Studio D: Music From The Rack

Demonstrating an unreleased module, an SFZ player from Squinky Labs. The patch is deliberately simple, just the player with reverb and delay, driven by an external MIDI sequencer. I will post the patch when the module is in the library.

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Learning more about the Squinky Labs waveshaper. :slight_smile:

Patch is here: Shaping A Sine | Patchstorage

Another test of the new Squinky Labs SFZ player.

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Can you tell us more about the piano-roll on the right side of the screen?

It’s an antique :slight_smile: , Voyetra’s Sequencer Plus Gold for MS-DOS, I run it in DOSemu on Linux. It is a very fine MIDI-only sequencer, one of the best from its day, and still serviceable. Btw, one of its primary authors was none other than Bruce Frazer, aka the lead researcher at Squinky Labs.

Antique? It was updated twice a year until 1993 - that’s practically yesterday!

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looking forward to hearing more stuff with (subtle) FM. you are really pushing the boundaries of the Celeste!

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A little more workout with the celesta and the Squinky Labs player. Nice sample, nice player. :slight_smile:

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Another moody ambience. Enjoy !

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what is that module that is modulating the harmonic amplitudes in Cheby’ ?

It’s Frozen Wasteland BPMlfo 1 with an extender.

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Another exercise with chord progression, bass line, and celesta. An ambient pleasantry.

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Fun with SAM and friends. See the YT notes for a full description of the patch.

Nubes Tollit.

Some interesting results from playing around with a microphone and the Texture Synthesizer from Audible Instruments. Full description in the YT notes.

From the YT notes:

This recording is an arrangement made from two performance passes recorded with ecasound. Each pass was edited with mhwaveedit. Editing was restricted to deleting unwanted sections and adjusting relative amplitudes. The final mix - a simple joining of the two edited passes - was also made with mhwaveedit.

The patch is self-generating, i.e. once it starts it plays until the operator stops it. Its design includes modulated and unmodulated clock sources, various gate and audio generators, and a complex infrastructure of CV generators, routers, and modifiers.

Signal modulation is extensive. Channel-specific effects include vibrato and spectral manipulation. The master mix provides dynamic panning and channel level control along with global reverb and delay.

The ensemble cast:

  • Alright Devices - Chronoblob2
  • Amalgamated Harmonics - Galaxy, Arp 3.1
  • Autodafe - 1x8 Mult
  • Count Modula - Clocked Random Gates
  • Frozen Wasteland - BPM LFO
  • HetrickCV - Random Gates
  • Hora - Toms/Congas
  • Impromptu Modular - Clocked, Clkd, Tact, Tact-1
  • ML_Modules - Sequential Switch 8 to 1
  • Nonlinear Circuits - 8-bit Cipher
  • NYSTHI - 4DCB
  • PdArray - Array
  • RJModules - Button
  • Skrylar - Jack 4x4
  • Southpole - Smoke (in Spectral Madness mode)
  • Squinky Labs - Chebyshev, Chopper, Form, ExFor
  • Stoermelder - uMap
  • SV Modular - M
  • SynthKit - Clock Divider
  • Valley Audio - Plateau
  • VCV - VCA-1, ADSR, 8vert
  • Wiqid Anomalies - Dual Attenuverter
  • Xenakios - Macro PolyOscillator 1

My deepest thanks to them all. Great gratitude as well to all members of the VCV Rack community.

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A patch centered on a Let’s Splosh module from the Nonlinear Circuits plugin.

The recording is a composite made from performances with three slightly different versions of the basic patch. At the core of that patch the Splosh module drives the harmonics levels of a pair of Chebyshev oscillators. Those oscillators are then treated to transformations that vary between the versions.

Regarding the title: Bad as it is, I actually considered adding the subtitle “Nocturnal Admissions”. Alas, as you can see, discretion rules here at Studio D.

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Too avant garde for my simple musical tastes I’m afraid Dave :slight_smile: But I’m glad you’re experimenting which you seem very good at. Do you have a history/affinity with 12-tone music, music concréte, atonal, microtonal, or things of this ilk? I just never… “got it”.

Nice !

I was waiting for David Sylvian to start singing :

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Hi Lars ! Thanks for giving it a listen, you are a brave colleague. :slight_smile: Yes, I have an extensive familiarity with music “of this ilk” (I love that word). In my late teens I was introduced to the avant garde jazz of the 60s (Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, Charles Mingus, etc), that opened my ears enough to get into the music of Stravinsky, Schoenberg, and a lot of new composers. Nonesuch Records had begun their “white albums” series of contemporary music by contemporary composers. At the same time Nonesuch was also releasing their series of world music. The late 60s/early 70s was a very exciting time for hearing new music. Later, in the mid 1980s, I studied composition with Michael Jon FInk in Los Angeles. At that time he was a grad student at CalArts, so he taught me according to that school’s methods, which included a healthy dose of ear-training. However, in addition to the standard approach we also went through the Modus Novus method designed to acquaint the learner with pattern recognition in non-tonal music. It was an invaluable experience. Mike’s instruction blended very traditional methods - Fux and Kennan for counterpoint, Piston for harmony - with some more advanced things such as Modus Novus and Charles Wuorinen’s book. Los Angeles was a terrific place to hear new music back then. :slight_smile:

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:slight_smile: I know my tastes, and honestly I like your more “traditional” music better. But sometimes you have to venture outside your comfort zone to see if there’s anything you’re missing. At my ripe old age, mostly there’s not, but sometimes a new door opens and it’s all worth it. I guess you could say I’m pretty set in my taste but trying to keep an open mind.

I love the English language, always have - it has words like “ilk” in it :slight_smile:

I feel like a peasant again, I often do :slight_smile:

I’m impressed with your resumé Dave, I’m always impressed with studied musicians. I sometimes wish (in an alternate timeline) that I had studied music from an earlly age. It would certainly lend me the capability to do things I’d want to do, like play the keys proficiently and know some useful music theory.

But then again I sometimes think that maybe it was good I didn’t, because studying established methods can also “lock you in a box” I think, and I’ve been able to approach modular synth like a baby, with a completely blank sheet, and still make things I like myself musically, which I think is because the instrument fits my brain and temperament, plus I have a lifetime’s very rich listening catalogue to inform me of what I think works or not. So it’s a curious thing with studying I think - it can lead you to nothing or everything, no guarantees. And at the same time so many great musicians are entirely self taught. In that alternate timeline I think I would have still liked to study though…

I don’t think I’ll ever get to like music “of this ilk” though - I’ve tried but always feel it’s too contrived, intellectual, contorted - like something different for different’s sake. But I’m also aware that other people might hear something completely different in it than I do; our musical ears (and tastes) are so different (which is great). I know for a certainty that I very much gravitate to harmony, musicality and lovely, pleasing timbres. Not just “western music” though; for example I like a lot of traditional Indian or middle-eastern music. But that’s just me, and I’ll keep checking in with your experiments, just cause… you never know when that new, green door might open, and some new inspiration flow through it :slight_smile:

Keep trucking and all the best Dave!
(and sorry if I “hijacked” your music thread)

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