cicadidae | ambient/drone music with modular synthesizer

video upload by M Hob

"Cicadas are coming back this year and their song blends more and more each day with the landscape. I wanted to compose something which evoked my feeling when I listen to these wonderful insects buzzing away late on the afternoon. Most of my music is completely improvised (often building from how a certain patch performs or over randomized sequences) but for this track I wanted to try something different: composing a more rigid structure around which I could play.

Before I started this channel most of my music playing was strictly interpretational (playing from sheet music). I feel confident enough now that having something to guide me will do just that: guide, not impose strict guidelines.

The track was performed on the Monsterdrone using VCV Rack as a tuning guide (while playing with the pitch knobs) as a mixer through NYSTHI's Vector Mixer. I programmed the Crow to create a Lorenz attractor which controlled the position on the Vector Mixer, creating the orbiting feeling of the 4 voices on Monsterdrone. This enabled me to react and interact with the evolution of the song by choosing at what moments the song would intentionally evolve. The Minibrute added a deeper droning voice, controlled by the 3 position parameter on the Lorenz attractor. This voiced was shaped by a long looping envelope which hopefully adds a subtle rhythmic wave to the track."

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."

Synth Diy Guy Featured Builder: Vinicius Brazil!

Published on Sep 2, 2017 Synth Diy Guy

"A visit and a chat with my partner and teacher Vinicius Brazil of VBrazil Modular.

Here´s a translation of our conversation:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/slwj5baadyx..."

" SYNTH DIY GUY - Featured Builder - Vinicius Brazil
Q - Hi Vinicius! V - Hi
Q - All good? V - All great!
Q - Tell us a little bit about your path, how you got started with electronics and music.
V - I arrived at electronics thanks to music. When I was a kid, 15 years old, I got my first guitar, and in Brazil it was very expensive to acquire guitar pedals. So I started to take some of my friends’ pedals and study their insides, this was in the 60 ́s, and from there I started making my own pedals. Copying at first, then creating muy own solutions. This got me excited and I went on to study Electronics and graduate college as an Electronic Engineer.
Q- Cool, and what kinds of pedals did you make at first?
V - All were guitar pedals. I started of course with fuzz and distortion, then on to more sophisticated things like flangers, phasers and delays. This was during the 70 ́s. In the end of the 70 ́s synthesizers started attracting me. That ́s when I built my first semi modular synth in 1978/79.
Q - Do you still have that synth?

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Fernando Lima Monsterdrone System

Published on Dec 29, 2014 Fernando Lima

See the VBrazil Systems channel below for more.

Modular Synth + Monsterdrone

Published on Nov 2, 2014 Fernando Lima

VBrazil Systems Monsterdrone

Testing CV Toolkit by spektroaudio.com

Published on Jan 7, 2014 Junior Stupp·12 videos

"Using the CV Toolkit, a very useful app to trigger and control modular and anlalog synths with C.V input, in this video i'm using it to trigger and control the subphatty, the minitaur and the monsterdrone.
To see more about the app go to www.spektroaudio.com"

VBrazil Systems Monsterdrone Controlled by Modular & More

via Vinicius Brazil on Facebook

2 drones operated manually
1 drone controlled by MultiLFO (Noise + S&H)
1 drone controlled by Lizard2 (SEQ Mode) — in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.



"Aether System One Modular Synthesizer"



"Drone Therapy"

Monster Motun

"Jamming with new [VBrazil Systems] Monsterdrone synth"

VBrazil Systems MonsterDrone Birds

MonsterDrone Birds by Vinicius Brazil

Watch your audio levels on this one.

"MonsterDrone bird´s simple simulation"

MonsterDrone

YouTube Uploaded by andrepaumgartten on Aug 2, 2011

"Demonstração do MonsterDrone. Equipamento 100% analógico fabricado por Vinicius Brazil. Mais informações: http://www.vbrazil.eng.br/MonsterDrone.html"

VBrazil Systems "Monster Drone". See this post for some pics and details.

VBrazil Systems "Monster Drone" - A New Modular Hardware Synth From Brazil

Introducting VBrazil Systems and their first modular hardware synth, the "Monster Drone".

"Technical Specifications:
- 4 independent Drone Generators (8 real analog voltage controlled oscillators)
- 3 band frequency control VCO´s (LFO, Mid, High)
- Triangle and Square waveforms for all VCO´s
- 4 Modes of FM in each Drone (VCO1->VCO2)
- External CV input (CV/Hz) for each VCO (external control/FM)
- Individual Drone control level
- Master Mix output and 4 individual Drones outputs
- AM programmable block with internal/external clock control
- Filter Block with 3 band resonant filters"

Two units (pictured) have been produced and sold.

To their knowledge this is the first modular synth from Brazil.





MonsterDrone Demos by Vinicius Brazil

You can find additional demos here.

"This one is from an experimental musician from Rio, Mr. Rodrigo Miravalles: [link]

And, finallly, the machine with a Virus TI Snow: [link]"