VOLTLIFE: Verbos Multi-Delay self-oscillation

Published on Jul 22, 2018 voltlife

"Shimmering celestial drones; ominous alien swarms; 50s Sci-Fi warbles; waves of digital glitch. These are just some of the sounds you can coax out of the Verbos Multi-Delay Processor without any other modules."

VOLTLIFE: Xaoc Devices Drezno first patches

Published on Jun 3, 2017 voltlife

"Some quick experiments using Xoac Devices' new Drezno module to process audio. Animodule's M1xXOR allows manual and voltage control of which bits are passed through, ignored or inverted, but you could do similar things with switch, logic or VCA modules.

Initial patch:
Dixie II sine → Drezno ADC → M1xXOR → Drezno DAC

Second patch:
Dixie II saw → Pittsburgh Filter→ Drezno ADC → M1xXOR → Drezno DAC"

You can find addition posts featuring Drezno here.

VOLTLIFE: How to Hoover

Published on Oct 26, 2019 voltlife

"A tutorial on approximating the infamous 'Hoover' sound in Eurorack, focusing on how to make a PWM Sawtooth wave like the Roland Alpha Juno."

VOLTLIFE: Verbos HO weird vocoder

Published on Oct 28, 2015 voltlife

"By feeding a sound source into a multi-band filter, taking each band's output into an envelope follower and then using the resulting envelopes to control the Verbos Harmonic Oscillator's individual harmonics, you can create a very vague approximation to a vocoder. In most cases the filter's bands won't match the frequencies of the HO (and in my case I used a Serge Resonant EQ, which definitely doesn't), so it won't create a very intelligible vocal sound. However, the input will indeed control the timbral dynamics of the HO's output, producing very interesting tones out of complex inputs."

VOLTLIFE: DS-M + M1xXOR = complex grooves

Published on Dec 21, 2015 voltlife

"My previous video demonstrated the response that Syntrotek's DS-M's drum sounds have to different triggers. This video shows how we can use this to create a huge range of drum and percussion sounds out of one module with limited CV control: mixing multiple gate and/or trigger streams together creates varying amplitude inputs to DS-M, which responds not just with simple accents, but with totally different types of drum sound. Animodule's M1xXOR works especially well for this, since we can mute channels with gates to create more complex rhythmic combinations, or play the channels manually in a performance situation."

http://www.synthrotek.com
http://www.animodule.com

VOLTLIFE: Motherless Drummer

Published on Mar 18, 2018 voltlife

"It might be a bit cheeky to compare the SSF Entity Percussion Synthesiser to Moog’s DFAM, given that it has a very different architecture, but when driven by an 8x2 stage hands-on sequencer like the Verbos Voltage Multistage it has a similar addictive playability. Here are some excerpts from a jam session where I managed to get rolling techno toms, glitchy clicks, quirky West-coast plucks, retro electro and nasty industrial rhythms, and even something resembling acid squelches, out of just these two modules."

sine lab one

Published on Feb 28, 2017 voltlife

"A one-take jam with harmonic oscillations, a drunken PLL, clangy FM percussion and swooping self-oscillation."

A Nostalgic Phase

Published on Jul 17, 2017 voltlife

"I just got myself a Minilogue, which is the first analogue polyphonic keyboard I've had in a long time, so of course the first thing I did was run it through Kaminiec for liquid phasey sweeps that took me right back to my JMJ-idolising childhood. Add a chugging bassline through plenty of delay, some low-fi analogue percussion and some random squelches, and the 70s electronic nostalgia-fest is complete.

It's not all retro analogue styles, though. The Minilogue chords (shamelessly stolen from you-know-who) go through Kamieniec into Clouds, which I use to pitch shift and freeze the output. Clouds is modulated by an Erica Octasource and occasionally trigger by bursts from Drezno, while Demora and Erbe Verb add echoes and space to the bassline and percussion. There are a few missteps with chords and mixing, but it's fun to play!"

Gloomy day improvisation

Published on Aug 5, 2016 voltlife

"Getting to grips with Mother 32, Pittsburgh Game System, and DSI Curtis filter."

Materiality

Published on May 28, 2018 voltlife

"A track using Mother 32 as almost the only sound source (other than a kick drum). Various odd techniques were used to get the most out of it."

Indigo Dusk

Published on Jan 12, 2019 voltlife

"An ambient exploration, mostly self-running, that uses a few tricks to get more interest out of limited sequencing..

Bass swells: AFG alien saws through STG Sea Devils Filter.

HIgh fizzy stereo sweeps: AFG animated pulses through Belgrad in High/Notch mode with Span modulated by a VCLFO. Stereo sweep by WMD Performance Mixer.

