STARTHIEF

On the album front: I have 41 minutes of material recorded so far, and I’ve been sticking with the minimal voices theme. One of the tracks does have three voices rather than a max of two, but since one of those is just a sub drone than blends with the chords of another voice, I’m letting myself get away with that. I figure I will probably release before Thanksgiving.

Speaking of which, we plan to visit my spouse’s parents at their new house for Thanksgiving, if we can arrange for dog sitting. We’re both a bit worried about traveling during the pandemic, and plan to avoid public spaces as much as we possibly can on the way. It’ll be nice to go do something though, spend some time with family and see my nephew and the new place.

Recent reads:

• Charlie Jane Anders’ All the Birds in the Sky was mostly great fun, with a few grim bits. A witch and a mad scientist whose lives are entangled wind up on opposite sides of a conflict over two horrible plans to save the world.
• I gave up partway through The Book of Strange New Things. A Christian missionary is recruited by a megacorporation to minister to aliens on a dreary remote planet, after the previous pastor went missing. I found most of the characters tedious and/or unlikeable, and the mysteries not very compelling either to the reader or the characters experiencing them. Despite the title, it feels like a book that had its sense of wonder surgically removed.
• I’m currently enjoying The City in the Middle of the Night (also by Charlie Jane Anders). Misfits living on a tidally locked planet on the border between the always-day side and the always-night side, with various culture clashes paralleling that same opposition. And most importantly, compelling characters.

I’ve also started watching Neon Genesis Evangelion and I am finally, 25 years after its original release, going to watch it all the way through. It’s on Netflix, so there are some unfortunate changes including the loss of “Fly Me to the Moon.” Now that I know that the original English subtitles weren’t quite so awkward, I can deal. If they had replaced “Cruel Angel’s Thesis” too, then I’d be annoyed.

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Right now I’m listening to my previous album on a new pair of headphones: German Maestro GMP 8.35 D. I picked them up because they were very highly rated by those who’ve used them, and they’re closed-back style with fairly good isolation. That’ll be helpful when I need to concentrate on work or music making and need to block out other noise. While I can still hear, for instance, the sound of my own typing on a clicky mechanical keyboard, the ticking of the desk fan behind me, and cartoons that my spouse is watching, it does block quite a bit more than the semi-open HD 668Bs I have used for years.

In general I don’t like closed-back headphones as much — they feel more “boxy” and when there’s no music (especially when you first put them on), you can hear the rush of your own blood. But I found it really didn’t take long before music started sounding right in them. Comparing between the two pairs of headphones, I think the GMPs are either revealing more detail, or it’s just not getting lost in the low hum of fans. The frequency response is a bit different, but I will probably not wind up using corrective EQ, opting instead to listen to a lot of music for reference in both sets of headphones so I have a proper feel for them.

I write music with the assumption that my listeners will use headphones, but it’s probably a good idea to check with two kinds of headphones anyway (as well as the wireless earbuds I usually check with on my phone during the mastering stage).

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I did go ahead and preorder a CVilization, after the matrix mixer video dropped and a couple of beta testers commented about how friendly and flexible it is to work with. And it shipped this morning, so there wasn’t a lot of “pre” in that order. I’m not going to sell off my AI008 until I know for sure I like CVil, but… I probably will.

I’ve put the Doepfer 256-stage BBD on my birthday/Christmas wish list. The new Mutable Instruments modules are planned for a 2020 release but may or may not make it due to production schedules, so I’m holding out for that. If it’s not a must-have, I have a few options to consider.

I’m still waiting for that DAFM Genesis synth to arrive. The last update from Correos (Spanish parcel post) was “Leaving the Exchange Office” on October 2, but from a quick check online these sorts of delays and/or a failure for USPS to show any tracking data isn’t unusual. If another week goes by I will write to the seller.

An addendum to my modular planning:

u-he is a company that makes some pretty great plugins, and they announced a foray into Eurorack a couple of years back. CVilization is:

• a 4×4 matrix mixer (with optional sample+hold & clock divider)
• a sequencer/ sequential switch
• a “Mucorder” (mutating CV recorder, something like a different take on the “x” side of Marbles)
• a quad panner
• quantization and clock divisions per channel on the first three modes.

The interface seems as clever and useable as is possible for something with so many different functions, and from reading the manual I expect the cheat sheet is mostly needed for occasional/rare config options.

In fact, the matrix mixer mode seems like it is probably more clear than my AI008. You deliberately select an input and then adjust its output routings, or you select an output and then adjust its input routings. It seems to me like this method reduces the impact of the “geometrical transform” issue the AI008 has.

