3 Modules #17: Rings, Peaks, uScale

Comparative Irrelevance
Published on Aug 3, 2017

"Mmmm, Rings… It's raining heavily outside, and I could sit and listen to this meditative patch for hours, as it blends in with the rain. I had to cheat a little and add some open air recording from my balcony into the mix about halfway through, to give you an impression of what this sounds like on my end. :)

Patch notes (really simple this time):
Rings is in the 4-note polyphonic setting, which means that up to four notes can be ringing at the same time, and the notes are alternated between the left and right outputs.

Both of Peaks' channels are in tap tempo LFO mode. Channel 1 is producing a stepped triangle wave, which is quantized via µScale and then becomes the "base arpeggio" that Rings is playing.

However, Peaks' channel 2 is producing a slewed random wave which is sent to µScale's shift input, causing a meandering, random movement centered around that base arpeggio. Because the random signal is slewed, Rings passes through all the intervening notes from step to step, in a sort of strumming movement.

I tapped the tempos for Peaks' channels *almost* in time with each other, but made sure that they weren't identical so that there would be a hint of rhythmical phasing in the pattern. Of course, the range of the random wave also determines how many notes will potentially be played between each step – larger random intervals equals shorter time between each note played within that step (I hope you're following me? This feels easier to visualize, and more complicated to type out).

Finally, the second output from µScale – which is just the arpeggio without the random shift – is patched to Rings' brightness. The signal is inverted, so that higher notes should be less bright and vice versa.

As you can see, I'm periodically changing what notes are allowed through the µScale. Towards the end I'm also twisting the top parameter on Peaks. This is the LFO amplitudes, i.e. the range of notes spanned by the stepped triangle arpeggio and the random shift.

As always, thanks for watching!"