Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross - In Motion - Modular synthesizer cover

Published on Mar 3, 2019 joeSeggiola

"From The Social Network ‎original soundtrack (2010, The Null Corporation).

I was trying to recreate the easiest parts of my favorite track from The Social Network's OST in my modular system. It soon became an exercise in using all the modules simultaneously. Recorded in February 2019.

Both drum sounds are created feeding signals from MFB OSC-3 into LxD vactrols, which are opened with Maths envelopes; the kick drum is a pitch-modulated triangle wave, the hat is from the white noise output. Intellijel Shifty is used like a gate sequencer to alternate kick/hat triggering. Two segments from Mutable Instruments Stages are used as faders for controlling drums' volume in Veils.

The bass sound is made with the Minibrute 2 using two saw oscillators one octave apart, with the LP filter controlled by an AD envelope from Stages. Pitch CV is manually triggered tapping buttons on the Korg SQ-1 in "step jump" mode; CV Out is sent to the SSF Modbox S&H for tempo quantization and to a slew-limiter made with Stages for slight portamento. The Minibrute mod-wheel is patched to increase the decay time of VCA and VCF envelopes, so it can be used to gradually control legato.

The 64-notes arpeggio is a square wave from MFB OSC-3, sequenced with the Minibrute (whose pitch CV is free to be used since does not control the on-board bass sound) and filtered with Bastl Cinnamon. A button on the second SQ-1 track is used to control Veils to un-mute the arpeggio at will. Digitech Obscura Altered Delay's mix and repeat controls are used to create the messy ending.

The piano-like long notes are pre-recorded in the Morphagene. A "distortion effect" is applied in real-time using the Minibrute's metalizer wavefolder, modulated by Morphagene's envelope follower. The sample doesn't loop, it's triggered using clock divisions.

Everything is mixed and sent through three guitar pedals: OBNE Dark Star for shim reverb, then a little room reverb and a compressor at the end."