My heart will go on andd.. SHA!!RrD! | X1L3 Shard

Published on Aug 5, 2019 Nostalgic Ruckus

X1L3 SHARD Desktop | Korg Volca Drum | Eurorack

Published on Jul 15, 2019 Nostalgic Ruckus

"The fact that this device exists is a beautiful thing. But maybe that’s just my opinion. This is SHARD.. in desktop form. A brilliantly rethought out design from the original eurorack module. Harsh noise to bring back your grandmas hearing and maybe help your dad’s tinnitus from all those Steely Dan concerts. Amazing module for experimental drums with a VCA also but that’s for another day. Both this and the eurorack version sound the same. This version has more hands on manipulation. Honestly I feel Shard is best played by hand. It’s part of the experience. The ability to throw it is cool too.

I will stop rambling now. Thankful this thing is a thing but I already said that."

X1L3 - SHARD + NUX TIME CORE - power electronics and harsh noise

Published on Jul 14, 2019 X1L3

"Tenty minute improvised session on a desk top shard through a nux time core delay pedal."

Reminds me of Merzbow, a friend of mine introduced me to. The X1L3 Shard in eurorack has been featured in previous posts here.

X1L3 - SHARD - outside with wireless guitar hook up + battery amp

via X1L3

"Noise, drone and artefact generator. Available in yellow or black. Identical to the eurorack version but with the advantage of more immediacy through more hands on control.

It's capable of generating a huge range of sounds. Drone, data crash glitching, atmospheric deprivation and all manner of unpleasant or quirky sounds. It has a lot of cv/gate control available for automation of oscillator behaviour and also houses a touch interface for disruption of the oscillators. On top of this it also has an audio input which can be used to devastating effect on incoming audio as well as another means of oscillator disruption. It demands that you mess with it. It thrives on it.

Paired up with fx in the chain it can generate some impressive textures. A resonant filter, distortion and delay pedal capable of infinite repeats in line generate some fantastic dark power electronics and atmospheres. If you're familiar with navicon torture technologies or theologian then you'll have a good idea of what to expect there. It's also great for creating incidentals and obscure sounds that you might use as samples or as a layer in film score."

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X1L3 - Underwurlde and Shard - Harsh noise and power electronix

Published on Mar 16, 2019 X1L3

"Trial run of underwurlde (beta) - esoteric delay, looper and texture generator in a power electronics session. The set is dominated heavily by shard, but as it progresses and underwurlde finds it's place the lead is gradually handed over. So if you're curious then it's worth lettig the video run, or at least skipping to a third to mid ay through to get to where underwurlde starts to take the lead roll. Shard is continuously fed through underwurlde. For something fucked up to grap in a looper it does a great job. To then pitch and further abuse that psychosis is awesome. Wreckage provides the backing drone that leads in and out and keeps a drone through much of the set. Soundmachines LP1 lightplanes are used through the whole thing for cv manipulation. I love these things for live work and can't recommend them enough :)

The module was orginally designed to serve as a companion to shard, specifically for those with a desire for unhinged, violent and extreme textures and sounds. It serves the original purpose admirably but can be used with just about anything to add a quite unique slant on things. A past of indulging in circuit bending and a taste for abstract electronica being pivotal to the final outcome of the module.

At the core of underwurlde is a delay with an impressive maximum time and a solid method of manipulating the audio passing through it. Almost as if the ram contents were concrete. It can do the nice 'analogue' delay thing and time wise is capable of three to four seconds before you start to touch on a drop in quality, five to six with the low pass filter closed to mask the start of aliasing and noise. Beyond that it can drop to incredibly long looping with a gradual deterioration into bizarre and unique abuse through to noise similar to a pt2399, but much much better. It can lock the contents of the ram and switch to the function of looper. While in both delay and looper mode a 'ramglitch' array can be activated to mutilate the audio passing through the system. At faster rates you get the kinds o feffects often found in circuit bent digital machines. A circuit bent TR505 would be a good reference point for an example of this. As the rate decreases it gets more and more unhinged. The whitehouse track 'a cunt like you' being a prime example of what it starts to do once the echo/loop rate is slowed down. In a power electronix/noise rig it fits perfectly next to shard as it can provide the rhythmical texture favoured in PE such as NTT and theologian while shard is left to generate more organic artefacts and textures.

