MATRIXSYNTH: Search results for Richard DeHove


Showing posts sorted by date for query Richard DeHove. Sort by relevance Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by date for query Richard DeHove. Sort by relevance Show all posts

Thursday, April 24, 2025

Echolocator delay on synth, drums, voice and shortwave (no talking)


video upload by Richard DeHove

"First up Erica Synths sent me the Echolocator. That's particularly good of them because I know and I'm sure they know that I would have bought it anyway. After all, I'm the man who bought the Zen delay three times. For delay pedals in general I'm up to about 25 delays bought in the past few years and about 22 sold :D

Here I use the Echolocator with the DB-01, Acidbox III, LXR-02, Tecsun PL-660 radio and the US War Department training film number 471 on triodes and tubes.

No presets are used on any of the examples, it's all live twiddling. The idea throughout is to show the range of real time 'playing' with the delay. Just like the Nightverb I haven't used the presets or programmed any myself, it's so fast to dial in the sound you want it seems better to match things exactly to whatever you happen to be playing. The only thing I think is missing (at least I can't see it) is a WYSIWYG mode where the machine instantly reverts to the current knob positions. The only 'second layer' functions you need to remember are BACK+FREEZE to mute the delay, and BACK+TAP TEMPO to sync to an incoming clock.

Despite the length of this video I've only touched on some of the interesting effects. For example adjusting the compressor makes a huge difference to the feedback; whether the filter is in series or in the feedback loop; playing with the freeze function, and modulation with pitch shifting. So more on all that in later videos. If there's anything in particular you think I should cover please let me know.

Finally, if you notice a slight difference in the video color and position between takes it's because I had to change cameras halfway through.

0:00 Basic synth
3:09 Sparse drums
5:28 Beam me up
6:07 Filter options
8:39 Blippy drums
12:38 Freezy drums
13:34 Long feedback synth
15:11 Drum jam
16:34 Shortwave
18:36 Human voice

Many thanks to my kind patrons who keep this channel ad-free
My website: https://richarddehove.com/"

Sunday, April 13, 2025

Modor DR-2: A solo jam @180bpm


video upload by Richard DeHove

"Some drum machines are built for real-time tweaking, others you program and hit 'play' while you tweak something else. The Perkons drum machine is a real-time tweaker; the LXR-02 is more a playback machine. Where does the DR-2 sit? It certainly has enough knobs and if you can remember some of the (many) shortcuts then there's lots of available functions on the front panel. Then there's the six little knobs above the faders that can be assigned to any parameter per voice. Yet I've never come up with a parameter that I can't immediately access by the front panel anyway so I've never used them.

Here I'm doing pretty basic stuff. There's a single four-bar pattern and two drumkits. I swap between kits, mute various voices and change the overall bar length. It's also very easy to change the step length per voice (just hold down the voice letter and press the step number) but I didn't want to get too tricky since you can't just reload the pattern to reset the length. The pitch drifting synth sounds come from the portamento amount.

In terms of functionality it all works very smoothly. The only thing I find troublesome is that any drumkit or pattern above the first 16 can only be accessed by holding down the 17-32 button and then pressing the step number. That makes fast changes outside the first 16 patterns and kits much more prone to error. It would be much more logical imo if just selecting the number grouping (eg 17-32) meant that's what you automatically get.

If it all sounds a little gritty to you then good! I used plenty of distortion on most of the voices and even applied some compressor which can be quite vicious and I'm not even sure how to turn it off once it's on!

As usual there's absolutely no other processing than what you see. No compression, EQ or any other DAW effect.

