Nine splendid Strymon Timeline transmogrifications (no talk)

video upload by Richard DeHove

"Six of the Strymon Timeline's 12 delay modes are featured here, most from the less used "back of dial" zone. The Erica Synths DB-01 provides the raw material to transform. Both machines are running at 74bpm synced from the ERM MIDI Clock on the right. The DB-01 is going straight into the Timeline and from there straight into the DAW. Absolutely no other processing of any kind.

The Timeline is now more than 10 years old yet is still one of the top choices for delay. Since it was so famous I avoided it for ages thinking others must have surpassed it in the meantime. Yet it seems with all its fine flavors and excellent ergonomics it's still very hard to beat. I've churned so many delays it's painful to contemplate but this one looks like staying. I only wish I'd waited just a couple more months and got a midnight edition one instead of the awful greenish bug-guts color.

0:00 Ice presets (2)
1:30 Ducking presets (2)
3:12 Swell preset (1)
4:10 Tremolo preset (1)
4:58 Filter preset (1)
5:48 LoFi presets (2)

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/"

Strymon phaser shootout: Zelzah vs Mobius (no talk)

video upload by Richard DeHove

"The Strymon Zelzah phaser vs the Strymon Mobius is a music-only comparison for hardcore phaser fans! There aren't too many true stereo in and out phasers and Strymon have two of them. I bought the Zelzah first and have been very happy with it, but after buying the Mobius I've begun to question whether I really need the Zelzah as well. But can the multi-effect Mobius do as well as a dedicated phaser? Here I've tried to match the sounds reasonably closely and mainly stick to 4 and six stage examples. The Zelzah can also do chorus and flanging but it seemed to be stretching things a bit to go there as well so I've stuck with the phaser. Both units were set to maximum stereo width for the entire demo.

Conclusions are up to the listener but to my ears they sound very similar. The Zelzah at times had a brighter and cleaner edge that I couldn't get on the Mobius, but the Mobius was able to get a much deeper effect which I often had to dial back to match the Zelzah. The synth used for the demo is the Rev2 8-voice.

0:00 Six stages pad
1:40 Six stages pluck
2:30 Barber pole
3:35 Four stages notes
4:14 Four stages pad
5:10 Six stage warbles
5:40 16-stages vs Zelzah 4+6 mode
6:57 Six stages - no feedback

My site: https://richarddehove.com/
Lots of downloads for supporters on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/richarddehove"

PWM Malevolent meets the DB-01 (No FX & No talk)

video upload by Richard DeHove

"What better to team with a dirty DB-01 than an absolutely filthy Malevolent :D Here the DB-01 feeds the Malevolent some CV and provides a percussion-like bed for some simple keyboard noodlings. This isn't an exploration of the Malevolent, more just a momentary discovery that I recorded. I'm not sure that the knob and cable positions were all significant but small changes made big differences so I kept to playing with the filter and resonance knobs (which deserve to be a lot bigger) and a little touch of FM1 and FM2 amounts, all slopped over with near-maximum drive. The setup: The DB-01 is sending its clock to the Malevolent's back-panel clock-in (which keeps the arp in sync). DB-01 CV out is going to FM2 in; and the DB-01 Gate Out to FM1 in. The Malevolent is also sending its own gate to AM2 in.
There's no effects on either machine, nor is there any DAW EQ or other fiddlings. It's all raw as you see it. The two scope displays show the direct output of each machine.
More Malevolent videos when I start to understand what's going on.

0:00 Filthy stuff
1:13 Filthy arpegiator
2:35 Happy arpy filth
3:30 Simple filth

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/"

Amplitude X-Time delay: Long noodle (& BPM rant)

video upload by Richard DeHove

My site: https://richarddehove.com/ Lots of downloads for supporters on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/richarddehove

"I wanted a delay that I could control by manually setting a BPM rate. I have plenty of rate-knob delays, tap tempos delays and a a MIDI-clock controlled delay. But there's nothing like a full workstation-style delay where you can dial in a BPM rate. Unfortunately the X-Time isn't it. I was astonished to discover (and have confirmed by their support people) that you can display BPM. The options are millseconds or time divisions of either a global set BPM or incoming clock.