Gating is single press on/off on all features. Delay on/off, ramlock, delay/loop fast/slow, ramglitch1, 2 and 3. A gate or trigger will set any feature high or low depending on state. A second gate will revert back.

Ramglitch has a 3x array available to it. On the back of the module are three jumpers. Each of which can be set to configure the ramglitch array according to taste. An expansion module is planned for this which will add another eight gates over an 8 point matrix to the module. Each addressing one of the data lines in the ram/processor interface. Each data line being able to intefere with every other as desired. This will give countless ramglitch combinations which in turn give the module the capability to generate true circuit bent sounds, eliminating the necessity of a circuit bent instrument for those who might be interested in experimenting with such things."

Modified Casio PT-50 by X1L3 | Circuit Bending

Published on Mar 14, 2019 Nostalgic Ruckus

"Modifications: On board resonant filter and delay. Different bend points including pitch with sections called ruiner and damage. Also has drum mutes. The drum beat at the end is the Casio preset rhythm '16 beat'."

TEST SERIES Hexinverter Mutant Machine Drums Eurorack x1l3 SHARD

Published on Jan 30, 2019 Outsider Sound Design

"x1l3 SHARD processing / destroying Hexinverter Mutant Drums.

The purpose of 'TEST SERIES' is to focus on the sound design possibilities of various gear combinations. This series is not musical nor does it serve as an instructional video. It is all about sound potential.
Please consider supporting this channel by purchasing a sample pack or music download from www.outsidersounddesign.com"

Exploring X1L3 SHARD w/ Elektron Machine Drum

Published on Jan 1, 2019 Nostalgic Ruckus

"This is SHARD. Oh my… I’m using a kick from the Machine Drum and plugging it into Shard’s input. The creator Shane Williams aka X1L3 is known for his rather crazy circuit bent devices. I’m sure a lot of his past circuit bent work has inspired this. You get a very similar vibe when messing around with a circuit bent Casio or opening up some old 80s toy and diving into the unknown’s of it’s circuitry to create a box of wonder or mangled horror. The setup is Elektron’s Machine Drum output into Hexinverter’s Mutant Bassdrum’s distortion input then into Shard. The Machine drum’s kick was used instead of the Hexinverter due to needing a longer decay on the kick. The distortion output from the Mutant Bassdrum is then multiplied 3 times. One clean signal so you can hear the kick clean over Shard, one into Shard’s input, and one into Shard’s Atrophy input. The Atrophy input is more for control voltage but I have found plugging other sound sources into the cv inputs create some very interesting layers. There is some reverb then added at the end of the chain. If you are into noise or beat mangling Shard is one of those hidden gems."

X1L3 - circuit bent casio SA-46 - power electronics and harsh noise

Published on Dec 28, 2018 X1L3

"20 minute PE set to check out the noise potential. Probably a bit long and drawn out in terms of demo material, but if you're into this stuff you're probably used to full C60 outings etc. Transition from navicon torture technologies type drone to an escallation into noise at 7.10. If you hate this sort of stuff i probably already know this and the sun will still rise in the morning :)

Where to get and what's in there below:

Drone is constantly triggered via midi as i don't have three hands. The rest is just hands on manipulation and experimentation to see how it behaves in the context of drone and power electronics performance. Filter as a very hot resonance peak when the res is cranked which can be used to cut into the delay loop, even when the loop feedback is maxed out and trying to inject additional audio into it becomes tricky.


Fitted with a monophonic midi interface. The board is polyphonic but the amount of routing and circuitry required to implement this via midi isn't doable in the space available. The compromise is still cool though, giving a mix of automation that can be played over, plus being a bent machine it can pull off all sorts of strange stuff when you spend a bit of time getting to know it. The standard format on the spectrum of nice to nasty - melodic to harsh noise all loaded up in this one.

It has a resonant filter, 'ruiner' ringmod/distortion and a digital delay configured as a circuit bent delay pedal might be - that is untethered feedback and filtering for texture and noise generation and manipulation. Also added is a global pitch control with fine and coarse dials."

