=== vcp challenge #77: imagine ===

Music & Patches
6

#1. I’ve had a go with Imagine before, but it’s a weird module, because… I’m tempted to associate scanning through data with something that would make for cool, instant drones but it does not do that, at all :slight_smile: The output is so nervous and chaotic and I guess I’m not good at nervous music, huh. BUT at the same time, it makes me want to turn the very image into sound and not use the module as a source of randomness. So, I tried to tame it. Into some mellow Krell type-of-thing.

Heavily cut down Imagine’s triggers which S+H into Rampage for random envelopes, the EOCs of which sample the R and B values from the image to be used as pitch for Energy and every Scanner’s linebreak sends a random offset to Energy’s frequency (via µMAP to access the knob to stay in harmonic ratios). Also, every linebreak does a recording of that voice, played back at .5 speed. Values from G get smoothed out and go into XFX. Some other bits and bobs, delay and reverb to taste;)

12 Likes
7

Here is my jazzy entry that uses Imagine to drive almost all the elements of the patch.

One drum voice gets gates directly from Imagine processing the chroma values. Gates for three additional drum voices are derived by different permutations of RGB pairs passing through a comparator that fires a gate when one signal is higher than the other. The chaotic gates are then conformed to a musical grid via a clock with sample and hold. The only voice that does not use Imagine is the hi-hats - The clock passes through one Bernoulli gate to determine if the hi-hat will strike, and another Bernoulli gate to decide between open or closed.

The melodic line uses the slewed green signal to drive the new Intervallic Pair Quantizer from CuteFox Modules. The resultant V/Oct sequence is doubled with one voice offset 2 octaves and a fifth. Another Bernoulli gate determines whether the gate is sent to the bass or treble channel of the polyphonic FM-OP. The FM depth is subtly modulated by the slewed minimum value of the red and blue signals. And that pretty much sums up the entire patch.

I did not do anything special to rhythmically align the melody with the drums. To my ears it just seems to work.

11 Likes
8

I have some seamless animated PNG of Mandelbrot and Julia sets and I thought it could be worth a try to see what those could sound. I already know that turning a Mandelbrot set into sound without any embellishment is absolutely boring but adding some variation (always related to some fractal rules) can turn into something interesting and way less boring.

BTW: is there a limit to the number of imagine modules we can use?

9
  • Ablaut’s challenge statement specified no limit on the number of modules (Imagine or not).
  • In the pachde One plugin, there is no coded limitation on the number of Imagine modules you can have in a patch.
1 Like
10

Like this patch very much, thank you for the inspiration! Great idea to clean up the jittery signals coming from Imagine with a LPF.

Have no clue what the CuteFox actually does and how it is being used, even after reading the manual. Can it be explained in simple terms?

11

As I understand it, the original intent was for the pair of intervals to establish all possible pitch values. Starting from 0V you go up the 1st interval, then the 2nd, then the 1st again, etc… Going down from 0V I think you first go down by the 2nd interval, then the 1st, then the 2nd, etc., though I am not positive. This would establish all possible pitches, and then for any given input, the quantizer would pick the “legal” pitch closest to the input. So the quantizer would be absolute - it would always pick the same pitch for any given input.

But the developer struggled with implementation, and ended up doing something different. The set of available notes is established based on the most recent quantized value. In other words, the last quantized pitch becomes the new 0 point. So every time you quantize a note, it is relative to the previous quantized value, and a given input may produce different notes depending on what was played previously.

For example, suppose the quantizer is set to a perfect fifth for interval 1 and a perfect fourth for interval 2. Starting from 0V you feed it value y that quantizes to the fifth plus the fourth.

But suppose instead you first feed an intermediate value of x that quantizes to the fifth, and then you feed value y. The quantizer now starts from the fifth, and then quantizes up another fifth (the 1st interval). So in this case value y yields up two fifths from 0 instead of a fifth + fourth.

The end result is some interesting key changes as the inputs jump around.

I am actually working on an a similar idea of quantizing based on intervals, but am using absolute quantization instead of relative. In addition, my quantizer will support up to 10 independent step intervals, and the minimum interval step size can be any equal division of any pseudo octave. I think it will be extremely flexible. capable of producing both beautiful and horrible results. I think anyone interested in micro tuning and/or non-octave scales will be interested.

2 Likes
12

Thank you so much! I spun out this topic into another thread to not water down the VCP-77 challenge.

