a series of humble musical experiments
because I couldn't stop when I finished the official 100 tracks

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Title	Time	Description
Interstitial 01	1:24	Two Eurorack modules: Whimsical Raps Three Sisters, and Mutable Instruments Peaks. A touch of Valhalla Plate and Syntorus chorus and a bit of level automation on the output, compression in Sound Forge but that's all. CV.OCD MIDI converter drives Sisters frequency input, with high enough Q to self-resonate. Two Sisters outputs feed Peaks tap LFO at audio rates; one of those LFOs feeds back into Sisters, and the other goes to the audio interface along with a third Sisters output.
Interstitial 02	0:58	Ataraxic Translatron filtered and distorted by Three Sisters. Sound Dust Unlikely Spaces drum sample kit.
Brutalic Translatron	1:09	Driving the Ataraxic Translatron in clock mode from a MicroBrute. Right on the edge of what the AT prefers for its clock signal, I manually tweaked the Brute's filter and oscillator mix settings to push it over the edge in various ways.
Interstitial 03	3:21	Bastl Trinity MonoFM -> Whimsical Raps Three Sisters ALL input Three Sisters all output -> Mutable Instruments Rings input Three Sisters center output -> Rings FM Noise Engineering Ataraxic Translatron -> attenuator -> Rings V/OCT Peaks stepped triangle LFO -> Three Sisters V/OCT Peaks sine LFO -> Rings Structure Rings Odd output -> Valhalla Plate -> recording
boar132	2:37	Based on a patch recommended by Olivier Gillet of Mutable Instruments: Rings, in Sympathetic Strings mode, with -5V applied to both V/OCT and FM inputs and frequency tuned to a very slow, very low-fi delay. Ataraxic Translatron playing square waves through an enveloped VCA, into Rings input.
Interstitial 06	3:35	Dia de la Glitch drum samples -> Three Sisters All input Tides Bi LFO -> Three Sisters span Three Sisters LPF out -> Transverb VST -> Echobode VST -> recording Three Sisters All output -> Rings input constant -5V -> Rings V/OCT & FM inputs Tides Uni LFO -> Rings position Rings Odd output -> recording
AT->DPLPG ping & envelope test	1:00	A quick test of the MengQiMusic DPLPG. The first half pings the vactrols directly with a trigger sequence from CV.OCD, passively multed to both channels' CV inputs. Ataraxic Translatron is multed to both audio inputs. The top channel is panned left (and rings slightly longer) and the bottom channel is panned right. (Note: passive multing the trigger does make it slightly softer than a buffered mult or separate trigger signals would have been, but it's pretty subtle. Intentionally attenuating the trigger signal has much more of an effect. There seems to be a minimum threshold beneath which the vactrol doesn't light up.) For the second half, the trigger goes to Mutable Instruments Peaks, and a short release envelope is multed to each channel. It's not quite as robust as the direct ping, but can close a little faster if I set the release time shorter.
Interstitial 07	1:37	(notes missing; it's a mystery!)
Interstitial 08	1:14	voice 1: Tides ---------------------------- note pitch -> Tides V/OCT Peaks ch1 envelope -> Tides level Peaks ch2 stepped triangle LFO -> S.P.O. invert & positive offset -> channel 1 DPLPG input Peaks ch2 stepped triangle LFO -> channel 2 DPLPG input 1/4 note clock -> channel 1 DPLPG ping -> Tides smoothness Note trigger -> channel 2 DPLPG ping -> Tides slope Tides High -> Tides Slope Tides Bi -> DAW -> DubStation VST voice 2: Rings (in FM mode) ---------------------------- note pitch -> Rings V/OCT note trigger -> Rings strum Rings odd out -> Three Sisters LPF in Three Sisters LPF out -> DAW -> EOS VST voice interaction: Tides Uni -> Rings FM It occurs to me afterward that I could have run Ataraxic Translatron through MicroBrute for some noise drums that wouldn't have gone amiss (or of course, just used a VST). But I think it's fine as is.
Interstitial 09	1:24	Patching is starting to get complex and I still have 22HP of modules shipping and 2HP free rack space after that. I'm gonna need more decent cables. In a nutshell, voice 1 is Rings (modulated by DPLPG pings) through Three Sisters. Voice 2 is Tides (modulated by Peaks)and Ataraxic Translatron. Some DSP effects added through VST plugins.
Interstitial 10	0:33	(notes missing, but I was definitely testing Mutable Instruments Warps as a vocoder here.)