That means the primary reason I bought this machine is lost. Of course the obvious answer is that I should have done my research a bit better. OTOH every complex workstation-style delay I've ever heard of can display BPM. Weird. Maybe it'll be addressed in an update.

In the meantime I thought there was still some value in watching a noob flub about with the different modes and also butchering some presets.

In short, this is not a performance machine, it's a preset machine. Craft your sound, store it, then recall it.
If delays were people then the Erica Synths Zen delay would be your wild but happy friend; the X-Time would be the grumpy uncle who works at Microsoft."

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Dark ambient music: Fear Has Brought You Here

Richard DeHove

"Gloomy, anguished track featuring the 01/IV [The Division Department] doing drums and the repeating bass squelch, me bashing metal together (then later pitched down), sampled unhappy crowd noises, and the Sub37 doing all the rest. Wasn't sure about the genre. 'Dark Ambient' was what I settled on although perhaps it has too much thump and clunk for anything claiming to be ambient? Maybe Electro-Industrial, Electronica, Dark Wave or even synth wave? All genre advice appreciated.

The track was written at DubDub studios and mastered by Scott Craggs at Old Colony Mastering.

If the metal clunk sounds appeal then you can download 16 free samples, most of which were used in this track:
https://richarddehove.com/download-on...
A full pack of 60 samples is available at the same link for $4.

If you like the track it's available at all the usual music providers, Spotify, Apple, Amazon and Deezer being some of many:

Fear Has Brought You Here:
https://music.apple.com/us/album/fear...
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08...
https://open.spotify.com/album/7hjlQi...
https://www.deezer.com/en/album/16707...

My site: https://richarddehove.com/
Finally, if you read this far you might even visit my Patreon page where supporters can download all my music as well as all the original raw metal hits I made for "Fear" by bashing on an empty skip:
https://www.patreon.com/richarddehove"

Strymon Zelzah & DIG: No talk noodle with an OB-6

video upload by Richard DeHove

"I've been slowly trying to come up with the best but minimal effects replacement for the OB-6 internal effects. I like the OB-6 disortion but the others don't really inspire. The combination of the two Strymons might be the answer. On this little noodle three sounds are played live on the OB-6, dry then with the Strymon Zelzah and DIG. The Strymons are on the same settings for all three sounds. You can see the settings on the Zelzah pretty clearly. For the DIG the two big knobs are showing the secondary function positions - so the left knob indicates dotted eighth-note base delay and the right knob a flat filter response. Modulation is light and the type is 12-bit in ping-pong mode.

The first sound features the maximum possible OB-6 distortion :) Other than this the OB-6 plays no effects and there's nothing added in post - just the Strymons and the OB-6. The second sound has some light distortion and is in unison mode. The third sound is a classic little proddy-squelch thing with a theme that's a nod to Gary Numan.

0:00 Distortion patch dry
0:21 With Zelzah
0:43 With DIG delay
2:44 Drone patch dry
2:57 Drone with Zelzah
3:06 Drone with DIG
3:45 Proddy thing dry
3:56 With Zelzah
4:07 With DIG

My site: https://richarddehove.com/
Lots of downloads for supporters on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/richarddehove"

Finding Throbbing Gristle on a DB-01

video upload by Richard DeHove

"What happens when you push audio-rate CV modulation into the DB-01 ? All sorts of interesting squawks and overtones. Here I experiment with feeding the audio output of a Schlappi Engineering Interstellar Radio into the filter and pitch CV inputs of the Erica Synths DB-01. After a short blab session explaining the basic parameters I switch to a slow FM drone and the Throbbing Gristle fun begins. For fans of the 20 Jazz Funk Greats album, the end of this video attempts to channel the memory of the wonderous Hamburger Lady.
The effects used are what you see: a Boss GEB-7 bass EQ, then into a Donner White Tape delay, and finally a Boss RV-6 reverb on the 'delay and reverb' mode. No DAW effects used except for some very gentle limiting on the master output.