So I could see replacing the AI008 with it, and then I’d also have another quantizer, which is something I was considering. And something else to complement Marbles, which is something else I was considering.

I do think I’ll wait for the other videos beyond the intro to make sure usability looks as clear as it seems from the manual, but chances are pretty good I will pick this up.

Listening to Unfolding this morning, I was struck by how “strings-like” many of its voices are in general timbre, regardless of what was producing those sounds. I kind of wish I could take credit for brilliant imitative sound design, but honestly: I didn’t actively set out to imitate string ensembles. There’s just something that really works about that kind of sound though.

The basic formula for a synth string ensemble is fairly simple: sawtooth waves, preferably from a stack of detuned oscillators or a chorus effect later, with a lowpass filter to tame it a little, a sustained volume envelope, and typically some reverb. Playing chords helps with the illusion, as does vibrato. To get a little fancier, a fixed filter bank or physical modeling can be employed, or a modulated wavetable that adds a bit more motion. None of this will necessarily fool the ear into thinking it’s actual strings being vibrated by actual horsehair stretched across actual wood, but it can definitely put the sound of a string section in mind.

While I also approximated strings with the Hertz Donut, Lyra-8 and others — thanks mainly to generous chorus and reverb — most of the points on the album that sound most convincingly like a string section or a double bass were Ensemble Oscillator. It’s not really any wonder; the right shapes for it are easy to dial in, the self-FM can add just the right kind of growl and bite so you can practically hear the rosin gripping the strings, and it eats detuned chords for breakfast.

ENOSC of course can do pipe organs with embarrassing ease — so much that when you first try it, it feels difficult to avoid them. It can also go to all kinds of astonishing, unexpected places. You can tune it so its lowest oscillators drop down to LFO rate but set the spread so its highest sing soprano and are modulated by those LFOs. You can coax patterned static bursts and growly flutters and metallic resonant hums and all kinds of oddities.

I am leaning harder toward “I have plenty of oscillators” because the likes of ENOSC, Shapeshifter, and Akemie’s Castle are each just so much in themselves already. And there’s Kermit, Rings, Mimeophon, Angle Grinder, Zorlon, Phonogene, Clouds, Maths etc. to act as sources. And the Medusa, the Microfreak, and the incoming YM2612 synth. And software integrated with the modular.

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Mutable Instruments announced a new revision of the Veils quad VCA last week, and also that there will be two more releases. It’s been more than strongly hinted that one of these is the successor to Clouds. The other — which sounds like it’s going to be another successor-with-a-new-name sort of thing — is unknown. So I’ll speculate baselessly!

Edges/Yarns: Edges was a quad chiptune-inspired oscillator, discontinued some time back. Yarns was a MIDI to CV converter that also could act as simple oscillators, discontinued recently due to relatively low sales (and a general decrease in demand for MIDI-CV converters). I could see some kind of quad oscillator with a minijack MIDI input as well as CV perhaps, but I wouldn’t rate it as highly likely.

Peaks: Arguably, this LFO/envelope generator/drum voice was supplanted by Stages as a much more powerful modulation source and Plaits as a more powerful percussion module. With plenty of more basic EG and LFO modules out there I can’t see a compelling reason for a more direct Peaks successor. So I’d rate this as even less likely.

Streams: It could be made non-modal, with a VCA/VCF balance and some integrated compression ability. Maybe not the strongest contender for a remake, but not impossible.

Branches/Grids: in a sense, Marbles does some of this. I honestly don’t have any experience with Grids, but it seems fairly robust already and there’s a lot of other competition out there for pattern sequencing stuff. It’s a possibility, though.

Rings/Elements: my wishful thinking here is that there’s room for another resonator in the Mutable lineup. Perhaps something that emphasizes the pure resonator aspect more, while offering new resonator models (perhaps a continuous morph between models) — or something that leans more to the bowed/breath side as opposed to Rings’ pluck/mallet. Not a “replacement” or “successor” to Rings so much as a complementary module. I can’t even guess if this is likely or just my own daydream though.

Warps: maybe? There are a lot of ways a revision could go and I don’t really have a clear vision of what that would be. I can tell you though, I would go for it.

Frames: I feel like it was a brilliant concept but it suffered somewhat in the implementation. If I were designing my own keyframe-based CV mapping module, it’d have an LCD display on it — but there are other ways in which the interface could be redesigned for clarity. It could also perhaps add individual CV inputs, making it (in some minor sense) a sort of fusion with Blinds, yet remaining at or below 18HP.