Vocoder choir: Fumana, using random speech samples from Radio Music as modulator; carrier is PPG-like wavetables from E352 in Cloud+Morph mode, run through clouds for smearing into quasi-chords. The EF all out from Fumana modulates the speed of an LFO that drives the centre frequency of Fumana, for varying phaser-like sweeps.

Occasional digital synth blips: the other E352 output through Optomix, opened by a Descent envelope. Sequenced by a Moskwa, which could get boring quickly, but Moskwa's clock is driven by a Doepfer A160-5 for varying clock speeds, and the Descent envelopes are triggered by shifting Euclidean rhythms.

Bell/pluck riff: Rings (what else?!) sequenced by Verbos Voltage Multistage through a VCA, with attenuation changing randomly each bar for variety. To make Rings sound marginally less Rings-y, I modulate its frequency with bandpass-filtered noise at varying frequencies, which gives a slightly noisy or warbly edge to the sound. Brightness and Damping modulated every bar for further variation.

Main modulation sources: Doepfer A149-1/2, A143-4, Erica Black Octasource, Triple Sloth.

Mixing and fx: everything into WMD Performance Mixer, with Erebe Verb on Aux 1 and a mix of Demora into Erbe Verb and plain Demora on Aux 2. Erbe Verb's Decay and Demora's feedback are modulated by random gates from A149-2. I use an L-1 Stereo Microcompressor in the final Send/Return, mainly as a limiter to reign in the occasional peak, but I think I'm still getting a bit of clipping, so I need to work on the makeup gain."

Tonnetz Game

Published on Dec 19, 2016 voltlife

"A mellow ambient track, based around simple harmonies from Tonnetz Sequent driven by a Pittsburgh Game System. More patch details to follow."

Spinatus Tor

Published on Nov 2, 2015 voltlife

"An attempt at making vaguely Raster Noton-style clicky glitch with purely analogue modules and effects that somehow turned into something more like dark industrial.

The clicks are just a sine wave through a VCA with a very quick Maths envelope into a resonant Pittsburgh Filter in HPF mode. The filter's cutoff is modulated by a S&H, while the Maths envelope is triggered by the square sum out of a self-patched A134-4, which also acts as the master clock.

The kick drum is another Maths envelope driving a self-oscillating uVCF, the output of which is also multed into a Synthrotek Dirt filter and A124 Wasp filter to create nasty buzzy swells. Other nasty rhythmic buzzes area created by a couple of Pittsburgh Generator/GenXpander outputs into a R52 valve filter (heavily modulated by a Dreamboat) and a Sea Devils Filter, gated by Optomix or switched abruptly on and off by an A152, which is also triggering various rhythmic elements. The rest of the rhythmic patterns are created by a combination of A160/161/166.

There's also a simple pluck-ish sequence, which is a Rubicon and Mannequins Mangrove through an A108 (I think I used up all of my filters!). The sequence is created by a manually-tuned Pressure Points driven by Brains (which I think was the closest thing to a digital module I used in this patch).

Most elements then went through my spring reverb, which is a Danelectro Spring King pedal that I've hacked up to mount the springs externally. My arbitrary decision to use all analogue modules (I felt I've been relying too heavily on digital modules such as Tyme Sefari II and Erbe Verb for glitchy effects) left me with just the spring reverb for effects, so the overall mix is probably a bit too dry. Time for me to get a BBD delay, I think!"

Sketch for the Lost

Published on Oct 11, 2016 voltlife

"An ambient track based on subtle polymetric sequences and timbral variation.

Harmonic drone/sequence: Verbos Harmonic Oscillator into Clouds pitch shifting +1 octave with slight feedback. 7-note Moskwa sequence to HO scan input; slow LFO into width.

Main slow melody: MS20 Mini triangle wave (with subtly resonant filters) through uFold into long delay. Choices joystick controls fold amount and amount of LFO to uFold symmetry. MS 20 sequenced by Verbos Voltage Multistage through A156 and poorly calibrated English Tear (so the low notes go off key, but interestingly, I think), advanced by three gates in each 7-step Moskwa cycle.

Thin backup melody: MS20 multed to A189-1 for subtle bitcrushing, through Serge Resonant EQ into Wow & Flutter for short and wobbly delay. LFO modulates bit reduction; manual tweaking of EQ and delay feedback."

Peneplain

Published on Feb 8, 2016 voltlife

"An ambient piece that drifts through darkness and light with minimal human intervention. The tones are mostly conventional, but the interesting part is the way that structure can be given to what could be an endlessly self-running generative patch.

The main drone is a Verbos Harmonic Oscillator through Doepfer A189-1 (in short delay mode) and uVCF (slightly resonant LP). Slow modulations affect the width and centre inputs of the HO, the BC input of the A189-1 and the filter cutoff: interactions between the harmonic movements from the oscillator, A189-1 delay time and filter cutoff produce ever-changing textures ranging from slow swells to softened digital glitches.