Many thanks to my kind patrons who keep this channel ad-free
My website: https://richarddehove.com/"

Tuesday, April 08, 2025

Creating sounds on the Modor DR-2: A detailed expedition


video upload by Richard DeHove

"In the latest instalment of my "If You Want A Short, Splashy, Gotcha Video This Isn't For You" series I noodle about in lengthy detail with sounds on the Modor DR-2. The idea here isn't a quick showcase of wondrous sounds, it's to give you a genuine feel for what it's like to use the DR-2. That means transiting through hundreds of gradations and flavors of a sound. No doubt sometimes you'll hear your preferred sound pass by as I adjust a parameter too far or wind back something too hard. Watching this back I can see points at which I should have stopped but instead kept tweaking. The filtered clap for example sounded pretty good after about 10 seconds but I kept flogging it death :D But that's the essence of this video - as the old saying goes it's the journey not the destination.

A quick note on the audio track: The Modor's buttons are very loud and clicky. It gives them a satisfying sureness in the studio but means they're quite intrusive on video. I did my best to EQ them out, gate them out, and manually mute them when possible. The result in headphones may sound slightly choppy (and somewhat mangled my voice) but I wanted to make sure you could hear the Modor's sounds properly rather than being mixed with room noise and button clicks.

I hope here I've got across the fact that the DR-2 is beautifully crafted to deliver a massive range of customizable sound. It's easy to dial in the basics of an excellent sound, and then have the controls you need to zoom in on what you want. The main problem is when to stop noodling.

Despite the length of this video I only touched on a tiny fraction of the Modor's sounds. If you're interested in hearing more, or any particular types of sound, please let me know.

Finally, Mr Modor if you're reading this: Please make an all-black version with second-layer subtext on the knobs.

0:00 Basic info
2:01 Drum models
2:34 Noise bass drum
7:10 Basic snare
11:42 Filtered clap
18:49 Square bass drum
24:37 Snare adventure
29:55 A tom?
30:38 Crash cymbal
34:48 Electro snare / tom

Many thanks to my kind patrons who keep this channel ad-free
My website: https://richarddehove.com/"

Wednesday, March 26, 2025

Using the DB-01 arp to write sequences


video upload by Richard DeHove

"Jamming with the DB-01s arp is loads of fun; commiting that to a sequence is not quite as amusing. Here I go through a simple method to capture the moment. Better yet, have your arp permanently recording in loop mode and grab those otherwise unrepeatable riffs that can suddenly materialize from nothing. Guest stars: the Boss GEB-7 EQ and Darkglass B3K.

And at the end, some more fun with the arp as it pushes around a Korg Multi/Poly.

0:00 Fake metronome
1:08 Use tracking
1:55 Pattern setup
2:20 It's a trap!
3:25 No start point
4:28 Choose the start
5:05 Cut to taste
5:40 Mod and gate tweak
6:56 Second example
9:40 Add some sprinkles
11:20 Bully the Multi/Poly

Many thanks to my kind patrons who keep this channel ad-free
My website: https://richarddehove.com/"

Monday, March 17, 2025

Five DB-01 sequences from scratch (detailed editing, no talk)


video upload by Richard DeHove

"Ah, my beloved DB-01. Of the many dozen videos I've made about this little beast I've never just done a simple patch-from-scratch walkthrough. So here's here's five very lightly edited examples. Certainly half an hour of button pressing and knob twiddling trying to find a decent sequence on a DB-01 is rather niche entertainment, but there's room for every taste on this fine planet.

Generally the progress toward an acceptable sequence is shown in all its false starts, deleted notes and 'slightly off' glory. The only parts I chopped out were a couple of times when I got obsessively stuck on a single note or two and went round-and-round for far too long.

Of course there are many ways to make sequences: programming single steps at a time; playing and recording a riff in real time; recording the arp or using the randomizer. (I covered all these methods in another video). My current favorite is little chunks of randomizer. I'll select a short range of steps then randomize some or all parameters then edit and copy that. Or, another favorite, randomize the entire pattern but only for gate length or filter modulation.

I do wonder whether it would have been more useful for me to be talking through everything as I went along but so many people seem to prefer 'no talk' videos. In fact the start of the video is a bit slow because I was originally explaining things but decided just to mute it all out. Who knows?

So for those who not only watch this but also take the time to read the description - my thanks.