Interstitial 11	3:23	Three Sisters in Formant mode, generating a pair of sines. One performs self-FM, the other goes to Warps input 2. Warps with algorithm halfway between digital ringmod and XOR, sine internal osc. The raw osc output level is modulated by a VCA, and fed back to its own phase input. Timbre is modulated. Output goes to DAW, and is multed to Rings V/OCT input. Rings is in modal (green) mode, polyphony 2 (switched to 4 later). Position is modulated; strum is clocked at about 48BPM with the other modulators. Odd output goes to DAW. No effects added in DAW. Rings was faded in first, then Warps and I started playing with knobs. I turned Rings down some as I made changes, and faded Warps out first. Modulation was from Peaks tap LFOs and a Tides AD envelope. The sustained tones were from Rings switching voices with the damping knob set very high.
Interstitial 12	3:08	lowpass filtered noise into Rings input; filter freqeuency sequenced via MIDI Rings in Modal mode, monophonic Pitch / trigger -> Rings V/OCT and Strum Rings odd output -> LPG controlled by Peaks envelope -> Warps input Warps Parasite delay; "tape speed" is set low and delay length high, for lo-fi processing LFO -> heavily attenuated so it's subtle -> Warps algo output -> DAW Spirit Reverb & Vapor VSTs with fairly low wet settings.
Interstitial 13	3:31	at start: wind turbine sample from Detunized Modular voice (starting about 0:07): Tides and Warps (between XOR and Comparator, with triangle internal osc) modulating each other at audio rates, into Three Sisters all input. Tides also FMs Three Sisters. Rings (modal/duophonic) fed by digital noise, into Three Sisters HPF input. Three Sisters all out through LPG, into Eos and SpaceModulator VSTs. VST voice (starting about 1:23): Chipsounds, Sonitex STX-1260, ValhallaRoom, Replika
Interstitial 14	2:21	A take on the Krell Patch with Mutable Instruments modules. Tides in looping mode, medium rate Peaks DMC in Turing Machine mode Rings in 4x poly, sympathetic strings mode Warps in Compare/Rectify mode with triangle internal osc Tides Low output -> Peaks DMC (in Turing Machine mode) & Rings strum. Peaks output -> Tides V/OCT & Rings V/OCT & Warps V/OCT Tides Uni ouput -> Rings structure Tides Bi output -> Rings Position Rings odd output -> Warps input 2 Warps output -> DAW (VVV -> Fault -> Dubstation)
Interstitial 15	3:01	Rings, sympathetic strings, 4x poly Microbrute modulating Structure at audio rate with filtered triangle wave Rings into Warps channel 2, crossfolder mode, and then back into Rings input Transient Master, ArcDev ET-301, Ubik-A
Interstitial 16	2:31	Rings in sympathetic strings mode; high brightness and damping shepard tone (from mda Shepard VST) -> Warps (wavfolding and VCA) -> Rings input MIDI ch1 pitch -> Rings pitch MIDI ch1 trigger -> Rings strum & Peaks ch2 Turing Machine trigger MIDI ch1 gate -> Peaks ch1 envelope gate 1/4 note clock -> DPLPG with constant voltage input -> Rings brightness negative modulation Peaks Turing Machine output -> Rings Structure Rings odd output -> DPLPG with CV controlled by Peaks envelope -> DAW, with ValhallaPlate (The slow attack envelope I'm using for Warps VCA and DPLPG are causing some chaos -- Rings is triggering before the input builds up, and DPLPG has a minimum threshold before it opens, so the first notes after silence have a delayed attack.) Noise drums: MIDI ch2 pitch -> Ataraxic Translatron -> Three Sisters MIDI ch2 gate -> Three Sisters frequency Three Sisters LPF -> DAW, with EQ & gate to eliminate sub rumble while filter gate is low, and Sandman Pro Kick: Maschine DrumSynth kick
Interstitial 17	2:59	First voice is Tides, with modulation from Peaks and Three Sisters (itself modulated by Peaks), into Warps. (I'm learning to love the Bouncing Ball envelope in Peaks Dead Man's Catch.) Second voice is Rings in FM mode, modulated by a gate signal through DPLPG, and at near-audio rates by Tides Parasite sub square output. Some VST delay and reverb added. This "interstitial" series is generally just quick experiments with little attention paid to composition, but the results can be musically interesting anyway.
Krellatron	4:22	Another variation of the "Krell" patch where a function generator (in this case, Tides) controls other modules and its end-of-rise and/or end-of-cycle triggers also fire off a random source (in this case, two Turing Machines in Peaks Dead Man's Catch) that modulates its own rate. Ataraxic Translatron was the oscillator, through Warps Parasite in delay mode, with delay time also modulated by Tides. Most of the activity was self-organized but I did some knob turning in places, and a bit of repatching near the end to wind it down. I have a small modular system meant to provide a couple of voices and new options to a software-based system, and normally I prefer keeping it small but powerful and functionally dense. But this is the rare sort of patch that makes me wish for a larger modular system. Comparators, gate to trigger converters, a pitch quantizer etc. could take this kind of thing to the next level.
All Tracks		Download all tracks in one ZIP file (57.1 MB)

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All music is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.