0:00 Intro blabbing
2:20 Pattern noodling
4:50 Setting up the Gristle
6:00 Daisy the Cow
6:40 Throbbing begins
9:00 Maximum Gristle

My site: https://richarddehove.com/
Lots of downloads for supporters on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/richarddehove"

Verdens Undergang: Dark ambience from Interstellar Radio

video by Richard DeHove

"Audio here is 100% generative and is an untouched, unedited slice (starting at 53-minutes in) from the 9-hour MP3 download version. Tones are from a relatively simple Eurorack patch with Interstellar Radio's (IR) two oscillator outputs going into an Erica Synths Black Dual VCF left and right. IR left-CV is being fed by a separate random source, right-CV from the error output, while the VCF is also getting smooth random CV into both sides as well as into resonance. A little noise is separately being fed through Anglegrinder. The whole thing then goes through a little Valhalla delay and Fabfilter Pro-R reverb. Pro-Q3 pulls everything into mono below about 200Hz which helps tie it all together. The stereo separation of the two oscillators is especially clear with headphones.

Video begins with a clip from Golem (1920), with the remainder being from the 1916 Danish sci-fi short Verdens Undergang (The End of the World).

Patrons can download a 9-hour long 256K MP3 of the audio. It is a full 9-hour one-pass stream and has no loops. Makes rather good sleep audio!

My site: https://richarddehove.com/
Lots of downloads for supporters on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/richarddehove"

Smell the EHX Glove

video upload by Richard DeHove

"If you don't know the movie 'This is Spinal Tap' this video isn't going to make much sense, so here's a quick explainer. Spinal Tap is a 1984 fictional documentary about the rock band Spinal Tap. Among their many problems is the cover of their new album 'Smell the Glove'. The band wanted a greased woman on all fours smelling a glove - shops and the record company say no.
So the video intro is a few seconds from the movie and images are my AI-generated prompts attempting to create a 'Smell the Glove" album cover.
As for the audio: The DB-01 is going into the Oceans-11 reverb (which is usually off) then in The Glove, then to the Nemesis delay. There's a tiny bit of EQ in the DAW.
Drums are from the Perkons going into the Death By Audio Rooms reverb. That then gets another layer from the Fabfilter Saturn plugin in the DAW. So hardly a clean or produced drum sound but meh, this was meant to be a simple demo of the Glove pedal, but that got 'out of hand' hahahahahaha.

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/"

Dual DB-01s in three flavors: Pattern, Keys and Drone

video upload by Richard DeHove

"DB-01s in slightly more exotic flavors. The setup is two DB-01s, one left, one right, going into the Strymon DIG delay in ping pong mode and/or into the DBA Rooms reverb. The on-screen display shows the separate channels. In the first "Patterns" section there's two 64-step patterns and I let it run as I tweak the knobs.
The second part is "Keys" and started out as me just mucking about after I thought I'd finished the video. But I stumbled on the old riff to the title track from my 2007 album "Worlds Beyond Number". Yes, I used to play such sweet and gentle stuff :( I thought it was interesting to show the DB-01 in a more thoughtful mood with the slow attack happening via the LFO. The third section "Drone" was inspired by the recent dronescape videos. With effects the DB-01 really excels at live dronescape performance. I think there's a lot of territory in there to explore.
If there's a point to this video I think it's to explore your machines. I've always thought that every synth has its obvious sound, the one that's easy to find, places that the knobs are willing you to go. Some machines don't have much beyond that, others can surprise.