0:00 One - creating gated hits
1:50 One - adding some bleeps
5:06 One - tweaking steps
5:50 One - adding the LFO
6:30 One - tweak pitchmod
7:00 One - knobs twiddling
8:20 One - LFO again
9:20 One - back to knobs
10:44 Two - 4x4
11:15 Two - randomizer
13:40 Two - save me LFO!
14:30 Two - knob twiddling
15:13 Two - simple solution
16:38 Three - randomizer
17:52 Three - scale issues
19:40 Three - which note syndrome
20:39 Three - knob twiddling
21:04 Four - set scale
21:36 Four - randomizer
23:00 Four - step adjust
23:50 Four - riff hunting
24:12 Four - note cycles
25:12 Four - filling the gaps
26:15 Four - knob twiddling
27:50 Four - FM time
28:50 Five - gates and steps
30:40 Five - note cycles
31:22 Five - LFO power!
33:00 Five - knob twiddling
35:20 Five - arp jam

Many thanks to my kind patrons who keep this channel ad-free
My website: https://richarddehove.com/

Monday, February 24, 2025

Boss SDE-3 delay fully cranked on synth and drum machine


video upload by Richard DeHove

"Yet another delay pedal bought in hope of finding the perfect balance between size, sound and features. I'm still feeling good about this one: It's black, it's small, it has enough features to make it interesting, it takes line level easily, and it can bite hard.

So here's more audio noddlings than anyone might reasonably want. There's a short bit of blather at the start and then it's all audio with the DB-01 and LXR-02. The levels get maxed out a few times but I've kepy everything as is rather than using a limiter. Panning mode begins at 13:10 and continues for the rest of the video. In the drum machine examples the SDE-3 takes the right output and gives it a stereo output. The left side is centred in the mixer as a "dry" out. At times various drum sounds are panned left and right to varying degrees which means there's usually not an entire output going through the delay.

0:00 Blah blah about features
2:35 No more talk, basic sounds
3:30 Deep modulation, stereo
5:00 Heavy feedback, stereo
10:20 Offset knob, stereo
12:15 Wet-dry output
13:10 Panning mode
15:16 Terminator
17:26 Drone fun
20:48 Drums 1
21:59 Drums 2
22:58 Drums 3
23:28 Drums 4
24:35 Drums 5

Many thanks to my kind patrons who keep this channel ad-free
My website: https://richarddehove.com/"

Wednesday, January 29, 2025

Dirty, rotten, filthy Multipoly - (5 sounds no talk)


video upload by Richard DeHove

"Beauty comes easily to the Multipoly, but what about filth? Happy to say that is excels here too. With some cross-modulation, high resonance and a touch of internal drive things dirty up quickly. As always, less is more. Most patches use a single layer with two oscillators, guitar amp drive and master EQ.

For now I'm still in 'standard synth' land with the Multipoly and have yet to touch the mod process page or motion sequencer. I even find adding parameters to the four white knobs a pain. The manual also shows two small mixer sections but I've yet to find them. Meh. It's not an intuitive synth and the manual may be comprehensive at 130+ pages but it's not particularly instructive.

On the plus side it does do weird very easily. In that it does remind me of my beloved Mono/Poly. In fact it delivers weird so well - and of course with perfect recall - that it makes me wonder whether I need the SyntrxII anymore?

0:00 Radio Grit
1:42 Root Canal
3:34 Poker Bass
4:06 X-Mod
4:55 Sickly

Many thanks to my kind patrons who keep this channel ad-free
My website: https://richarddehove.com/"

Saturday, January 18, 2025

Multipoly: Unbox, blather and some custom arp sounds


video upload by Richard DeHove

"I remember my Korg Mono/Poly with great love and nostalgia. My first synth, the machine that taught me about synthesizers, the machine I used in all my early live gigs. Many machines have been bought (and sold) since then trying to recapture some of the weird-arp magic. So the Multipoly was a natural.

Here I can't help but blather about such things and play my first few custom sounds using the Mono/Poly starter template.

