Acidbox III dark ambient with the DB-01 and Perkons

video upload by Richard DeHove

"Last time Perkons got the Acidbox IIIfilter, this time the DB-01 gets a turn. And it turns out two vicious filters in series, both with sample and hold LFOs running in sync but with different times, gives some interesting tones. The first few minutes is me explaining the patch, then at 4:32 I shutup and just twiddle. But maybe it would be better without the talking?

0:00 Blah blah blah
4:32 Sound sound sound

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Acidbox III extended demo with Perkons

video upload by Richard DeHove

"A stereo filter at the end of an instrument with four multimode filters? Why not, makes sense to me. I've been hunting an interesting filter for ages - preferably stereo. I've churned through the extreme Retro Mechanical Devices long-name-bigbox to the more recent Elta Polivoks, Source Audio Ultrawave and even the filter on the Strymon Mobius. All the of them are gone now except the Mobius.
With the Acidbox III I think I'm close to the answer. Of course the filter itself is the essential core, but two other aspects make this shine: a syncable multi-waveform LFO, and the classic Erica feature of overdrive on the input. Here I noodle around on a single Perkons pattern with a rare touch of the DB-01 just for a sonic change. Routings are explained in the video. There's no other processing than what you see.

0:00 Routings setup
1:06 Acidbox III overview
2:49 All twiddle no talk

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Johnny Perkons joins the Marines

video upload by Richard DeHove

"The Perkons drum machine doesn't always have to pound out crazed gabber or hard techno. This piece started as an exercise to create a classic retro drum machine kit: bass drum, low tom, crispy snare and cymbal. Then I wanted to make a single pattern that could sustain itself for several minutes without sounding like a simple loop. So the tracks are running at different speeds, use ratchets, parameter locking, a little LFO and the "odds" feature where steps only sound every 2, 4 or 8 bars. Add to that a little live muting, one kit change, and some samples.
The movie clips and samples are all from the 1957 movie 'The D.I.'
Routing setup is: Voice 1 bass drum straight out to the DAW. Voice 2 low tom out to the Canyon delay then to the DAW. Voices 3 snare and voice 4 cymbal to the main out and into the Nemesis delay for a tiny touch of stereo delay. There is no sound processing in the DAW.
As usual it was very tempting to do further processing and add in some extra music but I thought it best to leave this as 'pure Perkons'. The samples are there because no one can listen to a three minute drum solo and remain sane.

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Free the Tone Future Factory sweetens the Cat

video upload by Richard DeHove

"Four short noodles with the Behringer Cat and a Free the Tone Future Factory FF-1Y stereo delay. The delay cost almost exactly twice as much as the (recently discounted) Cat but it certainly makes the Cat twice as sweet. In fact I couldn't play anything mean and dirty through the FF-1Y, it just coats everything in beauty.

Two things really struck me with the FF, first its seemingly effortless deep stereo field, and second, the rich reverb-like atmosphere. It makes the raw little 2-note CAT sound like a far more complex poly. The sounds here from the FF are modified presets. There's absolutely no other effects or processing applied. If anyone wants to hear more I'll do a deep dive into the FF. For now it's my favorite delay.

0:00 Ominous strum-drone
1:13 Sweet resonant keys
2:51 Cheesy square riff
4:15 Thick arp

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Perkons meets the Geiger Counter

video upload by Richard DeHove

"Am still in the "getting to know you" phase with the Perkons so am here combining a simple pattern with a couple of kit changes and a lot of track muting.

But the vital part is the WMD Geiger Counter pedal. I was very fortunate to find one of these brand new to buy (in Germany). I paid more than the old list price but everyone raves about how good this pedal sounds. And it is certainly a good fit for the Perkons. It's also helping with my color issues :) I don't touch any of the Geiger Counter's controls so this is not a showcase for the pedal but will get to that soonish. Or very soonish if there's any interest in a deep dive...

Here channel one of the Perkons is on its own output to the DAW and is otherwise completely uneffected.
The other three channels are all going through the Geiger Counter then into the Boss EQ.
No other effects or processing in the DAW this time except of course for the added samples - a two and half minute drum solo would have been too much even for me. You'll also see a few video edits where I've chopped this down from the 11-minute original.
Finally, the pattern actually starts on beat 13, which reminds me of the bad old days with the DB-01 before it got its "pattern rotate" feature and you could change the start point. Well, live and learn guv'nor.

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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.

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Nemesis delay MIDI CC (walkthrough part 2)

video upload by Richard DeHove

Part 1 posted here.