0:00 Pattern flavor 1
0:27 Flavor 2
0:52 Flavor 3
1:17 Flavor 4
1:30 Flavor 5
1:52 No flavoring
2:13 Keys theme
3:53 Dronescape

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/
My other channel 'IntraCosmos' of long-play dark ambient textures: https://www.youtube.com/@intracosmos"

Vermona PerFourMer MkII: Noodlings with a Zen delay

video upload by Richard DeHove

"After many enquiries and much nagging I was finally able to buy a Vermona PerFourMer MkII - for a machine that's been around almost 10 years these things are hard to get! The original was released in 2003 and the MkII in 2012. Had mine for about a week now and it's a beautifully engineered knobby beast. Am really enjoying cycling through the four oscillators and the delight in this reminds me of my first synth, the Korg Mono/Poly. The Vermona takes things a lot further than the Mono/Poly though with individual flters, LFO and envelopes.

In this noddle the Vermona is in Poly2 mode with individual insert effects on each oscillator: a Vahlbruch SpaceTime delay, Phase 95, and two channels of the Boss RV-6 reverb. As things progress I add in the Erica Synths Zen delay on the stereo output. It's on digital ping pong mode with a gently overdriven input and some bandpass filter. Finally I add in some Zen overdrive before finishing with basic Zen again. In hindsight it may have been better to roll off some of the top end of the reverb, pan oscillators 3 & 4 left and right and turn off the Zen ping pong. But then every little knob twiddle changes the flavor slightly and eventually you just have to plate it up and serve. If you've read this far you're probably a hard enough synth nut to appreciate the special love I have for osillator 4 in this noodle. It's the low "boom" hit that sounds every now and then. It's just a simple triangle wave with no special settings at all but somehow with the reverb it manages to sometimes sound like a cavernous drum. Had to sell quite a bit of stuff to fund this one, including the very interesting little Norand Mono, which was a bit of a shame. Still, no regrets in having the Vermona! I've got all sorts of things queued up waiting to try :)

0:00 Intro blather
0:44 Dry oscillators
1:08 Insert effects
1:19 Effects demo
1:48 Cycling through
2:22 Noodle with effects 1
3:00 Zen delay added
4:05 Overdrive added
5:35 Silly amounts of overdrive
6:10 Minimal beauty again

My site: https://richarddehove.com/
Lots of downloads for supporters on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/richarddehove"

MidiCake Arp embiggens the smallest mono synths

video upload by Richard DeHove

"It's a rare day that I'll abandon the superb sequencers of the DB-01 for an external source. Much is lost when you go external - accents, filter modulation and pitch envelopes just for starters. Yet the MidiCake Arp gives in return: Powerful one-finger pattern-play, gate length modulation, 32nd notes and even patterns with portamento.

So here are five example Arp patterns ranging from somewhat cheesy to somewhat dark. Ideally I would have used lots of other effects, but I wanted to keep everything compact so one DB-01 gets the DM-2w delay, the other gets either the Astronaut reverb or Nemesis delay.

For some reason the Arp locks the DB-01s LFO sync to one rate, so the LFOs are always free-running. Other than that it was very smooth. The DB-01s are of course in "key" mode because that's what's needed to trigger them. A useful byproduct of this is that the DB-01 portamento can now be used in sequences!

The MidiCake Arp is an amazing little machine. Complex, but amazing. After many hours I know I'm just scratching around doing pretty obvious things yet that's still very satisfying. I rather like that its possibilities are so vast you can choose your own way into its abilities. In the five examples I mostly have 'play' mode enabled which means the patterns run as a continuously synced whole. In others 'play' mode is off and I manually trigger things (tracks 4 & 5), which is much more unforgiving, but gives a little more flexability. In any case you can see how simple the basic notes are against the complexity of the result.

As usual I've kept everything simple (ie without drums etc) so you can get a good idea what's going on. And no DAW post-processing of any sort.