X1L3 - circuit bent Casio SA-46 - The Void

Published on Dec 27, 2018 X1L3

"Setting a scene in a melodic set using the midi retrofit and a couple of presets through filter and delay. Backing and percussion generated in the DAW. A proof of concept machine - the panels are homebrew matt blacked FR4 with legend scratched on. The real deal will be the usual screen printed pro affair.

Where to get and what's in there below:

Fitted with a monophonic midi interface. The board is polyphonic but the amount of routing and circuitry required to implement this via midi isn't doable in the space available. The compromise is still cool though, giving a mix of automation that can be played over, plus being a bent machine it can pull off all sorts of strange stuff when you spend a bit of time getting to know it. The standard format on the spectrum of nice to nasty - melodic to harsh noise all loaded up in this one.

It has a resonant filter, 'ruiner' ringmod/distortion and a digital delay configured as a circuit bent delay pedal might be - that is untethered feedback and filtering for texture and noise generation and manipulation. Also added is a global pitch control with fine and coarse dials.

A couple of other vids will no doubt be uploaded by the time or shortly after you see this. They'll illustrate the more volatile, unhinged and hands on nature of these things."

X1L3 - DDX - circuit bent yamaha DD8 drum machine

Published on Dec 19, 2018 X1L3

"Intricate circuit bending and a midi retrofit of a Yamaha DD8 drum machine. Where to get and all about below.

Dwelling in melancholy and wearing the influence on both sleeves (NIN - the fragile)......

Midi trigs coming in from the DAW and CV for pitch and filter cutoff coming in from a yarns midi to cv moduile in the euro rig which is also slaved to the DAW.

The whole set is utilising the 'ruiner' section of the machine. This is a kind of sweepable octave fuzz which at zero gate acts as a really cool grind and distortion and when gate is opened - as in the start of the session - a weird sweepable ringmod/fuzz kind of effect.

Midi is mapped to the four pads and also the eight points on the glitch array, so real time automation of glithing is possible within patters composed on the machine.

Sycopated echo is generated by the delay in the DD which can also be used to misbehave as a circuit bent delay pedal would when the feedback and filtering are untethered.

For sale when available at:
https://x1l3.bigcartel.com/"

TEST SERIES x1l3 SHARD Eurorack Noise Drone and Artifact Generator

Published on Nov 29, 2018 Outsider Sound Design

"Sound design experiments with the x1l3 SHARD Noise, Drone, and Artifact Generator.

The purpose of “TEST SERIES” is to focus on the sound design possibilities of various gear combinations. This series is not musical nor does it serve as an instructional video. It is all about sound potential.
Please consider supporting this channel by purchasing a sample pack or music download from www.outsidersounddesign.com"

X1L3 - NIHIL + X-CORE + WRECKAGE + SHARD - Power electronics and harsh noise

Published on Nov 3, 2018 X1L3

"Powerelectronix session and a couple of beers in a proving ground for the Nihil CB microphone input module and the X-Core nux guitar pedal conversion kit i've been working on. Shit camera positioning means the lower 3U is mostly out of shot, along with nihil. But the sun will still rise in the morning and you get the general idea of what's going on. I'm basically doing spoken word in various styles from a lyric sheet i put together and looping the sum of it with timecore, ending with some feedback by holding the mic up to the cabs at the end for some violent scene conclusion. Time core is particularly good for this as a delay as it can be set to infinite repeats while still allowing you to overdub into the loop and gradually force it to morph and evolve. Vaguely where and what are listed below.

Wreckage is generating the drone that kicks off the track and is later hit with atrophy and modulated with a sound machines LP1.
Shard is generating the rhythmic noise element which is fed through a filter and into the output mixer, it's also being modulated by an LP1. Nihil is routed to the audio input of the second shard in the rig to distort the spoken word which is then routed to the timecore and out to the mixer.

Nihil is a cheap CB mic solution for eurorack rigs to eliminate the hassle of always having to butcher the cables on these things to use them in your set up. It's compatible with passive microphones which utilise the cobra 4 pin standard. CB mic wiring standards can be looked up online and found on most ham radio enthusiasts forums and pages. Like a CB mic itself, the module is cheap, dirty and looks great.

