An ambience created with VCV Rack, dedicated to the birds and other creatures returning to my back yard with the arriving Spring weather.
The patch is sufficiently complex to allow me the luxury of skipping its exegesis. A thorough analysis would be tedious and ultimately unenlightening. However, some structural aspects bear a closer look.
The patch is built from five sound blocks. Two blocks include a single instrument each, one for the sustained chords, the other for the bass part. Of the remaining blocks, one includes a set of three percussion instruments (kick, snare, tom), one binds three instances of a lead instrument, and one provides the various bird sounds. No samples are used here, all the bird calls are synthesized in VCV Rack.
In many of my recent patches I’ve been working on emulating instrumental improvisation, heard here in the bass and lead parts. The design simply sets a batch of bird-calls against a chord pad, with bass and lead obbligati, that’s really all that’s happening in the performance.
The internal connectivity is rather complicated, and the most useful description is the patch itself. Although it will not be uploaded to Patchstorage I’m happy to send the patch to anyone on request.
Recorded with the VCV Recorder module, edited with Ocenaudio.
As always, eternal gratitude to the many makers of this marvelous software. Studio D bows deeply from the waist.
Like it, a great ‘Musique Concrete’ feel to it, One of my obsessions at present.
Are there just those modules involved? A midi controller setting off the samples stutter?
@ady34 - Thanks for your comments, and yes indeed, the musique concrete feel was intentional. As I mention in my notes, many classic tape-studio techniques were used, including manual splicing. That’s where the stuttering comes from, btw. VCV Rack is used minimally in this recording, no generative stuff or extreme processing. Basically Rack only adds some reverb and spatialization to the original soundfile, just enough to buff up the surface.
The results of the Charles Dodge Speech Songs, sound very similar to Sparky’s Magic Piano.
Just listening to some on YouTube. Nysthi’s SAM would probably produce similar results in VCV Rack, not knocking the originals.
Too many options these days, then you had to work with a wall full of computers to get the same results. More experiments await!!
Yep, Frank’s floating around somewhere in there. His earliest stuff was a big influence, gotta give him special props for guiding me to the music of Edgard Varese.
A noisefest from a series of studies with the dbRackCsound plugin.
From the notes:
NB: Caveat auditor ! I suggest playing it loud but I must warn potential listeners about what they’ll hear. This is “experimental music”, i.e. I’ve designed and implemented a generative structure that guarantees an unpredictable outcome. However, the patch is not at all random or unorganized, there is always some degree of periodicity and recognition of the audio source, regardless how extreme the processing becomes. So, to be clear: This is a noise piece, with at times very rapid changes of timbre and dynamics. There’s no melody or harmony in any usual sense, the timing is erratic and discontinuous, and the effected sounds may be a bit disturbing to some sensitive ears. You have been warned.
Beautiful in it’s otherworldliness. Love it, now here’s the ask, is it available as a patch to play with? Would love to tinker with it.
Reminds me of very early electronic music from the 50s, a good thing in my book?
I’m preparing the patch for Patchstorage. I think all the modules I’ve used can be found in the library, but I have a tendency to use custom-built plugins (e.g. Southpole). I’ll post a notice when it’s up. Thank you for listening and for your comments. And yes, that particular sound is never far from my inner ear, I’m one of those fellows who saw Forbidden Planet in a theater shortly after its release.
For me it’s more impenetrable. I’ll have to ask my doctor whether that’s a safe condition. 