"Part two of my Nemesis delay walkthrough. Here I've mapped various parameters onto the pads and knobs. The Beatstep isn't the best bit of kit for the job but does a passable job. Ideally you'd want something small with limited range knobs (potentiometers rather than endless encoders) that also has 3.5mm or DIN MIDI out and not just USB. Given how rare such devices are the most likely scenario is probably using the knobs and sliders on a larger controller keyboard. Even if you have just a handful of knobs you could, for example, add tempo mappings, high pass filter, distortion, diffusion, bitrate reduction and tape noise.

0:00 Intro riff
0:58 Nemesis MIDI CC list
2:44 Beatstep mapping
3:37 Beat divisions
6:32 Setup routing
7:00 Knob mappings
7:45 MIDI CC noodle
11:48 Choosing a controller

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Chugga Chugga Perk Perk

video upload by Richard DeHove

"What a stupid title. It's a combination of the Chug pedal used on the synths (DB-01 then the Behringer Cat) as well as the Perkons doing drums. The title coulkd have been more useful but then I'm beginning to suspect my dry and useful titles make absolutely no difference to anyone or any metric.
This piece started as a dull test of whether a DI box made any difference to the performance of the Chug pedal. It did - it made it worse. Then I just started noodling with the pedal to see whether I could coax some different sounds out of it. Couldn't do that either. It sounds good but it only has one way it grates the audio.
So then I thought I'd better add some drums so the Perkons got it's first run. It's so huge I have to work out a way to get multiple items in frame without everything looking tiny.
Against my usual policy I added some effects on the Perkons (but not on the synths) in the DAW. The Perkons got a little EQ to take out some of the massive bottom end, a little Fabfilter Saturn to dirty it up and a touch of Pro-R reverb. I wasn't using individual outs so it just got slathered over everything. A few gratuitous samples to finish.

0:00 DB-01 and Perkons
2:15 Cat and Perkons

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Canyon delay - A complete walkthrough (on synth)

video upload by Richard DeHove

"It may look like something from a themepark gift shop but this is a mighty little delay full of some extreme capabilities. Here I go though all 10 delay modes and the looper using the DB-01 as a sound source.

0:00 So ugly
1:44 EHX fail
3:01 Factory reset
3:30 The controls
5:33 Tap tempo
6:14 Secondary controls
7:51 - Echo mode
10:16 - Modulated mode
12:53 - Multi mode
15:35 - Reverse mode
17:48 - Memoryman mode
21:00 - Tape mode
23:45 - Verb mode
26:36 - Octave mode
30:12 - Shimmer mode
32:48 - Sample and Hold mode
35:30 - Looper mode
39:24 - Final 2c

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Chug pedal on synth

video upload by Richard DeHove

0:00 Intro blather
0:52 Blood and dragons
2:00 Pedal talk
2:10 Music begins (talk ends)
4:50 Knob twiddles
6:54 On duophonic synth
9:08 Final thoughts (talk starts)

"I like pedals that mess up synths and give them an edge. Sadly a lot of distortion, drive and fuzz pedals simply don't work well with synths. At least half the pedals of this sort I buy are almost useless on synth and never make it as far as a video. Instead they go straight into the "buyer's remorse" bag to be resold. There seems no way to tell ahead of time which will work and which will just sit there with the knobs having almost no effect. So it's an anxious lucky dip. The Chug pedal by Solar Guitars is a reasonable success on synth, tried here with the DB-01 Bassline and the Behringer Cat. Some of the gain controls do almost nothing but overall you can sculpt a pretty nasty sound and, depending on the synth, do some extra shaping with the gate control. Strangely the gate was vital to reduce noise on the DB01 but wasn't even needed on the Cat.

I bought this pedal with my own money at full price. I haven't communicated with Solar Guitars other than as a regular customer. The links here are for your interest only:

More details on the Chug pedal:
https://www.solar-guitars.com/product...

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One patch, two sounds - modulating the DB-01 filter

video upload by Richard DeHove

"Modulating the filter is one of the golden rules of using the DB-01. If it's not adding a gentle wave, beefing up the rhythm with a synced pulse, or acting as an extra envelope, then how about some FM? Here the LFO is unsynced, and running fast as a sine wave. By turning the main filter knob up or down the FM effect is revealed - as well as the very high resonance.

Although the music here is slightly chopped up from my meandering 12-minute jam, it's all from one take and none of the other controls (well, except octave up and down) are moved. I think the DB-01 does well getting so many flavors from this one patch.

As usual absolutely no other processing or effect than what you see.

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LXR-02: Updating the firmware & loading kits and projects on the SD card

video upload by Richard DeHove

"The microSD card is the heart of the LXR-02 drum machine. Here I update the firmware, load all the default factory content and add the extra Hrtl project with kits and demo patterns from the Erica Synths website.
If you've bought a used LXR-02 and want to 'factory reset', or just want to update the firmware, or start with a fresh "blank canvas" then this is for you.
In the process we look at the contents of all six factory projects as well as the free Hrtl project. At the end I quickly play through the 16 Hrtl kits and demo patterns.