X-Core is a conversion kit for nux time core and mod core guitar p[edals. It provides a neat wrapper and easy build and hands over stomp switching to manual finger press or gate automation. This doubles up as a tap tempo sync on the time core for syncing the delay to sequencing and clock signals."

X1L3 - DDX - circuit bent yamaha DD7 drum machine

Published on Oct 19, 2018 X1L3

"Intricate circuit bending techniques and another DDX demo. A DD7 in this instance. What and where in the description below.

A varied set starting out in the dark with some sludge laden ram glitch. Slow and obsessively tweaked on the filter and pitch to really let what the ddx can do in abstract percussive forms shine through. It then moves on to a more driven section to illustrate it in a more conventional but still mildly glitched format, finally fading out into the dark again with an even more ram glitched and pitched down section where how bizarre it can sound is allowed to shine.

Midi trigs are coming in from the DAW and a yarns midi interface in my euro rig is being used to generate the CV for the filter cut off and pitch. The key roll in the daw is used here to generate the cv levels which allows me to implement intricate stepping from hit to hit and so generate the cool glitchy sequences and incidentals heard in here.

All DD7 through the track. No support from percussion in the daw to nail down the rhythm as is the case on the DD6 demos. The DD6 is a less versatile machine with fewer sounds and a more 'rock' flavour to it. No less impressive but not quite so good on its own at nailing down a hard kick etc. The delay built into the DD7 is generatign a syncopated echo throught the track to add atmosphere to the sum of the slower sections.

For sale when available at:
https://x1l3.bigcartel.com/"

X1L3 - DDX - circuit bent yamaha DD6 drum machine with midi

Published on Oct 13, 2018 X1L3

"Another session on the DD6 with DDX mod for something to do. Slow lead in to a 303 driven second half. Just messing with the pitch and filter cv over the midi triggering. Midi is coming in from the daw and cv from a yarns interface in my eurorack. Which i'm using two channels on and the key roll in the daw to set the two CV levels.

DDX pads can be triggered via midi or gate inputs and the glitch array can be accessed manually or via midi. A fine machine for abstract percussive elements, especially when under pinned with a regular beat to drive it. It can also serve as a nasty fx and noise generator which will be illustrated in some more uploads soon."

X1L3 - DDX - circuit bent Yamaha DD6 drum machine with midi

Published on Sep 28, 2018 X1L3

"Total conversion of a yamaha DD6 drum machine based on a kit.
Details below.......

Kits and fully modified units will be for sale when available.
https://x1l3.bigcartel.com/

Occasional updates on what's being built and when.
https://www.facebook.com/X1L3.co.uk/

The kit turns what is more or less a toy into something of a work of art in terms of abstract glitch percussion and esoteric noise maker.

In stock form the machine has 99 preset rhythms and the four pads are triggered manually. The kit i've been working on opens this right up and takes it to a totally different level. The machine in the video here is being triggered from my DAW. There's also a yarns midi interface in my eurorack being used to provide midi to CV sequencing to both the pitch and the filter cut off on the DD. Some additional hi hat and clean percussion is bought in mid way to drive the track but otherwise it's all glitch and abstract drum work from the DD6. A nice example of combining the vanilla with something less ordinary :)

Included in the conversion are the following mods:

+ MIDI control added to pad triggering and control of the glitch matrix by means of note on/off gating over one octave.
+ Gate inputs to the four pads for triggering from gate/trigger capable gear such as a eurorack.
+ Cv control over pitch and filter cut off.
+ Ruiner - distortion and ringmod hybrid
+ Digital delay. Untethered to behave as a normal delay or as a circuit bent guitar pedal would behave. Self oscillation on feedback loop etc.
+ Low pass resonant filter with self oscillation.
+ 8 point rom glitch matrix

When available the kit will consist of panel, control and brainpcbs and a pre programmed chip for handling the midi. All of the smt passives will be pre soldered and the builder will need only to populate a small number of the parts count and wire it up to the target machine. A PDF how to will be available to guide you through this.

DDX kit will mod a DD6, 7 and 8 with the only changes being in the tracks that need to be cut on the DD and the locations in which the control wiring is to be soldered to the machine.

