1. Expert Sleepers 'Forever' - Introduction
2. Expert Sleepers 'Forever' - Demo
3. Expert Sleepers 'Forever' and the NT Helper tool
4. Expert Sleepers 'Forever' - the web tool
"'Forever' is an audio freeze/infinite sustain effect based on the "Temporal Freeze" algorithm on the disting NT. It captures sound at a moment in time and sustains it indefinitely.
Three independent freeze voices each have their own gate input and toggle switch, and so can be triggered manually or by CVs from other modules.
Each voice can also overdub, layering up new source material into the frozen audio, and can play back detuned (defaulting to an octave down), adding weight and richness to the sound.
A USB port is provided for firmware updates, configuration, and MIDI control."
"A new feature in firmware v1.17 enables zero-cross detection in the VCA algorithm, which is useful for removing clicking artefacts from very fast envelopes."
"Demo of the Temporal Freeze algorithm's new detuning feature in disting NT firmware v1.17. This allows you to create complex chords from your frozen audio, including the possibility of using Scala files for microtonal tunings.
00:00 Intro and recap of pre-1.17 behaviour
00:46 Smooth transition into detuned (octave down)
01:06 Changing the pitch of detuned voices
02:36 Individual gain adjustment of each pitch
03:20 Further examples
04:37 Scala files for microtonal tuning"
"This video shows the Poly FM (Editable) algorithm, added in firmware v1.15, which is a full DX7 emulation which can be edited in the module, or via SysEx using a computer-based DX7 patch editing app."
https://asb2m10.github.io/dexed/
00:00 Intro
01:19 Editing the voice in the module
02:06 Editing the voice using patch librarian software (Dexed)
"You can layer a synth voice with samples to add interesting texture, crunch, and detail to a sound. In this video I show simple ways to use that technique in a modular synth, and make the sample feel integrated in your sound."
"A walkthrough of a slow-evolving generative ambient patch built around the Expert Sleepers Disting NT and the Shoal plug-in (https://github.com/ormermodular/shoal).
Shoal generates eight channels of notes and gates, which I route internally through CV-to-MIDI and send to an AMYboard running a mixture of Juno-6 and DX7-inspired synth voices. The audio then returns to the Disting NT for bitcrushing and Kirbinator-based mangling before passing through the Delay Magneto algorithm on the FX Aid.
This is only my first exploration of Shoal or perhaps just dipping my toes in. I look at its global scale and tempo settings, per-channel sequence lengths and evolution controls, plus the mute, density and note-range controls available from the main page.
I’m also using a small Python app I vibe-coded to assign built-in and custom AMYboard presets to different MIDI channels. Let me know in the comments if you’d like me to put it on GitHub.
Patch:
Disting NT → Shoal → CV-to-MIDI → AMYboard
AMYboard → Disting NT Bitcrusher/Kirbinator → FX Aid Delay Magneto → Mixer
0:00 Welcome
0:26 What are we going to do?
0:48 Patch walkthrough
1:10 FX Aid
1:30 Disting NT preset
2:00 What is Shoal?
3:15 AMYboard setup and preset manager
3:56 Outro jam"
00:05 Simon Kirby performance
19:24 Patch breakdown
39:19 Q&A with Simon & Os
39:28 Why do you mount the disting NT upside down?
41:18 How did you create the chord sequence for the Max Richter piece?
47:15 How does tempo quantization behave if your playing isn't perfectly in time?
50:57 Can disting NT inputs be turned into outputs?
51:04 Did you ever expect the disting NT to evolve into what it is today?
55:14 Have you used any MPE controllers besides the LinnStrument?
58:32 What's still missing from the disting NT?
59:57 What language are disting NT plugins written in?
1:00:44 Are disting NT plugins VSTs?
1:05:48 How do presets work when you're editing live?
1:07:26 Can you keep playing while loading a new preset?
1:08:20 Would you ever allow users to create custom firmware builds or favourite algorithm sets?
1:10:15 Has the disting NT hardware changed since launch?
1:11:22 How did you arrive at the hardware design?
1:15:58 Could the disting NT have reusable algorithm templates for common setups?
Many thanks to Signal Sound for hosting this event, and especially to Tom for putting together the video.
