systemcall

Watch my explanation of a 60HP portable eurorack rig on my YouTube channel

In an attempt to get the kick/snare to stand out and not get buried by the other voices, I looked for a way to do side-chain compression — in other words, lowering the volume of the other voices when the kick/snare hit. Turns out Mutable Instruments Streams module has a compressor mode that does the trick.

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In this patch, a module named “Tuesday” from the company This Is Not Rocket Science is sending its pitch, gate, and accent out to a Moog Mother-32 (with the accent being fed into the resonance input), through a Pico DSP and on to a Rainmaker. Nebulae adds some ambience, and a Varigate 8+ triggers a Basimilus Iteritas Alter. Everything is being sent through an Erbe-Verbe.

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The Varigate 4+ allows me to change the sequence on the fly, while Pressure Points transposes the three voices.

Akemie’s Taiko percussion sound module has many inputs.  Just about all of them are being modulated by a Voltage Block here.

I’m using four channels on a Voltage Block to generate 16-step pitch CVs, and selecting which channel is currently in use via a sequential switch. The pitch CVs are going through a Tip-Top Audio quantizer whose scale CV is being controlled by Brains/PressurePoints. Voices are Make Noise DPO and Erica Synths Black Wavetable VCO going through MiniMod ladder filter and Ripples filter respectively. Akemie’s Taiko is being randomly triggered by the Kilpatrick Audio Pattern Generator. Delays are being handled by two Disting MK4s. Reverb is through Erbe Verb.

BeatstepPro is providing the master clock, feeding into Pamela’s New Workout which in turn sends various clock divisions throughout the system. An Expert Sleepers Disting mk4 is generating turing-machine-like CVs to a TipTop quantizer. A MakeNoise Pressure Points + Brains is hooked up to the Scale CV input on the quantizer, allowing me to shift the melody around. Pressure Points’ other two rows send pitch voltages to a Roland SE-02 and Akemie’s Taiko 1V/Oct inputs. The Taiko is being triggered by the K4815 Pattern Generator, and its output is going through Clouds, Rosie, and Erbe Verb. VCOs are MakeNoise DPO and Erica Synths Black Wavetable, all being mixed with an Erica Synths 3 channel mixer and fed into Ripples filter being modulated by Maths. Kick and snare are being triggered by Pamela, while a Grids fires a clap. The clap and snare are Pico Drums and the kick is a Mutant Bassdrum. The envelope for the VCOs are controlled by a Contour which is being triggered by the BeatStep, and a Dynamix is acting as the VCA. Grids’ third output is triggering the Roland gate input, whose filter is being modulated by Maths. I think that covers everything.

“pressure points”

I installed a second Pressure Points so I can have a total of 8 variations on the root note, and also a Malekko Heavy Industry Varigate 4+ to take over sequencing duties. The Mother 32 adds a voice this time in this variation:

“pressure points 2”

I recorded a few opening seconds from the song “Othila” by Achillea into the Phonogene, and modulated the varispeed, slide, and gene size inputs from various LFOs to produce the rising and falling sound. The low drone is from the Erica Synths Black Wavetable VCO, and Grids is firing a couple drum sounds from Pico Drums. Delay is being added by the Disting MK4 and reverb from Erbe-Verb.

“phonogene othila”

…and a variation…

“phonogene othila 2”