Overall I'm extremely happy with it. It's complex, somewhat unfriendly, very menu-divey but has so much going on that the amusement longevity factor and overall usefulness score seem high. Strangely, the only area that has attracted no love from Korg is the arpegiator! Everywhere else there are options galore, but for the arp, almost nothing more than the original Mono/Poly offered. Hopefully in an update we'll get separate arps for each layer - at least.

For those who just want to hear the damn synth without my babbling over the top, there's a no-talk version on Patreon.

0:00 Unboxing
0:40 4-osc alternatives
2:00 One oscillator bass
2:32 Arp with FX
3:26 Manual cycling
4:00 Retro arp

Many thanks to my kind patrons who keep this channel ad-free
My website: https://richarddehove.com/"

Wednesday, January 01, 2025

DB-01 sonic noodlings with Midicake Arp spice (no talk)


video upload by Richard DeHove

"The Midicake 'spice' here is using its new MIDI CC parameter controls to modulate parameters on the Strymon Timeline in real time. The delay parameters getting the four-channel CC treatment are mix, repeats, highpass and smear.

It's a just shame that all the Timeline delay parameters aren't available under each 'engine'. So, for example, the bit rate and sample rate parameters are only available on the lofi engine. Delays that could do this much better would be the Source Audio Nemesis or the Free the Tone Future factory - both of which I sold. Somewhat ironic since the reason I sold both of them were that their best parameters were too hard to access. Either would be brilliant with the MIDI CC power of Arp.

So if you have any gear which hides its best stuff in tortured menus or multi-button secondary layers then the Midicake Arp may be the answer. Suddenly anything with MIDI CC control is instantly available for clocked modulation. It's beautiful.

Not to forget the DB-01. Two years in and the machine still fascinates. Here I start with the unloved parameter combo of the triangle wave and bandpass filter. Together they can be rather anaemic lacking both harmonics and bottom end. Yet with a little drive or sub and careful filtering they can still put in a respectable showing. usually I like a clocked LFO, or at least some note-reset phase LFO, but here it's all unclocked audio-rate goodness. I don't vary the LFO rate because it's roughly "tuned" to fit the full application of FM.

And if you can withstand a full 3+ minutes of solo DB-01 then you have definitely levelled up in the DB-01 club :D

Many thanks to my kind patrons who keep this channel ad-free
My website: https://richarddehove.com/"

Sunday, December 01, 2024

Nightverb automated by the Midicake Arp (no talk)


video upload by Richard DeHove

"Here's a somewhat chaotic collection of MIDI CC automation experiments using the Midicake Arp to generate the data. The Arp feeds the Nightverb synced data which affects the sounds coming in from the LXR-02. The Arp and LXR-02 are running from an external clock.

Originally I was blathering over the top about how it was all done but perhaps just seeing some of the twiddlings, especially toward the end of the video, may get the idea across just as well. I tried to give a wet and dry example of what's happening but this is all pulled from about a dozen or so meandering noodles so forgive me if they're not all perfectly structured. Headphones reveal some of the finer modulation timings. There's also a lot of unpleasant oddities but I thought them worth keeping to show the range of modulation.

The real star here is the Midicake Arp. The new v7 firmware is what opens up synced MIDI CC automation. Unless you've got a good dedicated sequencer, or take feeds from your DAW, chances are this hasn't been easily available. I remember looking into devices which would allow simple synchronized MIDI CC automation a few months ago and there weren't many choices. It's why I ended up selling my El Capistan. I bought that specifically for its "degrading loops" functionality but that only available by MIDI CC. In itself that's not too hard, but if you want it clock synced then that's another story.

Sending four channels of automation to the Nightverb, sometimes with extremely fast LFO-like modulations, did sometimes overload the Nightverb and require a power cycle. This usually happened if I flipped between intense presets while running.

If you have any high-end effect units chances are there are all sorts of interesting things available via MIDI CC. With Arp is very easy to access them in real-time sync. So congrats to Midicake for adding this excellent functionality!

