Turismo - Iterative Drone Composition

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"Our Eurorack modular workstation the 'Turismo' is well suited for sequencing beats and groove box style patching but the versatile system can fit equally well into less structured environments. In this patch we explored using the Turismo for iterative drone composition, making use of the system's stereo line input and output and flexible set of modules to generate, record and reprocess sound in combination with a 4 track cassette recorder.

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Our Eurorack modular workstation the 'Turismo' is well suited for sequencing beats and groove box style patching but the versatile system can fit equally well into less structured environments.

In this patch we explored using the Turismo for iterative drone composition, making use of the system's stereo line input and output and flexible set of modules to generate, record and reprocess sound in combination with a 4 track cassette recorder.

To start we connected the line out of the Turismo to the first 2 tracks of the 4 track, to capture our patch. We inserted a cassette tape and began recording a prepatched droning ambient soundscape to tape. The patch took full advantage of the system's collection of modules to generate and process the sound. Over the course of recording, we made some tweaks to the patch to subtly evolve our sounds. After a few minutes of recording we faded the sounds out and stopped the tape.

Reprocessing
Next we reset the system and rewound our tape, then repatched the output of the 4 track directly to the stereo line input of the MEGA MILTON utility module so we could reprocess our original patch back through the Turismo in a unique iterative compositional process.

We connected the amplified left and right outputs of the MEGA MILTON directly to channels 1 and 2 of the MEGA-TANG mixer and VCA, increasing their levels and hard panning them left and right. We set the tape to play at half speed, then began playback. The full system was then available to process the recording.

We connected the FX send of the MEGA-TANG to the record input of the Squid Salmple and returned the output for channel 6 back to the MEGA-TANG. Outside of conventional sample playback, the flexible Squid Salmple can be used like a live processor similar to a delay. To set this up, we started by creating a record buffer. We entered the record menu and locked recording to channel 1 by holding the Chan button and pressing the Rec button. We also set the record mode to 'overdub' for a smoother sound. Next we connected a x1 clock output from Pamela's PRO Workout to the record gate input to continuously trigger recording.

We then created a playback buffer by moving to channel 6 of the Squid and assigning it to reference the live audio being recorded to channel 1. To do this we held the Chan button and twisted the encoder until a small '1' appeared on screen next to the '6'. Then we engaged looping and clicked the encoder to start playback, causing channel 6 to begin acting as a live playback buffer for the incoming recording, with the end time setting the length of the looping buffer. Finally, we engaged octave quantisation and increased the pitch knob of channel 6 to shift the pitch of the buffer by one octave. We then were able to clearly hear the Squid's unique live processing of the incoming tape recording.

Any channel of the Squid can reference any other, meaning we can create multiple playback buffers at once, useful for stereo or multitap delay like behaviour. To create another playback buffer, we repeated the same setup for channel 8, producing a more interesting stereo processing. Again, we referenced the recording on channel 1 then engaged looping, started playback and adjusted the end time, engaging octave quantisation as well. We then returned the direct out of channel 8 to the fourth channel of the MEGA-TANG and hard panned the 2 return signals left and right.

To take this custom processing further, we fed the Squid returns back into the record input by increasing the sends of the two return channels, taking note to increase the amount carefully to avoid any clipping on the Squid. The result was a blooming asynchronous pitch shifting delay layered on top of our recording. We experimented making tweaks to the Squid's settings to fine tune the sound of the unique custom effect. For a simple textural change, we reduced the sample rate of both playback buffers to add a lo-fi aliasing to the looping echoes.

This iterative process can be taken much further with the turismo, making use of the MCFx2 for stereo analog filtering, the MEGA-TANG's VCAs for modulation and amplitude control, and of course the MFX for a plethora of high quality effects processing options. Recording and reprocessing patches can be a rewarding compositional process with the Turismo, easily accomplished using a multitrack tape recorder like this or more conventional DAW. This inspiring technique often leads to one of a kind sounds and unexpected results."