The quasi-melodic part is Braids in PLUK mode, with the semi-random melody coming from an A149-1, quantised to a pentatonic scale by Braids, while Klasmata generates Euclidean triggers to drive the plucks. I usually find the pluck mode a bit harsh on Braids, so I used an R52 to warm it up and a Serge Resonant EQ to roll off the lows and vaguely emulate a resonant body from an acoustic instrument. Both drone and plucks go into Erbe Verb set to massive, spacious, on-the-edge-of-oscillation mode.

There's also a couple of plonky tuned percussion parts that come in during the middle section. These start with two individual harmonics from the HO, so they'll always be in tune with the drone. These go through two channels of Optomix (though one is first ring-modded against itself to double its pitch), into Wow and Flutter for some quick warbly delays, then into a Vox Delay Lab for a longer stereo delay with reverse effects.

The structure is all driven by a Verbos Voltage Multistage, which is clocked by a uLFO to get longer step lengths than the VM can do with its internal clock. CVa controls the density of Klasmata's rhythms, from one pluck per bar through to livelier patterns in the middle. CVb controls Erbe Verb's mod depth, pushing it up into shimmer mode at various stages to create a choir-like backing. Two VM gate outs drive a sequential switch to turn the Optomix percussion on for a few stages then off again. The uLFO's sine out controls the uVCF cutoff, subtly reinforcing the stage movements with filter swells.

Within that structure, the generative elements come from the A149-1 and a Turing Machine, combined with switches and logic. The Turing's Pulse 1 out clocks the A149-1, thus controlling when new notes are generated. Its Voltage out controls pluck length while the main output controls the R52 cutoff to further mute the shorter plucks. The timing of the percussion also comes from a combination of the Turing's Pulse outs with logic and clock division. Given the shift-register-based quasi-randomness of both the A149-1 and the Turing, combined with the Klasmata rhythms, this gives subtle structure to the melodic patterns."

Performance Study

Published on Aug 29, 2016 voltlife

"Playing around with some ideas for a live performance."

Dritch

Published on Nov 1, 2015 voltlife

"Drone meets glitch meets weird percussion.

Drone: Verbos Harmonic Oscillator (with tilt and individual harmonics mosulated by LFOs) via Serge Resonant EQ into both Erbe Verb (for clean shimmer effects) and Tyme Sefari Mk II and Demora (for glitched drone). The TSII's loop end is occasionally changed by a Function envelope (and this goes a bit mad when I switch to cycle mode for a while), while Sound of Thunder's pitch input is regularly modulated to pitch the result up an octave. A slow Moskwa sequence modulates Demora's Width to bring in more rapid ping-pong delays at times, while an LFO subtly modulates the Erbe Verb size parameter.

Drums: Pittsburgh Generator through Optomix into Pittsburgh Dual VCA; Maths envelope drives Generator 1 pitch and VCA. Verbos Voltage Multistage Gate Out triggers Maths, while CV A modified Maths envelope length and CV B modifies Generator's Index.

Hi-hat-like percussion: white noise into Pittsburgh Filter; HP out into Optomix. Rhythmic patterns created by A160/161/166 used to strike Optomix and modified Filter cutoff; Dreamboat Gate out modulates Filter Q.

Both drums and percussion go into a Vox DelayLab for rhythmic delays."

128 South

Published on Apr 29, 2017 voltlife

"A slab of droney techno, featuring a dirty squelchy bassline from a Doepfer A108 and some messed-up mostly analogue drums."

Teuthid Dreaming

Published on Nov 6, 2019 voltlife

"A floaty generative ambient patch, with tentacles! The NLC Squid Axon module replicates and mutates melodies using nonlinear feedback, rhythms are varied with Euclidean clocks, while Pressure Points + Brains is clocked extremely slowly to bring in different 'movements' with varying balance between voices. The voices themselves are mostly wavetable VCOs, with analogue filtering and a lot of reverb and long delays."

Lokroi

Published on Dec 9, 2019 voltlife

"Exploring the Locrian mode with dark, sweeping techno.

I tried to get around the main problem with the Locrian mode (its root triad is diminished, so it never feels at rest) by swiping a jazz technique and omitting the 5th, using a shell voicing instead. By making the other chords in the progression more dissonant and emphasising the root with other synths, I think it manages to reinforce the Locrian feel while avoiding the feeling that it's about to resolve somewhere else.

Apart from Waldorf Streichfett strings, the main voices are a Mother 32 bassline, plucky AFG arpeggios through a Pittsburgh Filter (not Mangrove through Sinc Bucina as I wrote in the video) and drums using both dedicated percussion modules and the Synthtech E352 for noisy snares than morph into wavetable stabs. I used the triangle suboctave trick from my previous tutorial video ([posted here]) to add heft to the Mother 32 bass, and the rest of the patch is explained in the video."