The ever-changing generative patch challenge?

Music & Patches
21

Thank you very much, you touch on a lot of really great ideas: S&H, slew limiter, Bernoulli gate, flip/flop, edge detector, fixed voltage, offset, comparator and accumulator. The latter two can be combined. Resetting allows cycles/loops as well as counters.

@docB has a number of excellent (although sometimes deep) modules, and if you have the time, it for sure is valuable to look at some use cases, including many by the developer: docB at Patchstorage.

Another approach to keep things interesting seems to be the application of short-term generative and non-generative techniques to longer time frames, which sort of adds another meta level. I think of it as being like extending smaller circles into larger ones, as if constructing an epitrochoid.

For example, one could create a short melody sequence, let’s say with a note on every beat, so it is repeated in a relatively small circle for a while. To create the variation in the longer run, changing the melody’s key (and possibly scale) based on the note sequence would lend a structured, interlaced variation to the flow.

The timbre of a voice could be morphed or rotated round-robin style with each switch of the scale, perhaps on a slightly shorter or longer cycle.

Or you could use a Euclidian rhythm of e.g. 12 over 32 to repeatedly drive a percussion over e.g. two bars, and then take the same rhythm slowed down by 1/40th and thereby stretch out the pattern over 80 bars to rhythmically but infrequently trigger a slowly morphing sound or FX, or a one-shot sequence.

It probably is debatable whether mixing generative and deterministic elements invalidates a patch as being truly ‘generative’, but to me a lively semi-generative patch with a tiny bit of structure is preferable over a wild but repetitive purely generative piece.

There already is a number of good threads with tips for generative patches in this forum (selection below), and I want to explore further, which of these techniques could also be suitable for their use in the larger circles.

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22

Not sure what your describing here, but it sounds like combining/relating periodic signals to controll stuff. Might be that simply mixing some LFO signals (probably just basic shapes) at various rates might get you on the way as well? Combine with attenuvertor to modulate the ranges. Possibly combining this with comparator(s) to gate stuff?

Several Euclidian sequencers in VCV offer modulation for speed, length, hits/fill, shift, direction, rest (e.g. Eugene/Polygene).

About exploiting Sample & Hold in the context of sequencing in order to generate many variants based on a single sequence. Including Euclidian rhythms.

Maybe check out this video by Jakub Ciupinski (part of his VCV Rack Hacks series), where he ‘overclocks’ the sequencer and then uses ‘sample and hold’ on the output at various rates/ratios.

VCV Rack Hacks | Resampled Sequencer and Euclidian Rhythms

You could also ‘cheat’ a little and use Turing Machine based/derived implementations. They integrate several very usefull concepts for generative ever mutating sequences, combined with some level of predictability.

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23

For a signal source that is more correlated/structured than noise, but with varying output, consider using Imagine from pachde One, which scans an Image to produce voltages, gates, and triggers. The amount of structure depends on the image.

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24

Yes, periodic signals in different time frames.

Might also benefit from NYSTHI’s VectorMixer as a 2D-Mixer.

VectorMixer_20231129

Both, the sequencer + S&H method and the Turing Machine are great for creating longer evolving patterns. Thanks for pointing them out!

25

I like Imagine. Results are very versatile and depend on the speed at which the image is read.

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26

This thread now is the basis of the Ambient Morph Challenge February 2024. Go on, create!