0:00 Tippytap
0:40 Heavy gate
1:21 Distortomax
2:27 Bathroom War
3:30 Synth Mutant
5:08 Squarewaves

Many thanks to my kind patrons who keep this channel ad-free
My website: https://richarddehove.com/"

Friday, October 18, 2024

Trying the new synth models on the Modor DR-2 (no talk)


video upload by Richard DeHove

"Firmware OS013 added four new synth models: saw, square, sine and FM. Here I give them an initial test. First impressions are good. The resonance is pleasantly harsh, the filters have some bite and the sine and FM models are a little quirky. The various quick demo tracks below test out a few different techniques including randomized filter amounts, randomized step fills, synth models panned hard left and right, and parameter locks.

As yet there's no way to play the sounds chromatically with an external keyboard or sequencer. That means inputting notes by the grid and setting the pitch one at a time with the pitch knob. That's not unusual for a machine that isn't designed to be chromatically played, but now that it does have synth sounds that playability would make these models much more versatile. It's easy to imagine a situation where you'd play a pair of synth models from an attached keyboard with velocity, filter randomizations and panning - all while the other four voices continue doing their drum thing. In the meantime there's still lots to enjoy. For example in the video you'll see me transpose various tracks up and down from the root note. An interesting ability.

As always there's absolutely no external processing or effects. This is raw DR-2. And if you'd like to see anything else specific about the DR-2 please let me know.

0:00 Three synths with locks
1:40 Resonant twiddlings
4:06 Res and distortion

Many thanks to my kind patrons who keep this channel ad-free
My website: https://richarddehove.com/"

Saturday, October 12, 2024

How to update the firmware on the Modor DR-2 drum machine


video upload by Richard DeHove

"Everything has its cost. To acquire glorious new features the cost here is the tedium of updating the firmware. Updating the Modor DR-2 isn't especially painful but it is slow. All up about 15 to 20 minutes for the entire job. For those on older machines: When you check your operating system, if you are on OS006 or older you will need to update your bootloader before trying to install new firmware.

A few links that may be handy:
Modor's download page: https://modormusic.com/downloads.html
Send SX for Windows: https://www.bome.com/products/sendsx
SysEx Librarian for Mac: https://www.snoize.com/SysExLibrarian/

0:00 Checking your current firmware
0:56 MIDI input
1:08 Modor sysex file
1:37 Sysex app
2:30 Readme
2:58 Send SX how-to
3:49 Set the speed - IMPORTANT !
4:02 Open the sysex file
4:17 Power into upgrade mode
4:32 Send the sysex file
5:02 Overflow error !!!
6:05 Try again - but slower
7:18 Success !

Many thanks to my kind patrons who keep this channel ad-free
My website: https://richarddehove.com/"

Friday, October 04, 2024

Syntrx II: Say hello to my little friends


video upload by Richard DeHove

"The Syntrx II is typically marketed as a type of modular synth and with many modular performances there's no keyboard. My Syntrx skills aren't at the "no keyboard" level yet so as a variation I thought why not use that versatile star of many situations, the trusty DB-01? It has a keyboard mode and while I'm at it I can feed the signal into the Syntrx.

So a few quick pokes of the matrix and the DB-01 was alive as a source. Even better the DB-01 controls were affecting the Syntrx tones in some FM-ish way. In fact all the DB-01 parameters were doing something to the main pitch!

So that was very interesting and over the course of a couple of hours I tried to isolate and refine the effect. I failed utterly. The more I fiddled the muddier it got. So I went back to the original and this is the result. Truly I don't know what's going on here but it worked. And instead of tweaking the knobs on the Syntrx all the tweaking happens on the DB-01. The sound has definite DB-01 flavors yet is clearly beyond what the DB-01 could do alone.

The routing I attempted was for the processed DB-01 signal to go out of the Syntrx and into the Zen. The core Syntrx sound went through the internal reverb of the Syntrx then to the DAW. So there's two stereo pairs. The sound is exactly as you see it - there has been absolutely no EQ, compression or effects added.

