Eurorack Ableton Drum Rack - Ambient exploration

Published on Jun 19, 2019 While We Were Sleeping

"About the patch:
Every Christmas I celebrate not working by investing my free time in a music project. Last year it was the recording of an unrealised album.
This year I was going to top that by actually finishing and realising something.
So I had this plan for the Malekko voltage block for a while and this year I planned to sequence the sequencer.
The patch is a single Oscillator (TH 555) going through varies filters and wave folding and ending in two VCA's.

The voltage block does most of the CV control and is itself sequenced by Ableton using its CV mode.
The second part of the plan was to celebrate the Thomas Henry 555 and my other modules in a more ambient environment so they get the space they deserve.
My plan for the project included three steps:
1 - Setup 16 steps on the Voltage block each with handcrafted Pitch and other CV values- Creating a sound vocabulary.
2 - Create a drum rack that will send MIDI notes that correspond to a voltage that corresponds to one of the 16 voltage block steps + 2 pads for triggering the 2 VCA envelopes.
3 - write something - whatever comes up, go with it.
Until I finished step 2, I had no idea if this was going to produce a musical result, but it did and this is the recording of what came out.
After I recorded this had a bit of a play and then replaced Ableton with the Malekko varigate 8+ for controlling the voltage block. My love affair with this new setup lasted for 5 month and it gave me around an hour of recorded jamming covered by my previous 4 videos.
I hope you enjoy it, like and subscribe and keep on reading if you are after more technical details.

Modules used:
* Malekko voltage block - 16 step 8 parts CV Eurorack sequencer.
* Malekko varigate 8+ - Eurorack Sequencer - using only its 2 CV channels
* Fonitronik Thomas Henry 555 vco
* Toppobrillo Triple WaveFolder
* God’s Box ‘Humpback’ Filter
* DinSync VCF303 - TB 303 filter
* Serge 1973 vcf, pcb & pannel by mCop
* Hexinverter Galilean Moons - 2 VCAs + 2 Envelops
* mCop eurorack mixer
(All but the Malekko are DIY builds)


How it was sequenced:
The Malekko Voltage Block has 16 steps each programmed with 8 voltages going to: Pitch, 3 into the Triple WaveFolder, 2 filter cutoffs and the left Galilean moon's decay.
Varigate (VG) has CV1 going to the 1973 filter and and CV2 to the right moon's decay.
Ableton has a drum rack with the 16 pads for the 16 steps + 2 pads for the VCA envelop triggers.




Audio path:
* Main voice: (555 vco - Sine) into (TWF - In 1a), (TWF - out 3 ) into (Humpback in), (Humpback LP) into (VCF303 in), (VCF303 out) into (L Moon VCA in) (L Moon VCA out) into (Mixer in 2)

* Secondary voice: (555 - Square) into (1973 in) (1973 BP) into (R Moon VCA in) (R Moon VCA out) into (Mixer in 1)

Voltage block (in CV mode)
* (VB CV 1) into (555 1v/oct)
* (VB CV 2) into (TWF vc2)
* (VB CV 3) into (TWF vc1)
* (VB CV 4) into (TWF bias3)
* (VB CV 5) into (HBP CV1 attenuated all the way to the right)
* (VB CV 6) into (F303 CV)
* (VB CV 8) into (L Moon Dec CV)

Varigate 8+
* (VB CV 1) into (1973) CV 1
* (VB CV 2) into (R Moon Dec CV)

External control:
* (CV.OCD B out) into (VB CLK/CV)
* (CV.OCD 9 out) into (VG CLK in)
* (CV.OCD 10 out) into (VG reset)
* (CV.OCD 5 out ) into (Moons L Trig)
* (CV.OCD 6 out ) into (Moons R Trig)

Audio rate modulation:
(555 Saw) into (Passive Multi) into (1973 CV2) (Passive Multi) into (555 PWM)


Other Modulation:
(moons L EG) into (VCF303 Env Trig)"