Month: August 2020

Carefully Introducing Problems was released in early June. I recorded nothing new in June, and two tracks in mid-July. Things have broken loose though; in the last couple of weeks I’ve finished 6 tracks. Perhaps it’s the big refresh that my modular synth went through, or perhaps I’m just coming out of a funk.

I mean, it’s still the Corona year, America feels more like a failed state than ever, and I’m still tired and tense all the time, and I feel like everyone’s just trying to hang on and survive. I was thinking today about a former coworker who said (many years ago now) that she admired me because I was always trying to improve myself, and I kind of wonder when I stopped doing that. But still, I feel like making music.

Phonogene arrived Saturday. An old one, with the ugly knobs Make Noise originally used (but with the wrong colors) and a panel that looks as if it was dirtied and cleaned a few times in its life. But it’s got the firmware update from 2013 at least. I’ve got some replacement knobs on the way, and might pick up the Grayscale replacement panel if I feel it’s warranted in a couple of weeks or so.

Phonogene was discontinued in early 2018 and was succeeded by Morphagene — which has higher sound quality, more memory, stereo, multiple layers for true granular synthesis, SD card saving and loading, etc. But there are those who prefer the Phonogene’s charm and simplicity, and I believed I’d be among them. For smooth granular I’ve got Clouds; for blurry spectral time manipulation there’s the E520. Phonogene is more for raw 90s “clicks and cuts” style manipulation, combined with synchronization of other modules. As I’ve found, it suits my music quite well.

I don’t have much thought about what could go in the remaining space. (18HP, plus a possible 8 more from the MG-1 and a possible 4 more if I “hide” the ES-6 inside and access it through the PassThru.) I don’t need another oscillator, that’s for sure, nor more effects, and I think I’m fine on modulation sources. I figure, I should hold off to see if something else brilliant comes along, or my musical needs evolve. So I’m declaring this “version 4.0.”

Quick summary:

• “0.0” (Exploration) was learning Eurorack and exploring.
• “1.0” (Suitability) was when I thought I had a fairly stable system I could live with, which would only mutate slowly. The focus was on complex oscillators, wavetables and resonators.
• “2.0” (Consolidation) replaced a lot of stuff with an ER-301 Sound Computer, and moved it all into a single case with a lot of empty space.
• “2.1” (Effects Dive) had me trying out a Rainmaker, Erbe-Verb, Doepfer BBD and more pedal effects.
• “3.0” (Focus) was realizing that Version 2 was kind of wrong for how I want to make music (even though I learned a lot), and reverting to what I liked best about 1.0.
• “3.1” (Integration) switched me from Maschine to Bitwig and the ES-3/ES-6.
• “3.14” (Harmony) saw me adding the Lyra-8 and think more about the performance aspect of my process.
• “3.2” (FM Overkill) was sort of a refinement phase, a further refocusing and embracing of what I liked. That began in late 2019.
• “4.0” (New Waves) includes selling off my effects pedals, adding the 0-Ctrl and Planar and the Pod 60 case, and switching from the beloved Hertz Donut and E352 to Shapeshifter and EnOsc.

I’m still feeling that time is crawling and flying simultaneously. Maybe that’s just the new normal. It’s probably always been true, but maybe the pandemic made me notice it more.

The partially formed concept I had for the album I’m working on is related to time — entropy, the “arrow of time” and how it relates to life; the opposing but complementary forces of Preservation and Ruin, from which Harmony arises, from Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn series.

Except that the tracks I’ve recorded really aren’t that much in line with that. I’ll just keep recording stuff, and see what happens I suppose 🙂

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I wound up with the 4ms Ensemble Oscillator (ENOSC) and am hugely impressed with it.

Trying to keep the technical description part of this short — ENOSC begins with the basic concept of additive synthesis, but instead of fixed harmonic frequency ratios between the partials, it lets you choose from preset or custom-defined chords, scales, or non-octave repeating interval sets, within or outside standard Western 12TET tuning. The idea is to explore the whole spectrum between additive synthesis and music theory. You can also detune them for lush chorusing effects.

On top of that, the partials can FM each other, using the root or highest partial s the modulator, or each modulating the next higher. Combining that with different frequency intervals can give extremely rich results!

And on top of that there’s a phase shaper and a wavefolder, each with three modes.

The sets of partials have three different output assignment modes, but unfortunately each of them can suffer from phase cancellation issues. Thankfully I’ve built up a pretty good roster of ways to deal with those, it’s just something I’ll have to keep an eye and an ear on.

