"To begin phasing out my Behringer Neutron (the first piece of electronic gear I ever bought, back in 2018), I’ve just acquired two new oscillators: Intellijel’s Dixie II+ and Shakmat’s Banshee Reach. Both feature a 'soft sync' option, whereas Neutron has only hard sync. Oscillator sync is generally touted for its distinctive timbral effects. I’ve never seen any discussion of its use at lower (sub-audio) frequencies. But looking at its effect on the waveform, I reckoned soft sync might generate some interesting arpeggios. Here are the results of my experiments!
NOTE: the folded shape of these arpeggios led me to also experiment with using a wavefolder (Intellijel’s Bifold). This worked – and has the advantage of preserving the period/frequency of the arpeggio, and thus the time signature. But as you increase the fold, the arpeggio begins to sound too chaotic. I guess there is a sweet spot (or range) between a bog-standard arpeggio and a formless sequence of notes.
Other modules used:
Make Noise's Maths
Intellijel's Scales
Mutable Instruments' Plaits
Expert Sleepers' Disting EX
ALM's Pamela's New Workout
Low Gain's Short Bus
Alright Instruments' Chronoblob"
"My super mini system modular synth.
Assembling from the 3U 52hp to the 6U 52 hp.
Modules used for the music in this video are:
Joranalogue Filter8,
Joranalogue Contour1,
Joranalogue Select 2,
Mutable Instruments Beads.,
Intellijel μJack
and Elektron Analog Four II
Shots Panasonic Lumix S5.
Post, effect in DaVinci Resolve Studio.
"Talking origins, 101 filters, product design and more with Danjel Van Tijn of Intellijel. 🎙✨ // Please consider supporting production of Why We Bleep on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/mylarmelodies"
"Anything I'd say about SeaLegs would come out as a sales pitch. What I can say is that I am a happy customer and it will give a lot of existing delays a hard time if this were a competition. But it's not. A typical Rabbit Hole has a lot of delays to choose the best one for the right job. If you still need to pick your very first delay module, you can safely put it on your shortlist."
Update:
Sealegs Firmware 1.1 Update
"A quick addendum to my Sealegs video. Firmware 1.1 was released while I was making my video and repairing my ShapeShifter so I totally missed it and forgot to check. It adds two important features: Drive can now be set to different positions in the signal path. The Digital mode doesn't shift pitch anymore when you change clock divisions (slider) or trigger Clk with a pattern. So it now comes a bit closer to a Mimeophon."
"I am preparing a video for the Intellijel Sealegs delay which was also good opportunity to refres my limited knowledge of Metropolix, ShapeShifter and Rainmaker. I got the ShapeShifter used, and it's never been in good shape. I never found the time or need to send it in for repairs because it has to go to Canada and there's no warranty.
So when I use ShapeShifter, I need to recalibrate it, or even reinstall the firmware when presets are lost. It has amnesia so my guess is that its memory doesn't survive a long powerdown. I was curious if all the necessary software would still work. I think ShapeShifter was introduced somewhere around 2014 and the digital world is changing much faster than analog.
After installing firmware, my ShapeShifter turns into a super advanced LFO because the VCO still needs calibration. I think it ticks below 1 Hz from time to time. It's useless as a voice in this state, but it can still make amazing sounds. I may have to keep it like this and find myself a new one. But it's not a bad thing."
"Giving the acidlab.de M303, Din Sync OSC303 and VCF303 modules a workout.
Sequenced with a custom patch running in SuperCollider controlled with two Novation Launchpads."
Acid Modules Sound Test (acidlab.de M303, Din Sync VCO303 & VCF303, Eurorack modular synth, filter)
"Perfect Circuit asked me if I'd like to take part in their 'artist picks' gear of the year video for the end of 2023. I said yes, while pondering what gear has brought me joy and lots of nice music making this year ... that bit of gear was the Intellijel Cascadia, which I love coupling with FX but for this particular bit of music making I went with the T Rex Replicator Junior.
A joyous, feature packed and versatile synthesizer and a wonder of lo fi tape delay, a great pairing! So I made the video for Perfect Circuit, made some music, made a patch breakdown and also made a PDF Patchbook outlining all sorts about the patch, alternative gear, mastering electronic music and more. Scroll down for links to it all. Ta muchly!
PATCH BREAKDOWN //
If you'd like to hear about this patch and see how it was made check out this supporting video"
How I Made 'Little Jinx Reel' on the Intellijel Cascadia & T Rex Replicator Jr. // PATCH BREAKDOWN
"I'm using the Intellijel Cascadia and T Rex Replicator to perform a duophonic modular synthesizer patch with great warbling tape echo as a support FX."
"BONUS CONTENT //
As well as making the public patch breakdown video for this I have made a Patreon exclusive PDF patchbook that outlines the whole patch, performance controls, suggestions for alternative gear choices and mastering and producing music like this to be release ready. Access that here // https://bit.ly/DK-patreon"
"2023 is soon drawing to a close—so, we're taking a look back at the year, and taking account of all of the weird and wonderful instruments that gave us some inspiration this year. Synthesizers, drum machines, and Eurorack modules to samplers and effects, this year had no shortage of inspiring instruments.
So, we reached out to some of our friends and content creators to fill us in on their year, asking one simple question: what was the coolest piece of gear you got this year? For some, that meant brand new releases, but for others, it meant sitting down and digging into classic instruments.
In this video, we hear from:
00:00 Red Means Recording on the Elektron Syntakt
01:07 Midlife Synthesist on the Akai MPC X SE
03:20 DivKid on the Intellijel Cascadia
06:30 Jorb on the Roland S1
09:13 Bo Beats on the Teenage Engineering OP-1 Field
12:45 Trovarsi on the Anti-Kulture Precision Disruptor
"Massive Ambient Modular System
