Octavia Fuzz in Eurorack with bags of character! // Cicely by Expert Sleepers

video upload by DivKid

"Say hello to Cicely! The next module in the analogue line up of Eurorack gear from Expert Sleepers. The module is based on the classic Roger Mayer designed Octavia design (think Jimi Hendrix octave fuzz), while the original is routed as part of guitar FX history here we’re exploring that under voltage control as part of a modular synth system.

You can apply these patches to other distortions you may have so watch along and give the patches a try, from wave shaping basic VCO shapes to dynamic end of chain fuzz, create unique delay shimmer and plenty more."

TIMING INDEX // CHAPTERS

00:00 Hellos and patch previews (what’s to come)

01:16 Introduction & feature run down

02:13 Basic VCO wave shaping + modulation

05:09 Dynamic end of chain Fuzz + self patching & low end tips

08:19 Smashing sine waves & Electro-Tastic overtones with audio rate modulation

10:21 Living in a land of Octavia Fuzz (with guitar)

11:12 Create your own crunchy delay shimmers with Cicely feedback loops

13:11 Ambient washes with Cicely delay feedback loops

14:10 Accent Glitches - Cicely dancing on top of sequences

16:08 A simple modulated drone

17:04 Envelope following for imparting rhythms onto chord pads

19:05 CV mangling (it’s not designed for it, but it’s great!)

20:37 Distorting Echoes for battling pitches (Os’s distortion patch tip)

"'Cicely' is an “octave fuzz” effect, inspired by the legendary 'Octavia' guitar pedal, created by Roger Mayer and most notably used by Jimi Hendrix. There is an interesting history of the pedal on Roger's website here. Cicely adapts the concept for the modular environment, adds some extra features, and of course puts the effect under CV control.

The effect is essentially one of adding an octave on top of the input note, but this only really applies to pure input tones – for more complex tones, the sound is changed in all sorts of interesting ways. This is combined with the possibility of overdriving the sound for even more edge, while the unique 'Centre' control adds asymmetrical clipping.

As a bonus feature, Cicely also includes an envelope follower."

Allemande (Disting EX's Poly Wavetable)

video upload by Electrum Modular

"I've been working on the Allemande from J. S. Bach's French Suite No. 4 in E-flat, BWV 815, and was frustrated that I couldn't hear all those long, held notes. Rather than select one of its cheesy organ presets, I decided to connect the piano to my (smaller) Eurorack case. It worked well with all of the polyphonic algorithms on the Disting EX, but the Poly Wavetable gives you the most options for using keyboard velocity not just to control volume but also to shape the timbre - via filter cutoff, wavetable position, etc. I set the envelope times/levels/curves so that the held notes would remain audible, but in the background.

Here is how I connected the piano to the modular: USB Midi cable - DOREMIDI midi host - 5-pin MIDI cable - TRS adaptor cable - MIDIXO breakout, which connected to the rear of the Disting via 4-pin ribbon cable. If there's a more direct way to connect them, please let me know in the comments!

Further patch notes in the video.

Other gear used:
ALM's Pamela's New Workout
Mutable Instruments' Beads
Tesseract's Sweet Sixteen
Expert Sleeper's Disting Mk4
Intellijel's Out

EQ and compression in Logic Pro

Keywords: #eurorack #modular #piano #Bach"

disting EX - Spectral Freeze

video upload by Expert Sleepers

"New in firmware v1.23.
https://expert-sleepers.co.uk/disting...

00:00 Demo
00:33 Introduction
05:07 Movement
08:28 Sort of looping
10:06 Effects (delay and reverb)
12:21 Mixer
14:44 Etherization
16:40 Offset (manual position control)
20:07 Pitch shifting
21:47 Outro demo'

Live toolkit: All Disting EX Algorithm Parameters Mapped to MIDI Clips

This one is in via supporting member ty hodson @ sublevel9 lab who had the follwing to say:

"In an earlier post I detailed how to set up Live as a hub for handling MIDI communication to/from your Disting EX. But now I deliver the coup de grâce: a package of Live sets that includes MIDI clips for all parameters for every Disting EX Single Mode and Dual Mode algorithm!"

Find the full post at sublevel9 lab.

Expert Sleepers showcase at Signal Sounds, 24th August 2023

video upload by Expert Sleepers

https://www.signalsounds.com/

"On 24th August 2023, Signal Sounds hosted Andrew Ostler of Expert Sleepers for a showcase performance and Q&A session."

