AudioMulch

Via Brian Comnes:

"Audio Mulch is bar none my favorite sound toy for traveling on business.....it is totally self contained, so it is even smaller than dragging a Mono Evolver in the brief case , plus you can do it on the plane ride, while any hardware companions have to wait til the hotel room. Audio Mulch is much like a "soft modular" in that you put objects on a work surface, you patch them with connectors and away you go, it has a Cycling74/Max kind of feel but is much higher up the food chain. What is really fun is that VST plugins are supported so I push FruityLoops and Microtonic on the work surface and then the real fun starts. I haven't tried it yet but you can route external audio too. If there is an negative side is that there is no MIDI out to control outboard devices, but then that is what Ableton Live is for. If you travel and like the concept of modulars as opposed to just tweeking soft synth, this is the best $80 you can spend

Peace Brian

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here is a description of the screen shot and 32 bar sound file Chemutengure - Mbira Melody by Brendon Bussy.

This patch is based on a transcription of an Mbira (Zimbabwean thumb piano) melody composed in the 1800's. (transcription from "Making Music"; Claire Jones; Academic Books, Zimbabwe; 1992).

The original piece apparently imitates the sound of wagon wheels (!) and is based on a typical African 12 beat cycle. I created this patch to see how a complex African melody would be translated by Audiomulch.

This particular version is in fact designed to be played on a Karimba (a smaller version of the Mbira), so I used the frequencies of the approximate piano note equivalents of the Karimba keys, slightly detuned where necessary. I first worked out all of the frequencies and then assigned them to specific 'fingers'.

The melody:
*Melody structure
- I created the melody played by each finger by automating the frequency presets of 4 TestGens.
-To create the 12 beat structure, I divided each bar into 12 by snapping to 1/8th triplets.

*Melody sound
- As a side effect of the rapid volume & frequency modulation of the TestGen, a 'knocking' sound is generated. This contributes to the rhythmic (unbalanced wheel!) feel.
- A side chain consisting of Shapers and EQ fattens up the straight TestGen sound.

Percussion:
*Percussion sounds
- I used DLGranulator to quantise and filter single tones genererated by Arpeggiators.
[I got this idea from someone on the AM forum - sorry can't remember who :( ]

*Percussion rhythm:
- I created a typical African 3 over 2 beat feel by quantising separate beats with 1/4 note (2 beats) and 1/4 note triplet (3 beats) divisions."