0:00 Flutterings
0:56 Memories
2:16 Pokery
3:25 Sliders
4:42 Regrets

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/"

Just Keep the Faith - dark ambient space music

Richard DeHove

"The quote at the start says: 'We've worked so hard; we've come so far.' The reply is: 'Just keep the faith and courage you've always shown'. Music is primarily made from the Sub37 along with patches from my Omnisphere Human Voices Redux library and the Insolidus choir library. You can doanload the song at all the usual online music stores - a few choices below. Patreon subscribers of course can download the 320K MP3 direct. Video uses footage from the 1936 movie "The Shape of Things to Come" based on the HG Wells book.

Just Keep the Faith:
https://music.apple.com/us/album/just...
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08...
https://open.spotify.com/album/2bss9m...
https://www.deezer.com/en/album/16707...

Omnisphere Human Voices Redux patch set:
https://richarddehove.com/soundware/h...

Finally, if you read this far you might even consider visiting my Patreon page:
https://www.patreon.com/richarddehove"

Tortured DB-01 filter harmonics soothed with a Big Sky (no talk, possibly no music)

video upload by Richard DeHove

"I like melody. Looking back at when I played synth-punk live back in the day, the music then probably had too much melody. Well, I'm making up for it here. It's just playing with sweet-spot harmonics made bearable by the newly-bought Big Sky. Too nuanced? Too nerdy? Not even music? Maybe, but look at them harmonic peaks :D

In my recent post asking whether I should send back this glowing blue reverb cliche a sizable group voted for "Make some videos and we'll let you know". It's got to be some praise for the Big Sky that these droning harmonics suddenly became sweet to my ears. In fact I didn't intend to make a video about this at all. I was just booting up the new Big Sky to make sure it worked (after my sad experience of a DOA Line6 DL4), got to preset number 2, tweaked it, twiddled the DB-01's filter knob, and here we are.

So there's some hesitation in posting this since it seems incredibly obscure. Five minutes of resonant squeals? Yet I found it strangely hypnotic and satisfying. The only other filter I've come across which was even close to the Polivoks in twiddle-fun was the classic Moog ladder on my now long-departed Sub-37. It is also fun to discover separate tones with tiny filter movements. OTOH maybe it's just the Big Sky doing all the work?

Perhaps it's best to look on this as you would a dreamy session on a Lyra-8: It's not so much music as a brainwave meditation session. And that's not bad at all for a little mono bassline synth.

As usual there is absolutely no processing other than what you see: A DB-01 and the Big Sky (plus the old sci-fi samples).

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/"

You love that machine? A DB-01 synth solo performance

video upload by Richard DeHove

"This piece began as a demo for the Boss SL-2 slicer pedal. After noodling with it I thought it'd be interesting to slice up a distorted sound, so added the trusty Darkglass B3K which just loves chewing the the DB-01's Polivoks filter.
Turns out that the SL-2 is a lot more subtle than just the obvious rhythmic patterns. Here's there's three intertwining elements: The actual programmed pattern of notes on the DB-01; the DB-01's synced LFO with a sawtooth wave giving a separate filter envelope hit every 8 beats; and then the SL-2 which superimposes its own pattern on top. The mix of the DB-01 pattern and SL-2 pattern is set on the pedal, and the relative strength of the LFO filter hit depends on how much you open the filter. So with three synced patterns clocked together there is much fun to be had. Which is why I didn't make it past preset one in bank A.
I was going to layer this up with some other sounds but thought it was more useful to show the degree of complexity that you can get from a mono synth and a couple of pedals looping through one 32-step pattern.
This is all one take with no DAW effects or processing (other than the added movie quotes of course), but I did chop out a few sections to trim it down from its original 7-minute version.
As soon as I can make it past the first few presets I'll do a real walkthrough of the SL-2 - it's an incredibly deep machine. Like so many pedals and synths the satisfaction and beauty comes from subtle tweakerings. The main change I made was to switch it into 'ping-pong' mode which is perhaps a bit too strong if you listen through headphones - well, live and learn. My only immediate advice with the SL-2 is that, unless it's the master, it's absolutely vital for it to run off a common MIDI clock. You also must be able to send a MIDI clock restart.
The short intro video and title of the piece "You Love That Machine?" is one of the quotes about halfway through. They're taken from the low-budget classic "Creation of the Humanoids" - one of my all-time favorite movies. The robot-human images are all originals generated by me using AI. All 79 images (plus a few extras) are on my Patreon page for download and you're free to use them for any purpose.

