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

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The DB-01's second (undocumented) config menu

video upload by Richard DeHove

"In the words of Dr Strangelove "Why keep it a secret? Why didn't you tell the world?" Fortunately not jacketed in Cobalt-Thorium-G, yet still unannounced, the secondary config menu contains a few very useful options. I especially like the default starter note and the default gate length options. And as I mention in the video perhaps someone can better explain the calibrate CV In and MIDI Note Offset options. In any case since it's not mentioned anywhere else I thought it may be useful to at least put this basic guide out there.

Sincere thanks to @Phurniture for suggesting this video. I really appreciate everyone who takes the time to comment, it's by far the best part of Youtubing.

0:00 The secondary menu
1:01 SER - Serial number
1:18 CCI - Calibrate CV In
1:44 CCO - Calibrate CV Out
1:57 MIP - MIDI Instant Program Change
2:30 MNO - MIDI Note Offset
2:48 PBR - Pitch Bend Range
3:01 DCV - Default CV
3:24 DGA - Default Gate Length

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The Dream of Allan Gray

video upload by Richard DeHove

"This is a single DB-01 drone track recorded exactly as you see it with no editing. Nor have any effects, compression, EQ or limiting etc been added in the DAW (other than the sci-fi movie talk samples). The DB-01 is running into the Light pedal on feedback mode. (Thanks to @aopaul for suggesting turning down the dry level which has entirely solved the noise issue into the Rat). From there it goes into the Rat, and then into the Shift Line Astronaut for some modulated stereo reverb.

A very slow LFO on the DB-01 opens the filter enough to better activate the feedback on the Light pedal which gives the periods of relative peace and intensity. The DB-01 is also on random playback with a handful of notes on bar 1 and the other three bars empty. The Astronaut pedal has a very slow modulating octave shift in the reverb and the Light pedal has a very slow shift in which optical sensor pair is active. All these slow modulations deliver the needed variation.

The old video is all from 'Vampyr', a 1932 Danish-German horror movie. That's combined, somewhat oddly perhaps, with audio samples from the 1953 sci-fi classic "It Came From Outer Space". It wasn't hard to find the good bits in that since I first sampled it way back in the day on my old EPS. We even had a song in our live set which used one of the quotes from the movie as it's main hook "Our mission was to another world". Good days. Of course I couldn't re-use that same sample here :D

The title of this video comes from the original full title of the Vampyr movie: 'Vampyr – Der Traum des Allan Gray' or in English, 'The Dream of Allan Gray'.

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A Rat, a DB-01 and a Light pedal cranked for filth and feedback

video upload by Richard DeHove

"I've always wanted ferocious feedback on a synth, just like them geetar players get. The obvious choices are a FreqOut or even an old Boss FB-2. But how about a Gamechanger Audio Light reverb pedal and a Rat ? One reason I got the Light pedal was its interesting modes, gate and drive. By itself a lot of the options feel very underpowered when fed by the DB-01. But add a Rat after the reverb and everything comes alive.

Here I first try the Light pedal's Reflect mode which is a dirty delay, then the Feedback mode. The Rat is vital to crank the Light pedal's effect although it does add a huge amount of noise. Ideally I'd add a noise gate after the rat and then a delay. Perhaps even a pitch shifting delay to try to get a little more pitch control over the feedback.

With it's little Rat friend the Light pedal now seems a lot more useful.

As usual there's absolutely no other audio processing than what you see.

0:00 Starter sound
1:25 Reflect cranked
2:42 Light pedal options
4:48 Feedback mode
8:28 Sequenced feedback
9:25 Keys feedback

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Behringer Edge with the DB-01

video upload by Richard DeHove

"The Edge-DFAM class of machines is an odd category. Not a very good as a synth due to the constant (and necessary) manipulation of the oscillator frequencies. Not particularly good as a drum machine due to the 8-step limitations and the delicate juggling required to squeeze out multiple sounds. And not so great live since there are no presets and too many parameters to easily morph to a different sound. OTOH if you want a random percussion chaos layer then it's the perfect solution.

Of course they're great fun to twiddle and make unexpected discoveries. They also pair up pretty well with more conventional machines to produce a more complex result than you'd get with 'ordinary' synths.

Having owned both the DFAM and Edge I'm happy but hesitant to admit that in a 1:1 matchup I'd choose the Edge. This is entirely due to the MIDI clock options: The sequence must always start at the start - duh. Some people say the DFAM sounds better (whatever that means) but I'm not feeling anything radically different. My only complaint is that the LPF feels murky and doesn't interact with the resonance control in a pleasing way. The HPF is much superior imo and saves the filter section. Of course it may be that I've now been trained by prolonged Polivoks filter exposure to expect satisfying grit and tortured screaming.

Back on the topic of 'Would I use it live', the more I thought about that the more I thought I'd use the LXR-02 instead. Perhaps a video 'The LXR-02 does the DFAM' would be good?