The video is my mashup of two US civil defense videos from the 1950s.

Many thanks to my kind patrons who keep this channel ad-free
My website: https://richarddehove.com/"

Saturday, September 28, 2024

Never mind the polysynths here's the wet reverb (no talk)


video upload by Richard DeHove

"It feels like the good old days of punk to replace a poly synth with a mono. Sure it's never going to do everything a real poly can do, and yes of course it's going to be drenched in reverb because that's the trick, but nuts to those expensive polys, we're improvising.

Star of the show is the Erica Synths Nightverb. It's ideally suited to the job because it has excellent tone-shaping controls. But any reverb that can go 100% wet will do. Synths are the DB-01 and LXR-02 drum machine. Using a drum machine and a reverb to replace a poly synth is especially satisfying. In fact the LXR has some useful features for this: you can cue up separate tones on each voice and then use the faders as a tone mixer, and you can assign velocity sensitivity to some or all parts.

It's a bit rough and digital at times, but bollocks to that.

0:00 DB-01 pad
0:52 Sweet LXR-02
1:47 Testing tones
3:52 Runs
4:27 Dirty digital

Many thanks to my kind patrons who keep this channel ad-free
My website: https://richarddehove.com/"

Saturday, September 14, 2024

An industrial drumkit for the Modor DR-2 (no external FX, no talk)


video upload by Richard DeHove

"The original concept for the DR-2 saw it as an enhanced 909. That's pretty much irrelevant now as the DR-2 has been developed into something far deeper. Yet you can still see traces of its origins in the step entry and many of the core sounds. Personally I'm not a fan of the 909 mainly because it keeps you penned into a defined territory of sound where weirdness is not allowed. I like odd sounds in my drum machines.

I think the great balancing act with drum machines is between providing immediate excellent drum sounds, and providing enough tweakable range to allow genuine sound design and experimentation. At one end you have untweakable machines like the 606; at the other extreme are samplers where the range becomes so vast you can get distracted by endless sample banks. One solution is to have both, but that leads to different problems where you have too many one-trick machines.

Where does the DR-2 sit? You can certainly feel it's 909 roots in that those sorts of kits and sounds fall out of the machine with almost no effort. You can hear that sound in many DR-2 demos: tight bass drums with rimshots, hats and snappy snares. But the parameters are wide enough, and the available drum models weird enough, that you can get away from that quite easily.

That was the aim here: Can the DR-2 move into a more industrial sound without any external processing? It's easy enough to dirty things up with fuzz and EQ, but what about the raw sound?

In the two demo tracks I use a single set of drum models (from left to right): Tom, Ride cymbal, Noise bassdrum, Claps, Claps, and Rumble bassdrum. Each pattern has a slightly tweaked version of those same drum models saved as a kit. I've used the internal tilt filter, parametric EQ and distortion. I'm not game to use the compressors yet - I still need to learn how to tame them.

On the first track I start with just two sounds and am using a polyrhythmic clock in 8/12 time on channel 3. It gives an unsettling feel and constant variation to what is otherwise a simple 16-step pattern.

Of course there's no processing or effects other than what you see. It's pure DR-2. Even the volume between patterns is unaltered.

(And as per the thumbnail image: The DR-2 needs an all-black version).

0:00 Arhythmia
2:02 Dirty Tom

Many thanks to my kind patrons who keep this channel ad-free
My website: https://richarddehove.com/"

Wednesday, September 11, 2024

Syntrx II: First patch


video upload by Richard DeHove

"A few years back almost all my hardware was modular gear. A beautiful 15u all-black monster. A wondrous thing it was with a most fetching array of clock-synced lights. Problem was I never made any music with it. It was lots of fun arranging the modules though. I still have about 80hp left of a few favorites I couldn't part with: Interstellar Radio, the Erica LFOs and some utilities.

I mention this because the Syntrx II is often described as a modular system in a box. Sections are "patched" via the matrix. I've had the Syntrx for an embarrassingly long time and never done anything with it other than admire its good looks. In fact I sold my OB-6 to help pay for it. Yet somehow it just hasn't called.

