Notes: Stridulation-Yukon-Relay

This is a half-hour set I recorded for the online radio show Sonic Sound Synthesis at The Neon Hospice. There’s also a MixCloud archive of the show, the second half of which features Extractor Dan and Drift of Signifieds.

The set consists of three recording sessions, improvised and recorded live without MIDI sequencing or multitracking, combined into a continuous mix. (I’ve written about the process in my notes for Luminous Phenomena, which was recorded after this but released earlier.) It was recorded with a 516HP Eurorack modular synthesizer, Arturia Microfreak, Polyend+Dreadbox Medusa, and Bitwig Studio with several plugins.

Editing was done in Sound Forge Pro, and for mastering I used CraveDSP CraveEQ, DDMF MagicDeathEye, Voxengo TEOTE, and Voxengo Elephant, with Voxengo Span Plus, Voxengo Correlometer and Youlean Loudness Meter for measurement.

(These patch notes may omit some modulation sources, utilities and routing, basic EQ and dynamics plugins, etc.)

Stridulation (0:00 – 7:03)

The Harvestman Kermit’s A oscillator runs at audio rate, B at LFO rate. Voice 1 is Kermit A strumming Mutable Instruments Rings, and B modulating Rings’ position. Processed in Mutable Instruments Beads, Sound Radix SurferEQ, ValhallaDelay and ValhallaRoom.

Voice 2 is the 4ms Ensemble Oscillator, captured in Make Noise Mimeophon, with three LFOs modulating Root, Cross FM and Mimeophon’s micro pitch, with fader control over Zone. Processed with Wavesfactory Echo Cat and ValhallaRoom.

Voice 3 is Kermit A captured in Make Noise Phonogene, with Kermit B modulating the gene, through Happy Nerding FX Aid (delay+reverb program) with an LFO modulating the delay time.

Voice 4 is both Make Noise Maths function generators running at audio rate, into Mystic Circuits Portal’s Audio and Track inputs. An LFO adds vibrato to one of the function generators, and another slowly modulates Wrap on Portal. Processed in SynthTech E520 (Spectral Delay algorithm). Two channels on Make Noise 0-Ctrl control the rise and fall times on both Maths channels to change the pitch.

Very quietly in the background at times, there’s a sample from the Medusa through Chipcrusher and Valhalla Delay.

Yukon Icon (6:49 – 17:02)

Voice 1 is the Microfreak (Noise Engineering SawX algorithm) through Audtiothing Miniverb.

Voice 2 is the Medusa through one instance of ValhallaDelay for delay and a second for psuedo-reverb.

Voice 3 is u-he Zebralette.

The same Medusa/Chipcrusher sample, processed differently, also appears.

Relay A18 (16:30 to end)

The first voice is Mutable Instruments Blades self-oscillating, with the pitch played on Make Noise 0-Ctrl, processed in Beads, Puremagnetik Clusters and Parallel, and Arturia Jun-6 chorus. It’s looped in the Bitwig Grid sampler, and synchronized triggers are extracted to drive other modulation in the patch.

Voice 2 is the Kermit through Rabid Elephant Natural Gate and FX Aid (delay+reverb) and MolecularBytes AtomicTransient; also through a Bitwig Grid wavetable/wavefolder patch modulated by Maths.

Voice 3 is Mystic Circuits Portal modulated by an LFO and by Rings in FM mode, with drive and lowpass filter from Blades, and Make Noise Mimeophon (with Repeats very high to encourage feedback when it’s not damped by the input).

Voice 4 is the output of #1 reprocessed by Beads.

Voice 5 is ALM Busy Circuits Akemie’s Castle, Klevgrand Freeamp, AudioThing Wires, and ValhallaPlate.

There’s a public domain audiobook sample, looped in Bitwig Grid (synchronized to #1), with some amplitude modulation and Valhalla Delay.

The Medusa/Chipcrusher sample appears again, processed a third way.