Background Modulars No.3 - Serge Paperface

video upload by Memetune Studio

"Can't find a Serge Modular system to create a self-generating Cybersynthesis patch on? No worries! Just put this video on in the background (in full-screen mode), and have the next best thing 😁

In this background piece, I’m using a 1970s Paperface system with some Loudest Warning Serge clone modules to help with the AI composition process (top panel)

The usual VCO / VCF / ENV things are set up, being triggered from a combination of Positive Slew, 73 EG and the mysterious Fenetre module (a Window Comparator designed by Charlie at Loudest Warning, inspired by a tiny bit of the Destiny+ Czochralski Cells thing - Google it), which takes a CV-variable input and sends out staggered pulses, all CV-able. Some of these go to a 4-input AND module which is combined with the other clocks to give varying rhythm to the piece. The pitches are being generated from the Gated Comparator (Ken Stone design, Mk2) which is being altered as the piece develops by various interrelated CVs from the other modules and the vintage Programmer, set to 4 steps on a very slow clock, again related to the main clock via an 8-way divider, then into a 2HP Tune quantiser, which I supplanted into a spare hole in the cab. The Programmer also has its other outputs slowly changing things, such as timbre and LFO of the main oscillator. The reverb is from the Serge spring units (stereo) and there is a tiny bit of Boss SE70 delay in there (all being mixed via one of the Serge Universal Audio Processors)

The general idea is that its one great big interrelated cybersynthesis patch, and the sequence changes slightly each rotation. I think if you listen through to the end, you will hear a very satisfying melodic development, one that I was not expecting to happen. I had no idea how the melody would evolve, and for the first time in my patching life I was genuinely surprised by the melodic resolution this self-generating Serge patch produced"