So here's my first attempt at coherent sound. It took a day to get going. Figuring how to clear the matrix and patch anything took several hours. A couple of hours after that and we have this. It's not much. I tried to get a stereo field happening - and succeeded briefly - then somehow lost it. I was also getting excellent low rubber resonance swells but somehow lost them as well by the time I was ready to record. I battled for quite a while to stop overloading the filter and that seems to have worked.

So I certainly wouldn't say it's easy to get going. Of course that's just me. So far there's nothing here that other reasonably deep synths couldn't do. I know the Syntrx can go way deeper, but I don't want to just make random complex noise. Perhaps the question is how complex can you get while staying somewhat musical? And where is your own subjective boundary of music?

I wasn't going to upload this as I wasn't very happy with it, but then I thought its value is as an example of a 'first try' with a complex machine.

As usual there is no processing or effects other than what you see - the Syntrx itself. The only other element are the vocal samples which are taken from one of my favorite B-grade sci-fi movies: The Time Travellers (1964). It has an excellent score btw.

Many thanks to my kind patrons who keep this channel ad-free
My website: https://richarddehove.com/"

Saturday, September 07, 2024

The ongoing quest for a good simple delay: The Marshall EH-1 Echohead


video upload by Richard DeHove

"Enter the vast realm of Pedal Land and choose your quest. Will it be the ever-popular Quest for the Ultimate Reverb, or will you choose an easy side quest like The Best Classic Phaser? How about one of the original favorites: The Quest for Best Simple Delay.

But what do you call simple? Is the lack of a tap tempo too simple? Does it need more than one core sound? What about the delay length? Is the pedal's physical size important? Will you be happy with mono? Is it simple if it had dual-function knobs?

My idea of a good simple delay is a small footprint, good sound (of course), reasonable delay length, tap tempo, and maybe at least one other sound-shaping function. I don't want any hidden functions or mystery knobs. It needs to have just enough features so you don't keep wanting to slide in your big stereo unit instead.

I recently bought the Arp87 delay to satisfy these criteria and it's a good delay. But I don't use it often enough to remember what the "X" knob does and I've already forgotten how to get into the hidden fifth mode.

Enter the now discontinued Marshall EH-1 Echohead. It satisfies all my criteria and is cheap. It's sort of ugly though quirky enough to get a pass. The knobs are unreadable (I can feel a reknob coming) but with a tap tempo attached and the level set permanently at maximum the only knobs to worry about are the delay type and the feedback.

The EH-1 was released in 2006 joining a range of similarly-styled effects that started in 1998. I couldn't find out when they were discontinued so it's hard to know how old my unit may be. I'm guessing they finished up around 2014. Anyone have any info on this?

Anyway it's been flawless so far, no noise, pot crackle, jack issues or feezes and I've had it running for days at a stretch. It's so good I might even let my Arp87 go (but the DM-2w definitely stays).

As usual there is no external processing or limiting. Slight volume changes that happen when I talk is because the music is ducked against my voice.

0:00 Intro gumpf & specs
2:10 Mono test
3:38 The six algorithms
4:44 Tap tempo
6:17 Ping Pong
7:09 Analog
7:28 Tape
7:54 Multitap
8:07 Reverse
8:21 Filtered
8:36 Slow sounds
11:01 Slow tape
12:04 Slow reverse
12:30 Filter blips
13:20 Conclusion

Many thanks to my kind patrons who keep this channel ad-free
My website: https://richarddehove.com/

Tuesday, September 03, 2024

The polyrhythmic clocks and Euclidean sequencer of the Modor DR-2


video upload by Richard DeHove

"Euclidean sequencers are fun, but nowhere near as much fun as polyrhythmic clocks. Turns out every track on the Modor DR-2 has three clocks. Here I demonstrate some very tame examples sticking mainly to time signatures that won't disrupt the metabolism. Truly strange options abound, the vast majority of which could turn any simple pattern into a jazzified moosh worthy of an opening night of free-form interpretive dance at a modern art gallery.