Expert Sleepers showcase at Signal Sounds, 24th August 2023 - Part 2: Q&A

video upload by

flower field

video upload by murratti 127

"A piece with flower field by error instruments, amplified with listen i/o then runs through pitch from 2 hp and as a filter the night rider from ryk.
Alan from after later audio controls the bass drum of mosaic. Pique from after later audio runs as a touring machine and plays the chainsaw from acid rain, a low pass gate from disting mk4, then through the filter from noise engineering roucha legio the yester versio is used as an effect."

You can find details on Error Instruments Flower Fields previously posted here.

Follow The Pitch | Spectraphon + Disting EX + Instruo Larachd

video upload by Cinematic Laboratory

"We may all know how an envelope follower works, but pitch followers seem to be rare. Disting MK4 and EX have one. Let's find out if it's worth the exploration!"

Hoquetus modularis (featuring Disting EX)

video upload by Electrum Modular

"Exploring the wonderful world of hocketing, using Disting EX's 'Chord Engine'.
Recorded "live", adding only EQ + compression in Logic Pro.

Patch is described in the video. Just one clarification: as the sequencer spits out a new note every 2 bars, and the voices take it in turns to be the recipient of that new note, each voice changes note every 8 bars. As there are 7 notes in the sequence, this piece effectively repeats itself every 56 bars.

The piece excerpted in the first few seconds is “In saeculum breve,” a motet by an anonymous French composer, from the 13th-century manuscript, the Bamberg Codex. To avoid incurring the wrath of the copyright gods, I made my own version, inputting midi into Logic Pro and using brass instrument instead of voices, and adding convolution reverb with an impulse file recorded in a large church.

Gear used:
Qu-bit Bloom
Behringer Neutron
Mutable Instruments’ Plaits
Mutable Instruments’ Beads
Moog Subharmonicon
Make Noise Maths
Expert Sleepers’ Disting Mk4
Expert Sleepers’ Disting Ex
Pamela's New Workout
Quad VCA
ALM's MFX
Doepfer A-151 Quad Sequential Switch
Tesseract Modular's Sweet Sixteen

+ EHX Cathedral reverb

#modularsynth #eurorack #electronicmusic #ambient"

Ritardando (Disting EX's Granulator)

video upload by Electrum Modular

"Exploring the feature-packed granulator algorithm on the Disting EX, controlled via i2C by Tesseract Modular’s Sweet Sixteen faderbank. Thanks to Ed for supplying the Rachmaninoff piano sample. Detailed patch notes in the video.

#eurorack #modular #granularsynthesis #ambient #electronicmusic"

Pointillist Convex Steel

video upload by Uncertain Music Corps

"Feedback trio.

Spring reverb in self-oscillation is processed by a Serge Resonant EQ and the Disting EX Granulator algorithm.

The granulator is controlled by the excellent DistingEX TouchOsc editor available from here

https://patchstorage.com/distingex_ed...

Its pitch is controlled by the MakeNoise 0-Control

No external fx. The Disting granulator has its own reverb stage built-in. The output from the ResEq is recorded dry.

The lows go low. If you want to hear them you know what to do."

Expert Sleepers Aloysius - envelope/function generator

video upload by Expert Sleepers



"'Aloysius' is an envelope with an unusual AHDW (attack/hold/decay/wait) confguration, sometimes referred to as a trapezoid generator. CV control of all envelope times is provided. The envelope can be set to auto-trigger, turning it into a complex voltage-controlled LFO.

The shape of the attack and decay sections can be independently and continuously adjusted from exponential, through linear, to logarithmic.

The module is constructed entirely from analogue parts and discrete logic. There is no microcontroller or digital-to-analogue conversion involved and therefore no quantization of voltage levels or of the response time."

disting EX - Poly FM

video upload by Expert Sleepers

"Poly FM is an eight voice polyphonic FM synthesizer that can load DX7 voice banks.

https://expert-sleepers.co.uk/disting..."

New for disting EX - MIDI Player

video upload by Expert Sleepers

"The MIDI Player algorithm on the disting EX, new in firmware v1.20.

https://expert-sleepers.co.uk/disting...

