A Demo of mods driving the TastyChips Integral dual convolver pedal

video upload by ParadisoModular

"As I recently finished modifying my 'Integral' dual convolver pedal by TastyChips (https://www.tastychips.nl/) to accept control from multiple external CVs and gates, here's a quick demo video. After a few minutes of showing the Integral's front panel being driven by my external CVs, I switch to showing more detail on my mods and the patch that runs it. This patch also gave me a chance to explore my TipTop Matrix Sequencer, where you dial in 16 pitches from which you can extract 10 sequences that traverse the note matrix in different ways. I crossfade periodically between these 10 lines driving different tone sources (reversing them occasionally to give a bit of variety) - this provides a dynamic and harmonically-rich base upon which to run the Convolver, which produces all of the effects that you hear.

My mods let me turn essentially all of the knobs with external voltages (I also have a gate input for the 'shift' button so I can get at the secondary functions of these knobs too), and indeed, I do that here. All of the knobs are being turned constantly by different LFOs. This pedal sports two convolvers - the panel's knobs affect the one that's displayed, but also I provide a periodic pulse to the 'select' knob (which I gated in the pedal so it doesn't hit when 'shift' is active to avoid going into a menu), which toggles control to the other convolver. So this patch, simple as it is, spans a lot of sonic space...

The Integral is a wonderful box - it sports two convolver chains, and you can select from circa 100 different impulse responses (plus add your own via a USB stick). Convolution is a general operation that spans across reverb, echo, filtering, etc. - you essentially inherit the character of the chosen impulse in the driving waveform. It's not a real-time operation in principle (the convolution integral for each sample goes across the entire impulse) although there are ways of speeding and breaking the operation up to approach real time (plus this pedal allows you to window the integration over the stored impulse). It's a very deep pedal - and in using it, I saw right away how turning several of the knobs at once can get you to interesting modulations and textures while they are moving (the expression input gives access to only one parameter - I use it now for the convolution cross-fade, as I couldn't get to that input with my mods). TastyChips used to make a Eurorack module giving some of this flexibility, but it only included one convolver. The Integral pedal has 2 and is a current product, hence reinforcing my decision to acquire one and essentially 'turn' it into a versatile synth module.

My sequences here are a bit major-key/unsophisticated (all notes have to work potentially on top of each other and in whatever sequence it picks), and the pedal occasionally gets briefly into strange territory - hence this demo only hints at where this beast can go (every impulse response has a different character too). And turning all of the knobs can occasionally push it into instability - I will probably use fewer when I take it out for a real spin. More coming with this one in future patches, but in the interim, here's this trial demo..."