If my examples here aren't too horrendous I may have another go at some more challenging. For example, mismatched time signatures partially sticjed back together with delicately timed flams and tuplets.

Also demoed here is the Euclidean sequencer. This is a more common feature of many drum machines. What makes this one a little different is that you can have up to 64 steps and hits in each track.

0:00 Activating the clocks
2:15 Assign a clock
2:48 Simple example
4:47 Warping a basic pattern
5:54 Warping a complex pattern
11:03 Euclidean sequencer

Many thanks to my kind patrons who keep this channel ad-free
My website: https://richarddehove.com/
My other channel 'IntraCosmos' of long-play dark ambient textures: / @intracosmos"

Saturday, July 27, 2024

Nightverb: Drone and freeze demo (no talk)


video upload by Richard DeHove

"Here's the Erica Synths Nightverb paired with a DB-01 and Gamechanger Audio Light pedal; then with a DB-01 and Zen delay. In both cases I'm testing drone and freeze settings. The knob position of the Nightverb reflect the actual values. I'm still getting used to the freeze and in hindsight would probably have been better used with some more pad-like chord, but live 'n learn guvna. Routing-wise the Nightverb is always at the end of the chain. When using the freeze function its useful to have a second effect in series so the contrast between the frozen reverb and the dry sound isn't too jarring.

Headphones will help hear some of the beautiful grit and superlow bass.

So after a couple of weeks use what's my opinion of the Nightverb? Well, have you ever used one of the 90s digital synths that has just a single knob or slider to change parameter values? They're a colossal pain to program and feel like they're trying to force you into just jumping between presets. Then compare that to a knob-per-function synth. That's where I am with the Nightverb: Reverb that you play, an instrument that can be tweaked to suit the moment, backed up then cranked. After all, one of the main advantages of hardware over software is that you can do "real time automation" as you play, and it's fun. In fact in all this time I still haven't saved a single Nightverb sound :)

As usual there is no processing in the DAW other than once or twice where I manually adjusted the volume. But there's no effects, compression or limiting etc. Sometimes there's a little high-frequency which is from the Zen. There is no sound source connected to the Acidbox, it's generating it's own sound from high resonance and the LFO. Let me know if there's anything else you want to see and hear.

0:00 Storm (Acidbox & Zen)
1:55 Pinger (Acidbox & Zen)
3:18 Ripper (DB-01 & Light)
6:43 Sleepytime (Acidbox & Zen)

Lots of downloads for supporters on Patreon: / richarddehove
Many thanks to my kind patrons who keep this channel ad-free
My website: https://richarddehove.com/"

Monday, July 15, 2024

An Erica trio: LXR-02, Nightverb & Zen delay


video upload by Richard DeHove

"Two related patterns on the LXR-02 with manual playing over the top. The set-up is simple: A single stereo pair out with the left going to the Zen delay (then out in stereo); and the right going to the Nightverb (also out in stereo).

Some of the voices are panned hard left for Zen-only effect; others right-only for the Nightverb; and some have a little of both. Only using a single stereo pair makes things easy to setup and gives the option to blend between the effects per voice with the pan control.

The Nightverb shows preset 2 "The Temple" but in fact every control is in its actual position. I've happily learned how to use the low and high damp since my "first day" Nightverb video :) The Zen of course is always in WYSIWYG mode. Half the LXR-02 voices are programmed, the other I play manually with the auto-roll function on 16ths. In both patterns the Nightverb and Zen stay on the same settings and I concentrate on playing the LXR-02. There is absolutely no post-processing of any kind, not even output limiting, everything is as you see it.

As always let me know if there's anything you want see in upcoming videos.

0:00 Rubberman
2:49 Wet DAF

Lots of downloads for supporters on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/richarddehove
Many thanks to my kind patrons who keep this channel ad-free
My website: https://richarddehove.com/"
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