00:00 Introduction
03:31 Two analogue voices
06:38 Synchronisation options
10:09 Four analogue voices (ES-5 for gates)
12:36 Automatic oscillator calibration
14:33 Drum triggers
16:08 Looping patterns and synchronised file changes
20:51 MIDI output (to a Roland Sound Canvas)"

Top 7 Analog Synthesizers - Talent Keyhole soundtrack.

video upload by Sleepwalk Cinema

What is that at 2:11?

"Analog synths used in the motion picture Talent Keyhole. Available now on Amazon.

Filmmaker Michael Lauter details the analog synthesizers utilized in the Talent Keyhole movie soundtrack. In addition to his own original music scoring, he licensed and commissioned tracks from other notable electronic musicians. Among them, Testube, Night Club, and Dreamstalk which are 100% in-the-box artists. Lauter and S Y Z Y G Y Z, however, use hybrid studio workflows, incorporating analog hardware synths with Digital Audio Workstations. (DAWs) S Y Z Y G Y Z further created an exclusive track just for the feature film.

Movie Trailer:"

Talent Keyhole - Official 4K Trailer

video upload by Sleepwalk Cinema

"Sci-fi noir feature TALENT KEYHOLE. Watch now on Amazon."

Live toolkit: TouchOSC & MIDI control of Disting EX

via ty hodson @ sublevel9 lab

"Control your Disting EX via a TouchOSC control surface running on your phone or tablet, and see those changes reflected in real-time on another TouchOSC instance running on your studio computer. Grab for a knob on your MIDI controller because you like its tactile feeling for a particular parameter, and see those changes reflected on the Disting EX and in the TouchOSC instances as well. Meanwhile, Live is recording all of the parameter changes, regardless of their origin.

Read up on how this all works, and download a pre-built Live set that you can customize for your own MIDI hardware layout."

Expert Sleepers analogue module jam, featuring Amelia

video upload by Expert Sleepers

"Just playing about with the range of analogue modules from Expert Sleepers, with particular attention paid to the new 'Amelia' envelope generator. [see this post for additional details]

The audio is direct from what you see - nothing added elsewhere.

Patch notes (left to right):
- the FH-2's arpeggiator is driving everything.
- Amelia envelope, patched to VCF and VCA.
- 2x Lorelei VCO, tuned in octaves.
- Ivo VCF.
- Persephone VCA.
- Beatrix phaser.
- The DATA is showing the envelope shape.
- disting EX on the right for final delay, reverb, and granulation, controlled via MIDI from the Faderfox UC4."

disting EX - new MPE support & implementation of Plaits in firmware v1.19

video upload by Expert Sleepers

"In firmware v1.19 we've added basic MPE support to the disting EX. Here we show how to set up the Poly Wavetable algorithm to use MPE, including per-note pitch bend, aftertouch, and expression CC."

disting EX - Macro Oscillator 2


"New in firmware v1.19, an implementation of Plaits.

Plaits written by Émilie Gillet.
https://github.com/pichenettes/eurora...

https://expert-sleepers.co.uk/disting..."

Expert Sleepers Amelia - envelope/function generator

video upload by Expert Sleepers

"'Amelia' is an envelope/function generator with an unusual ADBR (attack/decay/break/release) configuration. CV control of all envelope times and of the break level is provided. The envelope can be set to auto-trigger, turning it into a complex voltage-controlled LFO.

The shape of the attack and decay/release sections can be independently and continuously adjusted from exponential, through linear, to logarithmic.

Amelia was developed with use with sequencers particularly in mind, where often you only have a trigger output, not a gate of adjustable length. It allows you to create complex and flexible envelope shapes from that simple trigger signal that can be fully modulated under voltage control.

The module is constructed entirely from analogue parts and discrete logic. There is no microcontroller or digital-to-analogue conversion involved and therefore no quantization of voltage levels or of the response time."

FH-2 Arpeggiator tips #2 - The 'Truncate' function

video upload by Expert Sleepers

"The 'Truncate' function on the FH-2 arpeggiator temporarily shortens the pattern. You can change the pattern while it's truncated."

FH-2 Arpeggiator tips #1 - The 'Arp Reset' setting

video upload by Expert Sleepers

"The 'Arp Reset' setting on the FH-2 arpeggiator tells it to reset the pattern to the first step after a certain number of quarter notes. This can be used for example to force patterns to loop nicely after a number of bars, locking them into the groove."