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/"

Strymon Mobius: Complete walkthrough on synth

video upload by Richard DeHove

"Strymon's Mobius was released in 2012 and since then has been widely regarded as one of the best modulation multi-effects. To still be at the top after 10 years you need to be doing a lot of things right. The Mobius certainly delivers on build quality, sound and ergonomics. Originally I thought it would be a somewhat boring but useful machine to cover generic modulation duties that weren't worth a separate dedicated pedal. But it turned out the Mobius does all the usual stuff extraordinarily well but then gives you all sorts of other interesting and experimental stuff on top.

Here I go through all the global functions, common parameters and specific options for all 12 effect types, and program a sound for each one. For all of them I'm using the same bland single oscillator sound from the Rev-2. So this is not really a sound design tutorial, it's aim is to show the many and varied capabilities of the Mobius and give you the confidence to know and exploit its full power.
Finally, I bought the Mobius at full price with my own money.

0:00 Physical overview
1:18 Check the firmware
2:42 Controls overview
8:35 GLOBAL OPTIONS:
9:00 - BPM or Hz
10:24 - Fixed rate or MIDI clock?
11:27 - Bypass
11:50 - MIDI options
12:52 - Bank scroll
13:25 - Expression input
13:54 - Name display
15:18 COMMON PARAMETERS:
16:03 - Tap divisions
16:58 - Pre/Post
17:11 - Edit name
17:40 - Expression pedal
18:12 - MIDI clock
20:16 EFFECT ENGIMES
20:56 - Chorus
24:26 Parameter knob assign
25:16 Name the preset
26:25 Save a preset
27:10 - Flanger
30:51 - Rotary
35:39 - Vibe
39:03 - Phaser
43:20 - Filter
49:10 - Formant
51:41 - Vintage Tremolo
54:27 - Pattern Tremolo
58:50 - AutoSwell
1:01:46 - Destroyer
1:07:03 - Quadrature

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

Erik Satie's Gnossienne 1 on PerFourMer & Space Echo

video upload by Richard DeHove

"This piece begun just as a test for the new RE-202 Space Echo but I liked the gritty feel so thought it might be interesting to share. The setup on the Vermona PerFourMer is the top two oscillators are on Channel 1 and playing the high part, each oscillator in panned hard left and right and play alternate notes. The bottom two are on Channel 2 playing bass and centered, also alternating. The MIDI file sometimes has more polyphony than the four oscillators can provide but I just let the machine figure that out :D Stereo output is going into the Space Echo. The Space Echo is playing with it's saturation at about 40%, wow and flutter at about 25% with the reverb type changed to Plate at about 70%. Tempo is 74bpm. There's absolutely no other effects other than the PerFourMer and the Space Echo - no compression or EQ - only what you see.

The original MIDI file comes from here: https://www.kunstderfuge.com//satie.htm and is used with sincere thanks. The site has almost 20,000 MIDI files and is well worth subscribing.

