undersky | exploring VBrazil's Monsterdrone synthesizer!

video upload by M Hob

"The Monsterdrone is a strange (in the best sense of the word) synthesizer - featuring 8 VCOs arranged over two banks (4 pairs of oscillators) with FM between the two banks, an inbuilt mixer for the 4 voices, and a very fun rhythmic section in lieu of an envelope, an internal clock and 3 filters (2 independent BP filters and a resonant LP). It's a Brazilian synthesizer built by VBrazil Systems (https://www.vbrazilsystems.com/) and it excels at creating thick droning sound and textures (as its name implies).

In this track I decided to simply play the mixer (and rhythmic section) of a fixed tuning on each of the 4 voices as I explore the different possibilities of this great synth, without any other instruments or modulation sources. Everything is played over some beautiful sky footage I've recorded since the spring thunderstorms began here in Brazil during the last few weeks (ending one of the longest draughts in recorded history where I live). To add some atmosphere to the track I used Ableton's Hybrid Reverb with an impulse response recorded at Maes Howe (https://www.openair.hosted.york.ac.uk...), the neolithical cairn in Orkney and used Freakshow Industries MISHBY for some high frequency glitching/tape distortion.

Everything was recorded live on Ableton."