Overall, the sounds this thing can produce are diverse and… kind of alarming to be honest. Pipe organs are easy, and as others have said, using it for drones feels like cheating. I’ve accidentally created really brassy horns with a sort of grace note attack, with no envelopes at all, just as a consequence of the crossfading as the Root input changes along with cross-FM. It’s done vocal formant “yai yoi oay” type stuff, 808 style hi-hats, a combined bassline/chord stabs, wild FM percussion, and some almost Karplus-Strong like power chords. The thing is full of sweet spots and it’s very easy to get something good out of it, but I feel like it’s going to take a while to familiarize myself with it so I can more or less predict what will happens when I change one aspect of its current state.

ENOSC is 16HP, and feels like it’s deceptively small — like it’s trying to fool people into thinking it’s humbler and simpler than it really is. It also tends to eat attenuators for breakfast — any CVing you do needs to be really cut down to size to work well. So it probably should have been 26HP, like the 4ms SMR and SWN as well as E352 and Shapeshifter. It deserves the larger stature 🙂

I’ve gone ahead and put the Faderbank, HD mk2 and E352 up for sale. The kinds of sounds I’m getting from my current rig without them are perfectly suited to what I want to do, while giving me a whole lot of mad ̶s̶c̶i̶e̶n̶c̶e̶ engineering exploration.

I also bought a used Phonogene, for semi-lo-fi varispeed tape loop stuff — something I have missed since trying W/. The looper and Spectral Time Machine in E520 are their own things, good but not the same as that; Clouds is granular and also different; Mimeophon is not quite there with its hold feature. Bitwig doesn’t really do it live or in such a hands-on way, though I’ve made decent use of its sampler in the Grid.

I’m going to pass on Casper/Bastl Waver, after watching a video demo where the sounds are just not very appealing, there was some nasty clipping and some thresholds where the level suddenly jumps.

My past few tracks have used a LOT of moderately slow LFOs, which made me think a bit about maybe Zadar or a DivKid 0chd — but I do have plenty of available CV outputs and can assign them to LFOs in Bitwig, so I won’t go there.

I feel I’m at or near a “version 4.0” of my modular synth, and maybe I will write up a summary of it, like I did with what I had near the start of this blog.

Saturday morning I went ahead and rearranged my modular setup, discovering my plan for the Pod 60 wasn’t going to work. Pod cases are pretty shallow, and some modules just won’t fit in them. When people report the depths of modules on ModularGrid, they don’t always take into account connectors and cables on the back, so that 28mm module isn’t necessarily going to fit into a 34mm deep case. Also, there was really no way I was going to fit a flying bus cable in there to sneak in an extra power header. So I revised the plan on the fly, and I think it’ll work out. Monday when the custom snake cable arrives, I’ll rewire my studio rack box and see how everything goes.

Shapeshifter arrived yesterday afternoon, and it’s a delight. If considered solely on its strengths as a wavetable oscillator, it’d be a disappointment. If considered solely as a TZFM complex oscillator (using only sines), it’d be… okay, but not spectacular.

It’s all about synergy, though. Things that I thought were extra “bells and whistles” turn out to be part of an unusual orchestra, each one multiplying the awesomeness rather than simply adding to it. The patch I have playing right now while I write this has:

Osc1: “Harmo2” wavetable with the position being slightly modulated by an LFO. It’s playing a minor chord inversion.
Osc2: “Flute1” wavetable.
Main output: Osc1 and Osc2, ring modulated.
Osc2 FMs Osc1 mildly, while Output 1 phase-modulates Osc2 very shallowly.
There’s a touch of comb filtering delay driven by Osc2’s frequency.

Change any single piece of that — the depths of modulation, the ratio of the two oscillators, either wavetable or position within it, disable chord mode, use Tilt, remove the ring modulation or change to some other algorithm, enable oscillator sync… and it could be a radically different sound, but probably still awesome.

Just having FM and PM working circularly leads to magic. Sometimes the oscillators will spontaneously synchronize, in a fragile sort of way, and bring something completely new. Go too far and it’ll just spit and hiss and bubble like a rabid reptilian cat-thing; hit it just right and it’s cellos from heaven. Sometimes when it’s running too wild all you have to do is change the combination mode and it’ll fall into line, or it will start to sound like 1500 Game Boys all playing the same chord in a cathedral. Possibly underwater.

So it’s a little unpredictable — the module is well named — but as much I like spelunking in sonic caverns of possibility, we’re going to get along just fine.

I think what I’m going to do in a few days is put Hertz Donut mk2 and E352 into boxes and see if I miss either of them. That seems to make more sense than trying to directly compare them. In terms of playability I do think it’s a match for the Donut. In terms of features and sound, it’s kind of completely different from E352, but seems poised to play a similar role in how I use it in my music.

Akemie’s Castle is safe. I feel like it’s the FM master, and also better at big dense chords than anything else.

I’m thinking that Loquelic Iteritas, Orgone Accumulator, and others that largely do their thing by having two oscillators modulate each other in various ways, are less likely now. VCOs more along the lines of Ensemble Oscillator or Odessa would be more likely to offer something complimentary but different.