Regardless, my plan is now:

• Continue to wait on the charity auction to see what else comes up.
• Plan to pick up a Doepfer A-188-1y (256 stage BBD).
• Reserve the remaining space for Mutable Instruments gear, at least until I see what that’s going to be. And if it’s not a must-have, don’t fill in that space with another oscillator, but consider other options.

I don’t want to write about the whole election/COVID/”president” thing right now or give it any more attention than it needs. I’ve voted. I don’t need to have dreams about this crap or wake up immediately wanting to know the current status of… things. Gah.

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I have four recordings so far that might appear on the next album, and they suggest a theme by each having only one or two voices. I think I will continue in this vein. There are a couple of ways I could go with a title, but I’ll decide that when I get closer to a release.

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I finished reading Harrow the Ninth and… whoo boy is it different from the first book in tone for the most part, and confusing for a while, which reflects the protagonist’s state. Excellent though. Such a unique setting for these books, and enjoyable characters. I look forward to the third book, and will have to start a new necromancer in Guild Wars 2, even though they’ll be nothing at all like Harrowhark and her rivals/comrades.

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I’ve now color-coded my matrix mixer, and it does indeed provide a better visual cue to the inputs-knobs-outputs relationships, reducing the cognitive load when patching. Not quite as straightforward as having inputs in a vertical row and all jacks aligned with the knob matrix, but good enough!

I also received the Ana and Blinds, and sold the Shades. Ana is great as a waveshaper, as a general thing to plug multiple signals into and get a variety of other things out. Even with Shapeshifter’s multiple combination modes, plugging the 1 and 2 outputs into it, maybe with an envelope too, yields some fun variations. And Blinds is pretty much exactly as I expected; if it had bipolar/unipolar switches and maybe mute buttons/toggle switches it would be perfect, but it’s at about 94% as it is. But I’m going to hold onto the matrix mixer I think, as it seems a little more intuitive for feedback patching than Blinds.

I have my Starling VIA and its 4 faceplates up for sale now. META doesn’t sit entirely well with me due to its modes and unclear interface, SCANNER doesn’t fascinate me like it used to (and I have plenty of waveshaping options now that make more sense), OSC3 has some neat tricks but I crashed it a few too many times to want to rely on it, and SYNC3 is cool but I feel like I have enough tools that will cover its range of abilities.

That leaves up to 36 HP free (34 if I keep the blank next to FX Aid where it’s helping a bit with tight knob spacing). I’m waiting to see what happens with the charity auction, but here are some options I’m considering:

• Pittsburgh DNA Symbiotic Waves. It’s an older digital oscillator that’s sort of a gritty and lo-fi proto-Cyclebox (which was the precursor to Shapeshifter). It’s a little limited in CV control and flexibility compared to more modern things but I can’t argue with the sound. Again I remind myself, I have plenty of oscillators to go around. But… it’s cool, and with a Rings and Via out, I could indulge this.
• A real BBD. ValhallaDelay is nice but imitates a “clean-ish” guitar pedal with its filtering, lack of clock whine and inability to underclock to the point of aliasing. The Doepfer BBD I once had offered some delicious mangling opportunity, although I found 1024 stages was an awkward compromise between short resonator lengths and longer echo lengths, not great at either. I’m leaning toward a Doepfer 256-stage, which I could always patch into the feedback path of longer delays if I wanted longer times — but the Erica Pico BBD (4096 stage) has the appeal of being much smaller, a little cheaper, and letting me fit in more stuff.
• 2hp Freez. I had one before, and while the actual freeze effect is not terribly exciting (Phonogene, Mimeophon, Purple Rain all can do it anyway), its sample reduction had a lovely character to it. This is pretty optional though, as there are some mighty tools in software to lo-fi-ize sounds.
• A quantizer like Intellijel Scales, Sonic Potions Penrose etc. where individual notes in the scale have buttons, rather than dialing in a scale selection. I could keep using Marbles or Teletype, but the hands-on, instant setup appeals. The important thing here is, something sparser than a full scale seems to work nicer for quantization.

Check out this amazing tracking history of the pinstripe tape I bought on eBay:

Both the Hazelwood and STL facilities are within about 7 miles of here. Nope, nothing weird about the timeline at all.

Last night I read another article that speculated on plausible scenarios involving the November election. Overall, it seems clear the Trump campaign strategy has been to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the election — an old GOP favorite, where “voter fraud” is used as the excuse to disenfranchise voters in Democratic-leaning areas (who are proportionally more black and poor than not) but cranked up to 11. And of course this fits right in with the cultish, Orwellian strategy of calling the news media and science into question so that the Regime can lay sole claim to the truth. Trump, unless defeated in an absolutely crushing landslide, is almost certainly not going to concede but will attempt to bend space and time around the black hole of his ego.