It may also be of interest to note the use of the DB-01 gate output connected to the noise level in Demo 1. It generates some noise percussion when playing normally because of the gate length but this largely disappears when playing the arpeggiator's much shorter gate length.

As usual there are absolutely no external effects or DAW processing.

0:00 Unboxing
1:25 The setup
1:42 MIDI reset
2:27 Clock divider
3:13 Tuning
4:05 Demo 1: Cheese
4:39 Demo 2: Swinger
5:19 Demo 3: Rubber
6:22 Demo 4: Wired

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DB-01 does the DFAM

video upload by Richard DeHove

"What do you get with a full parameter randomization and an LFO modulating FM? Played in the usual way you're almost certain to get a dog's breakfast. But with some careful step arpeggiation it can start to come together in a very DFAM-like way. If you're particularly lucky you may even be able to get the equivalent of four or five progressive sections from a single pattern.

The setup is a little bit involved so if you're impatient to see whether the DFAM sound is achieved just skip to the demo chunks at the end. My favorite is the DAF demo. These were named after creating them - don't think for a moment you can decide what you want ahead of time :D As usual the Gods will deliver to you what they see fit.

The Zen delay is proving a little "smoothing" and rhythmic coherence but other wise what you see is what you get. There's no further processing. Some of the demo tracks are slightly chopped since it's very easy to wander off the path into techno-Gristle land. Visually there's a few sections where the waveform display is missing, so my apologies, in the excitement of twiddling I forgot to switch it on :(

0:00 A mild example
0:42 LFO setup
1:56 Randomizer
2:40 Arp settings
3:42 Set scale
4:25 Roll the dice!
5:45 FM LFO issue
7:11 Demo 1: Warm Featherette
8:00 Demo 2: Funky Gabber
8:34 Demo 3: Bandpassed
10:10 Demo 4: DAF
10:42 Demo 5: Noisetown

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Essential guide to the DB-01 Bassline (2024 edition)

video upload by Richard DeHove

"This guide is meant for new users and is ordered to present the information you need as you start to explore the machine. So if you've just got your machine, plug it in and follow along, and by the end of the video you'll know 95% of the functions and be happily creating, saving and tweaking patterns. The DB-01 really is an amazingly well-balanced machine that can do much more than mere basslines.

My original guide to the DB-01 was published back in 2020 and although it's one of my most popular videos it was done on a crusty camera and onboard mic. So after dozens of videos about this sturdy little machine, I thought it deserved a redo.

If, at the end, there are areas where you want more detail, there's sure to be a video about it in my DB-01 playlist. Please have a look. If not, ask in the comments, I try to answer every question.

CLICK FOR MORE »

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).

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The drum machine pedalboard Ep1: Roger That & Future Factory

video upload by Richard DeHove

"The first episode in a new series which will explore different pedal and routing combinations with the LXR-02 drum machine. First up are two Roger That pedals from Fairfield Circuitry (for left-right stereo), a Boss GEB-7 EQ and the Future Factory stereo delay from Free the Tone. Some might recognise the pedal setup from my last video with the DB-01. I liked the stereo effect so much it seemed a shame not to swap out the DB-01 for the LXR-02 and give it a test.

0:00 Intro (the only talking)
1:12 Tippy Tap
2:34 Grinder
4:09 Industry Anthem
5:32 King Pong
7:11 Ping Kong
8:49 Rubberman
9:36 Bass Poker
10:41 Modem Dancer

All ideas for the series on combinations, routings or types of patterns are very welcome.

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Two "Roger That" pedals & the joy of dirty bass in stereo (no talk)

video upload by Richard DeHove

"Any discussion about an interesting mono pedal will eventually devolve to: 'If only pedal X was in stereo'. To which some production savant will quickly reply "Just buy two!". Can it really be so simple?

Here we have a DB-01 running through the most excellent Boss GEB-7 bass EQ, then into a simple line splitter for the left and right "Roger That" pedals from Fairfield Circuitry, and finally into the Future Factory stereo delay from Free the Tone. No DAW audio processing.

There are 10 short audio examples. Each to their own but I'm now a convert to dirty stereo bass. Even when the two units are closely matched there are differences which no mono-only modulation can give.
Next time I'll try the two Rogers on some drums :)

0:00 Machine bass
1:22 Acid runner
2:33 Doom keys
3:37 Industrial drone
4:11 Fuzzy square
6:34 Poker echo
7:02 Sharpy arp
7:42 Two step
8:40 Fully rogered
9:12 The Scraper

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DB-01 with Light pedal feedback - and JPTR FX Add Violence

video upload by Richard DeHove

"There's something very satisfying about the DB-01 and dark, deep drones. Maybe it's the Polivoks filter and that big knob.