My site: https://richarddehove.com/

Lots of downloads for supporters on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/richarddehove"

The best DB-01 feature you're probably not using

video upload by Richard DeHove

"It's the one trick grammy award winning dentists don't want you to know - yet nine out of 10 cats agree! Seriously though there are functions on some machines that you just never get to unless you go digging. I'm a big fan of the DB-01 arp, especially jamming over the top of existing sequences. And recently I made a huge discovery. Well, actually, a tiny and insignificant realization, but it was that in the DB-01 arp section "PIA" stands for "piano" and "STP" stands for "step". For two years I was guessing at that acronym. A cosmic ray must have nudged a defective neuron aside. Yeah, obvious to you but not me. It turns out that "step" is a fantastic auto-slicing jamming function.

In the comments a while back someone said they enjoyed my "crusty" take on things. That means "a little bit grumpy". I like that. I am a little bit grumpy - about a lot of things. One thing I don't like is demos with too many machines. What tends to happen is that one (or more) machines get latched onto some never-ending-16-step-loopy-thing. Or maybe more than one. I don't like that (but of course I've done it lots of times). I get irritated these days when just one machine is endlessly repeating a 16-step pattern. Did any of the great composers just mindlessly copy bar after bar after bar of the same sludge just to fill out supporting instruments? Of course not. (Although I do like Phillip Glass)

OTOH modern machines usually present you with a 16-step grid. So what can you do?
Which brings us back to STP "step" mode on the DB-01 arp. A single, boring, 16-step pattern can be sliced up on the fly and made into endless variations. Possibly the best use of this is recording it as audio and slicing it up in the DAW. Or perhaps live performance. Whatever you do it's a good way to make 16-steps a lot more interesting. The quick version of this is to take an empty pattern, go into the randomizer and "randomize all" (the button on the far right). Now you have an unplayable mess. But with the "step" arp (latched) you can probably pick out selected parts and make something coherent. In any case it's entertaining. What do you think?

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/
My other channel "IntraCosmos" of long-play dark ambient textures:

/ @intracosmos"

The many moods of the Future Factory delay (no talk)

video upload by Richard DeHove

"Future Factory by Free the Tone is a stereo delay most often heard creating beautiful ambience. But is is also easily able to do chorus, vibrato, flanging and overdrive (listen around the 9 minute mark for the filth). So here it's teamed with the trusty DB-01, both synced to the same MIDI clock, and the knobs twiddled. The delay comes pre-loaded with 128 presets showing off many of the settings. The interface is certainly unusual but is quite fast to access the various parameters. In the video I mainly tweak the 3-band EQ, modulation and drive. As usual my aim is to give you an idea of what it's like to actually operate and tweak the pedal rather than an idealised selection of sounds. And also as usual I bought this with my own money at full price.

0:00 Sweet and thick
1:34 Dirty and thick
2:37 Flangerish echo
4:38 Ping pong
5:00 Max feedback
5:34 EQ fun
7:03 Long delay
8:19 Tip in the dirt
10:05 Hard modulated
11:30 Metallic scrapings

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/"

Two DB-01s as a matched stereo pair: noodlings

video upload by Richard DeHove

"While thinking how nice it would be to have a modulatable stereo filter it (belatedly) came to me that my two DB-01s could pretty easily simulate a single synth with a stereo filter. The DB-01s have just the right degree of simplicity to allow for easily matched parameters, and the LFO is ideal for in-sync stereo modulation. I kept the pattern absolutely basic just to concentrate on the stereo effect.

One interesting thing I did notice was how sensitive I suddenly became to tuning differences once I tried to match the two units. It took a good half hour for the units to warm up and be in tune. Until then one was about 4 cents out, the other about 1 cent. Insteda of being a trvial difference or even a nice "thickener" it just sounded off to me. Curiously one unit was also quieter than the other so to match them up one is on volume 60, the other on 83. Once warmed up though they were absolutely stable and what you see in the video is the units after being on for about three days :D

So with a little help from the Zen Delay (and some Omnisphere at the end) here's the result.

0:00 Setup
0:23 Filter noodle
1:09 LFO phase
3:48 LFO phase v2
5:08 Extra synth on top

My site: https://richarddehove.com/
Lots of downloads for supporters on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/richarddehove"