Reading the article was a mistake.

I dreamed last night of being at a college for some kind of artist residency thing in electronic music — COVID wasn’t a concern in the dream world — when it was announced that the school was closing due to widespread outbreaks of election-related violence. It was perpetrated by right-wing militias and by police forces (which are not that far from being the same thing), but of course blamed on antifa and George Soros…

The scene changed to the school’s auditorium, and the woman in the seat in front of me pulled a small pistol from her purse and started pointing it at people and waving it vaguely around while spouting off some QAnon garbage and accusing me of being an anarchist. And that’s when I woke up. (I realized later it was Patricia McCloskey, of the couple in St. Louis who threatened protesters by waving guns at them illegally.)

Sigh. 40 days until Election Day. 118 days until the next Presidential term begins.

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I went ahead and traded my Lyra-8 to someone directly for a Medusa. After both were en route, I got a really weird set of messages from USPS about how the Medusa’s address had been changed and it was being held for pickup in the post office in the sender’s city. So that was another recent worry: had I been scammed or something? After a few moments of thinking about it, it didn’t really make sense. I figured it was a mistake, and yes: the sender had accidentally reversed the To and From addresses when buying the label, someone from USPS figured it out and fixed it, and that looked really bizarre to their tracking system. I’ll still be relieved when it arrives, and also happy I hope. I think Medusa is going to work out very well.

I have also gone for a DAFM Synth Genesis, which sports the Yamaha YM2612 “OPN2” FM chip — as found in the Sega Genesis, and also that MegaFM synth I had been thinking about. This is smaller and significantly cheaper, and though it doesn’t have a dedicated slider for every parameter, I’ve heard it’s pretty friendly to work with. I’ve already familiarized myself a bit with how the synth engine works, since Plogue Chipsynth MD is an emulation of it. It’ll be nice to have the real deal and all its wonky fuzzy noise for drones and textures. If I seriously fall in love with the sound, it might be worth reconsidering the MegaFM (and possibly setting Akemie’s Castle aside).

Good thing I didn’t jump immediately for the Quadrantid Swarm, because I have another thought.

The Polyend + Dreadbox Medusa is another one of those synths I didn’t pay that much attention to upon first release, because of its price and my assumption that I didn’t want a grid-based sequencer.

The price of a new Medusa now is almost down to half what it was and the “special edition” panel shown here also looks better than the original. And as it turns out, that grid-based sequencer is also a touch controller, and it is mighty.

In “note mode”, you can select a musical scale as well as the interval between rows — so you can set it up for handy chord fingering patterns or octaves or whatever makes sense to you. Each of the 64 pads also sends X, Y and pressure modulation signals which can be assigned to synth parameters.

In sequencer mode, each pad not only stores a note value but parameters. If you want, you can have each pad play a completely different sound, set up like a drum machine. Or you can use a row or column to sweep across parameters. Or assign the notes you want to use in your composition to a few pads, and simultaneously play those and parameter pads. You can copy/paste to arrange assignments into a sequence, or just step sequence more normally. I’m not sure whether you can sequence the sequencer’s own clock rate from there, and the sequencer’s motion seems to be strictly linear, but it’s still a pretty great concept.

The synth itself is more conventional in some ways, with 3 analog oscillators (with sync and expo FM) and 3 basic digital oscillators (with non-morphing wavetables). But you can assign them to play in unison, 3-voice mode (each voice is 1 analog + 1 digital) or 6-voice mode — note rotation as you play can lead to some interesting variations. The synth has a single multimode filter, making it paraphonic like the Microfreak. There are no built-in effects, which is a difference from other Dreadbox synths.

There are, unfortunately, some really bland-sounding demos out there which have turned a lot of people away from the synth. But there are also some stunning counterexamples — this is not a boring synth, but rather one that requires and rewards some sound design effort, and at least a touch of reverb or delay. Among actual users, opinions seem to be split — some absolutely love it, some just never quite get along with it.

Many of those best demos are using it exactly as I would, for drones and ambient stuff, and I kind of suspect I’m more likely to be in the “love it” group.

Quadrantid Swarm is a synth made to give instant gratification with weird, angry, dark and/or metallic sounds. It does have semi-modularity and that sweet spring reverb going for it. But overall it is much less expressive and flexible, and I think in the long term, the Medusa would likely serve better.

So as soon as either the Lyra or Reface sells or I encounter an extra-good deal, I expect I will go for a Medusa.