Making a track with only 2 Make Noise Maths (Eurorack module)

Published on Jun 16, 2018 Alastair Wilson

"After spending some time with Maths and realising how powerful it was, I had the idea of making a track using nothing but it. This is the first time I've made and edited a 'music video' like this and I'm happy with how it turned out!

I've added some compression, EQ, delay, and reverb to the recorded parts, as well as a touch of stereo widening. Most parts have also been quantised.

HOW IT WORKS:
- The 'Both' inputs for controlling the rise/fall times of the LFOs can track 1V/Oct, meaning you can play them on a keyboard. The problem is that they only track accurately at low pitches and go flat at higher pitches; to combat this I sent extra keyboard CV to the rise/fall times and tuned them to stay roughly in tune over half an octave or so. I had to then carefully use the pitch wheel on the Microbrute to tune each note I played individually. The highest notes (mainly the 'soft plucks' and 'high texture') had no chance of being playable; I tuned them so that 2 or 3 random notes would be in tune, and then stuck to those. This is why in the video I appear to be playing notes on the keyboard that don't correspond to the pitches.
- By sending pitch CV through one of the Maths channels (1 or 4), you can add glide with the rise/fall times.
- By sending audio through one of the Maths channels (1 or 4), you can get 'filtering' effects and waveshaping.
- By offsetting the audio with channels 2 and 3, and taking the sum output, you can change the timbre of the sound. Using this and the 'filtering' method, you can get various different synth timbres.
- You can offset the audio so much it becomes silent; using an envelope to move between how offset the audio is you can fake a VCA, and get volume changes over time like on a normal synth.

Some of the patches, like the snare, rely on you finding sweet spots so be warned that you might not be able to recreate them accurately."