13

if you put the link on its own line, with an empty line before and after it, the video will be embedded in your comment

14

well, you tamed it quite well. the result is pleasing, and something i could see myself producing.

one does of course not have to use all the output of the module, and judicious use of sample-and-hold and similar techniques will lead to more harmonious results.

i haven’t experimented with the module myself yet, but i’m wondering how far we can slow down the speed, and how things like slew can mold the output.

1 Like
15

interesting stuff! i discovered a new module.

16

Thanks. I knew that, but it’s been a while since I posted on here, so I was lucky to remember the format for linking at all.

17

the actual first experiment with Imagine:

(also, if anyone has any ideas how to make a drone-y, soft kind of pipe organ happen, I’ll be happy to hear them:)

4 Likes
18

Tip for slowing the speed: Right click the speed button and manually enter very small values.

2 Likes
19

Here is another quick patch exploring the use of Imagine as a VCO.

I drive the play head Y coordinate with a relatively fast LFO to establish pitch, and the X coordinate uses a slow LFO to vary the timbre. I like how using two different signals (red and green in my case), gives a stereo image.

My patch has two voices, but Imagine is not polyphonic, so it requires two instances of Imagine.

The Proteus sequencers send their V/Oct pitch information to the Y LFO to establish the melodies. A bit of LFO is mixed in with the high voice pitch information to add a tiny bit of vibrato.

I think Imagine is functioning very similarly to a wavetable VCO when used like this.

7 Likes
20

I’m out of my league on this but couldn’t help taking up the challenge. I’m much better with circuit design or coding but the Imagine module looks so interesting!

Using the Zoxnoxious analog synth it seemed only fair to use pics of the boards and the analog IC chips. Conceptually the synth is playing itself: the 3340 pic is hooked up 3340 VCOs, the 3372 VCF/VCA pic drives the 3372 chip. I weaseled out on driving the synth voice with an IC pic and just used a circuit board pic as that gave a lot less randomness. It’s pretty raw, no effects, just recorded straight from the synth. Ok, it’s really raw. yup.

I never realized how my poor soldering job on those chips would literally make it into the audio path.

2 Likes
21

Yes! I seriously considered building a patch with imagine, taking a screenshot of the patch, and then using that image!

Then I thought how cool it would be if the live VCV graphics could somehow be piped into Imagine. Flashing lights, etc. would effectively be self modulating.

22

It IS quite cool, that Imagine :slight_smile: Thinking for instance how graphical compositions of large-ish diamond patterns or circles could offer interesting ways to structure musicals events over time.

1 Like
23

I’ve thought of adding an option to auto-reload the image when the file changes (on a low frequency poll). Then, you could have some process that overwrites the image file with whatever (e.g. screen shot) on a timer.

This would also let you live-edit an image in your image editor and simply re-save it periodically, or maybe use something like a Processing app and regularly export a snip.

Would that be a worthy addition?

24

That sounds interesting. My idea was just a wild flight of fancy. But CV control over the image could definitely be useful. Cycle through all images in a directory perhaps? Or let the user specify individual images to be loaded into an array?

I would also like to see multiple play heads generating polyphonic output.

Lastly would be access to more of the available values simultaneously. Maybe have 2 to 4 sets of v, g, t outputs. I would say use polyphony, but I would rather that be used for multiple play heads.

25

Snowflake, donkey and teddy bear

Snowflake, donkey and teddy bear_Patch_20231008s
Snowflake, donkey and teddy bear_Patch_20231008s1920×1105 447 KB


I was trying to create a hybrid track with arranged, fixed and generative elements, exploring how to get away from complete randomness while still leaving room for aleatoric variation.

Pachde’s Imagine is operated for gating and modulation, using a snowflake-donkey-teddy bear mandala made from a photo of clouds in the sky. X and Y being driven by two BPM LFOs with different periods.


Demo video (https://youtu.be/7pM5BFu_TDg)

Eight voices in total. The basis is a more or less steady beat with some snare fills. Percussive Vibration for string-like sounds. Warp Core for a distorted bass. Terrorform as a lead. Macro Oscillator 2 for bells and a second snare. Fence with a changing range of pitches. A couple of Chances modules to add randomness.

StochSeq4 with varying sequencer lengths for different voices, to manage and mix up song structure. Each run through creates a slightly different variation in the arrangement. For a quick toss-up, press the INV button of one or more sequencer lanes in StochSeq4 or change sliders manually (use 0 or 100%).

The picture is included as a .jpg file. As I am not sure whether Imagine will find it, it may have to be loaded into the patch manually.

1 Like