systemcall

I’ve had the Makenoise Phonogene for a little while now but I didn’t quite understand its power until I fed some LFOs (care of Maths) into the Phonogene’s Slide and Gene-size CV inputs. Wow. It’s like a transformer effect on steroids. The sample is from Personal Jesus by Depeche Mode. Grids is playing the Pico Drums and also hitting the Play input on the Phonogene. 0-coast is droning along.

“personal phonogene jesus”

Just got the Makenoise 0-coast and in this track it’s being sequenced by the Moog Mother 32 with the pattern that happened to be in its memory. I’m using the Arturia Keystep keyboard to hammer out a quick melody that’s playing through the Erica Synths Wavetable VCO.

“0-coast”

These two tracks are an experiment with taking two step sequencers, running them at different step lengths (one with 5 steps and the other with 7), running the pitch CVs through a precision adder, and sending that new pitch to various oscillators. At various times I change the 5 step sequence to 3 steps, and that causes the resulting sequence to change in interesting ways.

The two sequences are driven by the Arturia Beatstep Pro, with pitch CV going through an Expert Sleepers Disting mk4 in adder mode. From there it goes through a 4MS Buff Mult to the various oscillators.

The first track uses the Moog and Erica Synths oscillators, and the drums are driven by the drum sequencer on the Beatstep.

The second track uses the Makenoise DPO for the drone, being fed through Mutable Instruments Ripples filter whose cutoff is being modulated by a Makenoise Maths. The sequenced pitch is being simultaneously routed to the Moog, the Erica wavetable VCO, and my new Makenoise 0-coast. The kick drum is from a Pico drums and is being sequenced by the Beatstep, while the laser/high-hat/thing is from the Pico drums but triggered from a Mutable Instruments Grids (which has its X axis being modified by a Maths). An Erica Synths Black Quad VCA is mixing all the non-drums, while a Makenoise Rosie mixes the drums and the output from the Quad VCA. As always, Rosie sends everything through the Erbe-verb.

“addition 1”

“addition 2”

I got a Phonogene and sampled a couple seconds of Going Backwards by Depeche Mode; short portions of the sample are being looped in the three sections of the audio file below. Meanwhile, I’m using the end-of-cycle output to trigger a Pico EG envelope generator which is controlling an Erica Synths Quad VCA. An Erica Synths Black Wavetable VCO is providing two voices and the DPO is providing another. Maths is being used as a sawtooth LFO to modulate the Mutable Instruments Ripples filter, as well as sweeping through the wave table on the Erica Synths VCO.

“industrial loops”

While the Moog sequencer plays a 32 step sequence, it clocks the Grids which is playing the Pico drums. This time I used one Grids output to trigger the left side of Maths which is generating an envelope to modulate the DPO fold input, while another Grids output is triggering the right side of Maths to generate a slower envelope to modulate the Dynamix.

“maths modulation”

In this patch, the grids module is triggering the DPO, the Moog, and the Pico drums. Since I am using two of the three grids outputs for triggering the oscillator envelopes, I used the remaining output for the kick drum, and then used an accent output for the high hat. The Moog’s LFO is being multed to modulate the grids’ X axis and also the Moog filter’s cutoff frequency (after going through the Moog’s mixer to reduce the modulation amount). Maths is acting as an LFO to modulate the DPO’s angle value, as well as creating an envelope to control the DPO’s fold. The other half of Maths is generating the envelope fed to the dynamix to shape the DPO output level. The Moog output is also fed into the dynamix to mix before sending to Rosie which combines it with the Pico drums. As usual, Rosie sends to ErbeVerb for ambience.

“grids 2”

Tonight I was playing with modulating two oscillators (the DPO and the Moog) using two different LFOs, and it sounded cool but it also created sections with gaps of relative silence. I decided to try the Maths’ “Invert” output, feeding in a single LFO, sending the “Sum” output to one filter, and the “Invert” output to the other. The result is the two oscillators take turns being front and center, with no sound gaps.

It’s amazing how many combinations you can patch together with even just a few modules. I’m finding I need to pick up another “Mult” as I find myself splitting VC signals, and I only have a single Mult (on the Moog).

“LFO Inversion”

I received the Mutable Instruments “Grids” module, dubbed a “topographic drum sequencer”. Here it is in action, driving a Pico Drums module, a Make Noise DPO, and the Moog Mother 32.

“hello grids”

“Stranger Things” melody

Whenever my git repo is in “detached HEAD” state I feel like I’m in a horror movie. This track should give you that same, uncomfortable feeling.

“detached HEAD”