In this setup the DB-01 is going into the Gamechanger Audio Light pedal in Feedback mode with everything cranked. From there into the JPTR FX Add Violence pedal and then into the Nemesis delay. This order seemed to work better than the Light pedal after the distortion. There's no audio processing in the DAW. Quotes come from a 1940s movie through the Valhalla delay.

The original noodle - which I was trying hard to keep short and sweet - was eight minutes, but how much grinding feedback drone is too much? So here we are at about four. In hindsight it would have been good to have something after the Light pedal that could more severely mess with the feedback tone. Next time :D

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Squeezing variations from 16 steps with the DB-01

video upload by Richard DeHove

"Even the best 16-step pattern gets stale after too many spins. Here I look at a few simple ways to create variations without actually writing any new steps or copying patterns. The LXR-02 helps out in the background. The routing is just the DB-01 into the Boss GEB-7 EQ and then into The Glove pedal. The LXR-02 stereo out is being used as two channels - one into the Boss delay, the other into the Mosky Audio muff clone. The snare sounds are panned mostly to the delay and the bass drum mostly into the Mosky.

The DB-01 is the clock master and one voice of the LXR-02 is simply following the melody from the bassline. The 2-bar LFO on the LXR-02 melodic voice gives it a slow wave effect.

As usual there are no other effects, tweaks or modifications to the sound - only what you see.
ps: Still having some camera wobble issues. I'll solve it next time for sure :/

0:00 No talk variations demo
3:27 Routing setup & FX
6:40 Variation by LFO
8:06 Adding sustain
8:53 LXR doubling
9:32 Key mode mute
10:15 LFO sustain
10:45 LXR tinkles
11:35 Add a pedal

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DB-01 Doom metal pedal test

video upload by Richard DeHove

"In guitarland many people have remarked how closely the Joyo Double Thruster pedal replicates the sound of the Darkglass B33K. Given that the B3K is one of my favorite pedals I bought an ugly Double Thruster to find out how it goes on synth. Originally I thought I'd do a straight comparison with waveform and frequency response blah blah but in the end it really came down to two things:

1) For me the B3K only has one 'sound' and you just dial in more or less of it. Excessive knob twiddling just degrades the effect
2) The Joyo captures about 95% of the B3K sound and has identical controls even down to the bass and mid-boost options and the feel of the footswitch

So forensic analysis seemed a bit pointless. Instead I did what many who lament mono-only pedals do: Run two identical pedals left and right to achieve a type of stereo. That worked pretty well imo and you can see the slight differences between left and right in the waveform display. I also did a quick A and B comparison, but please forgive me the video wobbles - my camera was badly clamped :/

I'm still not sure about the whole clone thing though. The ethics seem to be about defining who's being ripped off: The company or the consumer.

0:00 Stereo demo
2:01 Talk about Joyo and B3K
4:09 Raw sound
4:40 Sound comparison

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Acidbox III Fully cranked

video upload by Richard DeHove

"The Erica Synths Acidbox III stereo filter with everything cranked. Team it with a DB-01 and you've got a Polivoks filter going into another Polivoks filter. Both resonances on full, input saturation full and then an added 20dB of input gain on top. Why be subtle?
A few normal DB-01 patterns are mangulated at the start before forgetting about any sort of input at all and just playing latent noise and resonance through a Shiftline Astronaut pedal. We end somewhere among the Krell on Altair-4.

0:00 The setup
1:06 Pattern one
1:40 +20dB input gain
2:52 Pattern two
4:23 Pattern three
5:00 Control input config
6:12 CV input
8:33 1950s sci-fi
9:58 On Altair-4 (no more talk)

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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

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DB-01 sound design from bleedin' obvious to drum phase offset

video upload by Richard DeHove

"Sound design on a one oscillator bass synth? Yes, a surprising amount. A lot is tied up with the sequencer but there are also some pure synth tips in there as well. Some of them, like filter tracking, I've talked about before so perhaps this is like a "best of" compilation. But it still seems to make sense to have them all in one place. For impatient veterans perhaps only the last section on LFO phase will show anything of more hardcore interest.

0:00 Intro
0:18 Don't crank
0:34 Do crank
1:15 Calibrate
1:55 Waveforms
2:38 Clicky McClick
3:47 Tracking (again)
4:19 LFO rant & vibrato
6:00 Portamento
6:36 Audio rate LFO
8:40 Fake delay
9:24 Gate joy
10:35 Arp gates
11:11 Phase is best
12:51 Hello DFAM

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Solina Strings controlled by the DB-01. But why?

video upload by Richard DeHove

"The Behringer Solina Strings is controlled by the DB-01. At first blush it seems a bit silly but there are some interesting reasons you might want to try it. And one thing I forgot to mention in the video: The DB-01 is of course in 'scale' mode, in this case E-Minor.

0:00 Smeary arp
1:46 Octaves
3:10 Slowing it down
5:00 Sequencing
6:00 Generative fun

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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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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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