Urs Heckmann or better known as the main developer behind the fantastic sounding U-he plugins started in the past weeks to release some excellent Eurorack Synthesizer jams on youtube. Absolutely worth to check out.
A quick recording of a minimalistic rhythmic patch I came up with. It’s a bit on the repetitive side with a huge boomy bass, which makes it sound a bit psychedelic. The sitar-like timbres from Rings add to this. I was exploring two things: Using the Vermona fourMulator as “offbeat processor” to have shifted triggers and modulations, i.e. “disguise the downbeat”. Using uScale, uVCA and Quadra (+ S&H in Kinks) to occasionally add a pseudo-random melody line into Rings. I also wanted the whole thing be transposable through Pressure Points.
Apart from that there’s various triggers (Circadian Rhythm, A 142-1, more fourMulator) playing a few drum sounds (HexInv HiHat, Peaks BD, “triangles” from SMR), another Pressure Points (with Brains) controlling a synth arpeggio (VCO2RM + OptoMix). This is also the first patch I found worth recording, mainly also because it’s contained on just one case/rack. I hope to find the time to explore some more patches that allow for more complex musical structures.Also, in future I’ll probably record each voice separately in order to get a better final mix and maybe also a more distinct amount of reverb and delay.
Minimal Modular Synth performance.
I’m currently in a phase where I enjoy building a whole idea within just a small, contained rack. This time using the Vermona rack with a bunch of their 1U multiples/mixers. The goal was to distribute the sequence from Metropolis to several different voices to make it sound like multiple (though related) sequences. It’s a concept that I hope to integrate in my future work. 3 Bass/percussion voices: Used Tempi and Bytom to cut up gates and clocks from Metropolis to generate three different rhythmic bass/percussion lines from STO and MiniMod VCO (through MMG, uFold and LXd). All of this through DLD.
Solo Voices: Using Maths as envelope (RingMod via Blinds) and control voltage for a random melody with Dixie II+ , displaced by Batumi /w Sport Modulator and scaled by uScale II. Using MiniMod VCF as Filter/Volume control for this melody. Put a Kamieniec on top of that, which in the beginning is heard by itself as fx sweeps in self oscillation (ringmod’d through cycled Maths). Mixed, delayed, equalised and limited in Logic.
Here’s last weekend’s patch on a small system. All sound is recorded straight out of this synth. Goes to show that two oscillators, one filter plus Rings and Clouds make for a nicely dense patch. Base drum (way too loud, sorry for that) stems from Peaks. I’m using Batumi + 2 x Tirana and the Sequenced Switch to create all sorts of triggers, random offsets and rhythmic context. Most of the performance is setting the levels of each component, plus a few tweaks on Maths. I could have done more, but…
… the general problem with recording a video like that is, I could do much more to make it interesting, but it might be difficult to come back to the original setting. Hence some knobs are better left untouched if there’s the slightest chance one needs to reshoot. Then, after five or six attempts one is just fine with the bad light, noisy looks and some mixing errors. I need more experience with this 🙂
Equipment used: XAOC Devices Tirana II (2x), Batumi and Kamieniec, Make Noise Maths and Optomix, Mutable Instruments Rings, Clouds, Peaks and Kinks, 4 MS Dual Looping Delay, Erica Synths Black Hole DSP, Intellijel uScale 2, uVCA and Dixie 2+, AJH Synths MiniMod Transistor Core VCO, The Harvestman Polivoks VCF, Doepfer A 151 Sequential Switch, Happy Nerding PanMix, Vermona Dual Buffered Multiple/Inverter (2x), Dual Buffered Attenuator/Mixer (2x) and Modular Case 104
Reverb/Output: PanMix into Black Hole into Audio Interface.
Be the first to comment