch on my laptop over the holiday break as I was away from my desktop. It quickly evolved into something I had to see through to its full potential. In its final form, the patch is fully autonomous. I let the patch record itself 10 times then selected what I thought was the most interesting recording.
The voices are a Surge XT Sine VCO bass, an Instruo Cruïnn super saw thing, and a pitched percussive voice built from some Surge VCOs and Waveshaper. All voices are driven by Rhythm Explorer from Venom and Orca’s Heart V2 from Scanner Darkly.
Hope you enjoy.
Another generative wandering.
This patch took forever to reach its final form. Inspired by the Jakub Ciupinski video posted all over this forum (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5Hww6sk6fw), I began experimenting with self-oscillating VCF voices. I was so enchanted by the playful and organic sounds. I ended up creating a chorus of 12 VCFs all controlled by a home-brew semi-random sequencer essentially consisting of two asynchronous LFOs, random gate rerouting, and repetitive S&H of an audio file. A primary Lark oscillator makes most of the sequencing decision. I have a feeling these chaotic sapphire oscillators will find there way into virtually every patch from now on.
Because all modules are free, I would like to share the project file.
twang_022225.vcv (18.0 KB)
I spent quite a few hours letting this one go around and around. I eventually captured a recording where Lark drove the sequencing system through virtually its entire range and where nothing unforgivably ugly happened.
Hope you enjoy.
Isaac and his mother lived alone in a small house on a hill.
Isaac kept to himself, drawing pictures and playing with his toys as his mom watched Christian broadcasts on the television…
Life was simple, and they were both happy. That is until one day, when Isaac’s mother heard a voice from above…