0:00 intro
0:15 Checking the firmware
0:35 Remove the card
0:52 Get the new files
1:30 Card contents
2:20 Load new files
4:00 Factory content
5:20 Load Hrtl project
6:35 Insert SD card
7:05 Firmware updater
8:00 Test
8:20 Hrtl kits (no more talk)

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Behold the power of the DB-01 triangle

video upload by Richard DeHove

"Saw is everyone's friend, square is famous, so where does that leave triangle? The quiet one of three three, but beautifully formed and hides many talents. This is sort of a jam video, a tribute to the triangle but also a way to demonstrate a few different techniques to use when playing live.

First, the triangle is the only primary waveform used here to generate all the sounds. That varies from the cute little plinky sounds of a pure high triangle to the almost brassy sound when the sub-oscillator is layered in. The pattern consists of just three notes spanning three octaves so it's incredibly basic. But the contrast between the low hits and high plinky-plonks going through the Nemesis delay rhythmic setting creates the illusion of a much richer - even layered - pattern with drums. But of course it's all just one layer on the monophonic DB-01.

I'm playing the DB-01 arpeggiator over the top of the pattern and this causes the pattern notes to sometimes be "overwritten" and drop out which appears like a pattern variation. Then by varying the length of the arpeggiator gate you can get apparent note length differences between the pattern and the arp. The LFO synced to a 6-beat loop on a saw shape adds to the variations.

As usual there are no other effects used or DAW processing. But I did do some chopping up of the piece to trim it back from its magnificent 18-minute original :)

Images are all original creations on the theme of triangles using the Stable Diffusion AI platform.

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Nemesis delay walkthrough on synth (Part 1)

video upload by Richard DeHove

"The Source Audio Nemesis delay belongs to a small group of 'old' stereo delays that have maintained their popularity over years. Why? Because they're good at what they do. This is my second time with the Nemesis, so am very happy to get all these beautiful sounds back again.

Here I give a basic overview of the pedal, blab on at length about its operational philosophy, then go through all 24 engines using the Neuro software editor. Some engines get more love than others in the demo (sorry Tremolo), but at least everyone gets a turn. As usual I bought this pedal with my own money at full price.

TLDL: Sounds great & whatever the knobs are on is what you get

0:00 Ports & knobs
4:42 Why I bought again
6:32 Three ways to play
8:45 Knobs are WYSIWYG
11:20 Bootup mode
12:00 Neuro app intro
12:55 Global options
13:51 Neuro editor overview
20:30 Digital engine
21:32 Diffuse engine
23:24 Analog engine
27:41 Tape engine
29:57 Noise Tape engine
32:44 Degrade engine
35:00 Shifter engine
36:50 Helix enine
38:38 Reverse engine
40:57 Sweeper engine
42:12 Rhythmic engine
43:03 Slapback engine
44:15 Resonant Analog engine
45:52 Tremolo engine
46:08 Sequenced Filters engine
47:13 Dub engine
49:23 Chorused Delay engine
50:26 Flanger Delay engine
51:18 Double Helix engine
51:54 Complex Rhythmic engine
53:30 Lofi Retro engine
54:20 Warped Record engine
54:54 Compound Shifter engine
56:12 Oil Can egine
57:39 Binson Drum Echo - singlehead
58:03 Binson Drum Echo - multihead
59:44 Cloud presets

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Behringer Cat synth - unboxing and first sounds (no talk)

video upload by Richard DeHove

"Yes, it's my first Cat video, the Behringer Cat, which recently plunged in price by almost 50 per cent. It cost me substantially less than the Nemesis delay which it's paired with here. It's a bargain and since there was zero chance of me ever buying (and hoping to maintain) a 50-year-old original Cat it seemed a fair deal. Strangely enough I'd been looking at this synth for a month or so specifically because of two features: It's paraphonic with separate VCO 1 & 2 CV inputs; and it has beautifully raw cross-modulation. (More with the CV inputs in a later video)

This is also my first unboxing video (a challenge accepted from Berin) but I couldn't bring myself to utter lines like "here is the power supply, oh and a lovely sticker" so there's some Cat sounds over the top. There's a lot of dischordant sounds in this demo but that's what I bought it for. Of course it can do all the usual things too. The Nemesis delay is slopped over the top of everything for which I offer no apology since it sounds so much better that way, covers up sloppy playing, and makes filter twiddlings interesting. But if anyone really wants 100% raw stuff let me know. As usual there is no post-production audio trickery, the path is Cat to Nemesis to you. And for any Cat veterans out there I'm sure various settings were either redundant or bypassed (I couldn't work out the second envelope), but it's early days so live and learn. It was fun not needing to even look in a manual though, it's there in front of you. One thing that did strike me was how powerful the resonance is. I've been spoiled by the no-risk DB-01 Polivoks resonance which happily goes to 100 per cent anytime. Not here!