A kit to mod the DD11, 12 and 14 is also in the works and will appear at a later date,"

X1L3 - MIDI to gate eurorack module + NUX timecore total conversion

Published on Sep 22, 2018 X1L3

"4HP eleven output midi to gate module.

Being used here for drum sequencing duties. Starting out with the CB55 module built with the DR55 clone pcb from circuitbenders.co.uk. An elements is tied to the midi to gate to add an air of melancholy and mid way two peaks are added to escallate the track and nail down the drum section before the track starts to drop out. The last gate is reading a continuous note on/off track from the daw to create a sync clock for the NUX timecore. I alter the time signature subtly towards the end which you can hear in both how the NUX suddenly tries to shift tempo and also the slow delay fade out in the last few bars. A simple demo really, just something to show how much this little module can do. My daw is used for the melodic backing and bass etc. Too lazy to knock it up on the rig today :P

Reads incoming date on Channel ten and responds to middle C up through the next ten notes. Not on will set a gate high and hold it until the note is released, setting the gate low again.

Countless uses for this one. Clocks for anything tap tempo enabled, sequencing duties, adsr triggering etc etc.

Also in the rig here is a NUX timecore digital delay guitar pedal converted to eurorack with homebrew pcb and panel test pieces made on my 3040 cnc router.. It now has input and output buffers to make it suitable for euro level signals and a gate input on the front panel which allows you to engage and disengage the effect or send a clock to it to sync thetap tempo. Really cool delay with loads of modes and a decent sound. The CB 55 drums are fed through this throught the demo. A total conversion kit is underway for anyone wanting to mod their own :)"

X1L3 - Shards and Wreckage - harsh drone and percussion

Published on Aug 5, 2018 X1L3

"Harsh drone and drums power electronics session with some cool use of a shard and a couple of ADSRs tied to VCAs as a percussion generator.

Shard 1 - It's got a soundmachines LP1 lightplane at the atrophy input which is synced to the grids module. The grids module is using the remaining two trig outputs it has to trigger the two ADSRs, these in turn are controling two VCAs. Combined they create a cool distorted drum track. The output is split into two. One instance fed into clouds for reverb and the other raw to the mixer.

Shard 2 - This has a braids module fed into the audio input to blend with, disrupt and grind with the shard oscillators. Heard to varying degrees of dominance at various places. Anything that happens on this shard is manually controlled, this comes into play heavily in the closing of the session. The output is fed into a VCF which is then hooked up to the mixer.

Wreckage - This has an LP1 connected to the atrophy input and the audio out is connected to a VCF and then fed into the mixer. The VCF also has an LP1 hooked up to modulate the cutoff. Wreckage gets used for violence and high frequency stuff and later on for fucked up glitching and noise. Taking the lead as the set fades away."

X1L3 - Shards and Wreckage - power electronix on eurorack

Published on Jul 31, 2018 X1L3

"In the zone for the sake of something to do.

Shards and wreckage available at:
https://x1l3.bigcartel.com/

Shard one = braids at the audio input - split into clouds and a resonant filter, both into mixer.
Shard two = into resonanat filter into mixer.
Wreckage = raw into mixer.

CV generated by 1x grids into 3x ADSR and 3 soundmachines LP1 lightplanes..."

X1L3 - WRECKAGE - power electronics and harsh noise eurorack module

Published on Jul 7, 2018 X1L3

"A skim through the components of wreckage.

Originally given away with the first ten shard modules sold. The internals have been re worked to run at about ten times the speed of the initial design. Making for a somewhat more brutal and psychotic animal :)


Both flying solo and with cv modulation support from several soundmachines LP1 lightplane modules..To wrap it up it's put side by side with a shard module, being fed into the shard audio input.

6 x oscillators - 3 x fragments 3 x shards. CV over pitch of each osc with built in attenuation.
Atrophy chaos amplification.

Presented here in a few short sessions. Initially all hands on and later using cv automation and manual manipulation to make it do what it does best.

Clean through the run with no fx other than the intro section and fade out."

Circuit Bent X1L3 ROLAND TR50

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This is the one just posted here.

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