What if every voice modulated its neighbor?

video upload by Vadjuse

"What happens if you take four identical timbres, make them exchange signals, and make each track change not itself, but its neighbor?

The idea behind this patch is a ring interaction between the tracks. This has nothing to do with ring modulation.

I created four identical saw waves. Each track has its own volume envelope length and melodic sequence length, so the notes and rhythms are constantly mixing. All four tracks are tuned to Just Intonation, which makes the resulting frequency relationships sound more stable and, at the same time, more pronounced than in equal temperament.

I connected the four tracks in a ring with modulation.
The volume envelope of each track reduces the MIDL parameter of the next one. The louder one voice becomes, the less energy its neighbor receives: it loses high harmonics and becomes less saturated, so even the filter resonance can no longer emphasize an individual harmonic as effectively.

All Modulation Envelopes operate in Envelope Follower mode. EF1 opens the filter of the neighboring track, EF2 changes the rate of the next volume envelope. Volume Envelope destination 2 increases release time of the previous voice.

Thus, one voice simultaneously affects the brightness, volume, rate of volume change, and decay time of another. In addition, the tracks modulate each other through FM synthesis: FM changes the spectrum, the spectrum affects the Envelope Followers, they change the parameters of the next and previous tracks — and the change returns to the system again.

This creates a closed system with multiple paths for energy transfer.
I became less interested in creating a beautiful sound and more interested in exploring its behavior: which actions amplify the dynamics, which suppress them.

Even more interesting is what happens when one voice is turned off. The feedback almost immediately collapses: the ring system requires all participants to be active, and turning one off breaks the chain of energy transfer.

You can recreate this system on your own hardware — I’d be very interested to see what you come up with.

The system from this video can be loaded into your own Kaleidoscope and explored yourself.
http://vadjuse.ru/kaleidoscope_en"