Visuals are AI-generated images made using Stable Diffusion. Being the creative type I came up with my very own set of AI word prompts, which I think makes me "lead visual artist, SFX supervisor and CGI chief designer".

0:00 Unboxing with bloops
1:02 Paraphonic grind
1:36 Filter sweeps
2:32 Awful twiddlings
4:04 Sick mid
4:23 Twiddlings two
4:55 Not Arabic

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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.

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My website: https://richarddehove.com/"

How to make guitar feedback - on a synth

video upload by Richard DeHove

"Who doesn't like a bit of guitar feedback squeal? A great sound which has no easy synth equivalent. Yet maybe here we come close. An Erica Synths DB-01 goes to an EHX Oceans 11 reverb which gives the required feedback starter sound, which is then torn up and given bite by a Fairfield Circuitry Roger That, and at the end for a different flavor, a Dark Glass B3K. With some careful twiddlings the ear-splitting awfulness is quite playable and ready for friends, family to enjoy.

0:00 Guitar examples
0:40 Synthy things
2:05 Reverb starter
2:48 Feedback squeal
4:20 Ear killing highs
4:50 Darker & dirtier
7:20 B3K playable filth

Guitar clips at the start are from the Dead Kennedys and The Partisans.

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Oceans 11 all settings walkthrough - much more than a reverb

video upload by Richard DeHove

0:00 A few demo sounds
2:27 Overview - power, tails, bypass etc
5:38 The value of 100% wet
6:34 The controls
8:10 Factory reset
8:55 Programming fundamentals
14:10 Hall
17:03 Spring
19:45 Plate
22:50 Reverse
26:09 Echo
30:35 Tremolo
34:54 Mod - Chorus
36:58 Mod - Flerb
37:36 Mod - Chorus & Flerb
38:56 Dyn - Swell
40:24 Dyn - Gate
43:30 Dyn - Ducking
45:15 Auto Infinite
48:15 Shimmer
51:23 Poly

"The EHX Oceans 11 reverb is a much deeper, weirder and more interesting effects unit than you might expect. It's called a reverb pedal but can happily function as a multi-effects unit with excellent delay and tremolo and passable chorus and flanger. And various reverbs of course. Here I go through all the settings and options in detail and only repeat myself once or twice.
The pedal does has a reputation for complexity, but spend a mere hour here and you'll be completely at ease with all its functions and be suitably rewarded with a huge range of flavors. Don't judge it on a 30-second demo of hall and spring, that is a mere spec of its powers.
Despite the length of this video there are two little things I left out. Double-click the footswitch when in spring reverb mode to simulate "kicking the box" and hearing a little "doiing". And somewhat similarity, if you press and hold the footswitch (in most modes) the reverb will infinitely sustain.
Also be assured that when I say in the video about the green, red and orange LED colors that's what they actually are in reality. Unfortunately in the video they're almost completely washed out - my lighting skills and the idea that "I'd fix it in post" were both inadequate.
As usual this is not a sponsored video. I bought the Oceans 11 with my own money at full price.

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Complexity not required

video upload by Richard DeHove

"For days I've been trying to make an "Oceans 11 - Complete Walkthrough" video, but I keep getting distracted by the sounds. So I gave in and made this first. Originally I was going to just take a few seconds of this but I like drony dirty choiry things and thought you might enjoy it too, especially as it was so simple. The danger with a giant multi-tier stand of vintage polysynths is that you might feel obliged to use several of them at once. Less is more. At about the halfway point (as mentioned in the video) I add in some FabFilter Pro-R "Cathedral" reverb at 50% mix. But there's no other DAW fiddlings.

Since I blab endlessly in the video I won't repeat all the info here but merely add that the FM knob on the DB-01 is very useful but could perhaps be great. Imagine if it could be somehow locked to the chosen scale? Now that would lead to all sorts of good things.

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Doom approaches

video upload by Richard DeHove

"Not depressed enough about everything yet? Maybe this can help! Here's the DB-01 synth in a single take with a little help from some pedals. No other music or processing. Sampled voices are from the brilliant 1984 UK movie "Threads" a harrowing, grim and completely believable movie about the lead up and aftermath of a global nuclear exchange. There's no happy ending.

(And yes, for anyone who saw my last video this is exactly the same setup - I was noodling afterwards and this just fell out).

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