"On 27 May, we hosted an event diving deep on all things disting with artist, musician, and Professor of Language Evolution, Simon Kirby, alongside Expert Sleepers founder and longtime pal of Signal Sounds, Os. The night began with a performance by Simon using his disting-focused Eurorack system, followed by a Q&A and a look into the depths of the disting NT universe.
"Introduced in the mid-1970s, the Buchla MARF (Multiple Arbitrary Function Generator) remains one of the most powerful, and also one of the rarest, modules ever made. It was part sequencer, part envelope generator, part voltage sculptor. It programmed up to 16 stages of arbitrary voltage shapes, each with its own time, level, contour, and behavioral flags. Using Claude, I have designed a simplified (but also, in some ways, enhanced) 8-stage version for the Disting NT called MiniMARFA. This video demonstrates it through two patches including Suzanne Ciani's Prism Melody (with a Buchla Easel).
"Testing this battery powered mobile setup. The Palette case can be powered via powerbank and with the Bitbox micro I can record within the Modular case itself, without the need of any other equipment. The idea behind it is to take it outside to some special places to record, and maybe add some field recordings in the background.
I finally got to try the Vhikk X after a while trying to get one. The first few hours with it I was not very inspired by it, but kept digging and found this small melody that felt pretty emotional. Ironically the drone bass did not come from the Vhikk, but instead from my favorite, the Subharmonicon.
The Bitbox is here because it can do a lot in such small footprint. It is a sampler in the classic sense, but also is acting as a pseudo-Radio Music module with a radio sample I found, and also is recording the whole piece directly like the 4ms Wav Recorder.
In Ableton I added later on a bit of compression and EQ to even out the sounds.
I have published the first ALBUM that is acompilation of songs, some from this year and some older called "Hipotese". It is available in the streaming platforms and bandcamp. Go check it out!
https://davidfalcon.bandcamp.com
// Patch notes //
Moog Subharmonicon - Drone Bass, modulated from Pam's New Workout
Forge TME Vhikk X - Melody, sequenced from Oxi One and processed with a LPG in the Disting mk4.
1010 Music Bitbox Micro - Synth, piano and radio samples. Records the whole mix that comes out from the Befaco Output Bus. This is what makes the setup truly portable."
"The good folks behind Expert Sleepers hired me to make a video showing the Disting NT doing something interesting - but what that was, was up to me. I figured the NT should be able to power an entire small live system, replacing a boatload of modules in one. And I thought about how James Holden blends computers & analogue filters in his work. And so I built a live system that does just that. Here's it working, how it works, the challenges I had, and the solutions. NOTE: YOU CAN DOWNLOAD THIS DISTING NT PATCH BELOW FOR FREE"
"Plus some melodic piano from the Disting NT. Field recordings + FX all from the iPad. All sequenced by the Subharmonicon, except for percussions (DFAM).
Nice to be back after a long break. I hope you enjoy it!
"Introducing my second sequencer for the Disting NT: Tintinnalogia. This Lua script (written with Claude) is an implementation of 'change ringing.' Invented in 17C England, change ringing is essentially a procedure for ringing church bells. It’s an early example of algorithmic composition, and is also proto-minimalist in its emphasis on a fixed, deterministic process. So...perfect for music-making on the modular!
All Tintinnalogia needs is a sample player with multiple trigger inputs: eg ALM Squid Salmple, Bitbox, or Disting’s own Sample Player.
Random thought: if the number of bells could be increased to 12, the script could be a twelve-tone serialism machine!
Katherine Hunt, 'The Art of Changes: Bell-Ringing, Anagrams, and the Culture of Combination in Seventeenth-Century England,' Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies (2018): connects change ringing to 'mathematical recreations' and to Early Modern ars combinatoria such as anagrams. If there was a meaning to change ringing, it was the 'exhaustion of meaning.'
Margaret Aston, Broken Idols of the English Reformation (2015): specifically, the chapter on bells.
Robert Adam Hill, 'The Reformation of the Bells in Early Modern England' (PhD thesis, 2012): dispels the assumption that bells lost their earlier, sacred meanings in the era of change ringing.
Brian Eno, 'Bells and their History,' Sound Unbound: Sampling Digital Music and Culture, ed. Paul D. Miller (2008). 'The same supply of metal would be made into cannon in wartime and would go back to bells after hostilities were over'
