Tag: music

An Exploration of Selected Effects Plugins

Realizing at the start of 2024 just how many effects plugins I have in my collection, I resolved to go through each one, dig in and explore it deeply, in order to:

  • increase my understanding of how they work and what they can do for me
  • find some cool tricks and techniques
  • drop any of them that don’t compare that well to their siblings
  • build up more resistance to buying more plugins.

Here are some of the notes I’ve taken along the way. This isn’t anything like a comprehensive list of plugins I use or recommend, it’s just the ones where I wanted to get some observations and thoughts written down as part of this process. Maybe you’ll find something useful, or get some ideas or inspiration for using other plugins you may already have.

Delays

Aqusmatic Audio Dedalus Delay

  • Feedback has always seemed a bit much on this one, and I haven’t noticed FeedDamp doing much. But turning up the input gain can give the feeling of reducing the feedback repeats.
  • The filter in the upper right corner is inside the feedback loop (and is a great way to affect the feedback tone and feel). Turning up the Prefilter knob makes it also apply to the initial delay, as well as also increasing the overall strength of the filter.
  • The overdrive stage seems to be applied on the initial delay, after any pre-filtering, as well as after the filter within the feedback loop.
  • Bandwidth is applied after overdrive (again, on the initial delay and within the loop).
  • Ducking/gating comes after the feedback loop. “Minimum” controls the level of the ducked/gated material (lower level = stronger ducking).
  • Modulation (VarDel/VarPitcH): the secret sauce here is that delay time changes can either cause doppler shift (“Glide” mode) or use a granular technique to overlap delays at different lengths as the delay time is modulated. Larger numbers of grains are more similar to Glide. Different grain rates will give smooth or rough textures, or steppy changes, depending on modulation speed and delay time. The “Delay Mod” switch seems to affect panning as well as delay time.

Sonic Charge Echobode

  • This plugin combines delay with diffusion (“Smear”) and filters, a frequency shifter, as well as an assignable LFO.
  • Note that frequency shifters are not pitch shifters — the shift in Hz is linear across the whole spectrum, so it bends harmonic sounds into inharmonic ones. Ring modulation happens to be the same as a mix of an equal upward and downward frequency shift, so this plugin provides a knob to control the mix. The “Anti Refl” switch prevents downward frequency shifts from reflecting around 0 Hz (shifting back up again) off is also known as thru zero.
  • Smear can easily turn delays into reverbs, and low-rate ringmod can act as a kind of tremolo. So there’s an awful lot that can be done with this plugin.
  • It’s definitely worth exploring MIDI mode, where the ringmod/frequency shift tracks the pitch of the played note, for even more dramatic and unusual effects. Hold Shift while turning the big knob for fine-tuning. The lowpass filter can help keep the pitch from running away through feedback.

Inertia Sound Systems Hinder

  • This delay provides a few methods to imbue a lo-fi character: bit reduction, noise, a filter, distortion (“heat”), and a “dark mode”. It also adds a compressor in the feedback loop, driving a bit more sustain and raising the stakes for all of the other dirt you add (as well as affecting the reverse mode dramatically).
  • Unfortunately, modulation can be a weak point with this one. Outside of sync mode, it’s not particularly easy to dial in subtle modulation for a really gentle wobble. I prefer to use Bitwig’s LFO modulators instead for finer control.
  • In sync mode, the modulation applies directly to the time knobs, which means it’ll be changing the clock divisions rather than providing that sweet Doppler shift. (And the internal LFO can’t sync to a clock to make that really cool — again, I use a Bitwig LFO instead.) Modulating the Width though provides a smooth delay time offset between the L and R channels, which does give Doppler shift in either mode.

Noise Engineering Imitor

  • Based originally on the Imitor Versio Eurorack module, the plugin version greatly expands on the features and flexibility — it’s basically a whole different animal.
  • The *2 and /2 buttons on Beats and PreDelay affect time, not speed. *2 means twice as much time, not twice as fast. But on synced modulation, it does refer to speed.
  • You can use Taps and Decay to simulate feedback without actually using feedback. Or you can combine it with Regen (and its additional effects).
  • Playing with Predelay, Time Warp and the Tap checkboxes can let you build more complex, swinging echo rhythms.
  • Time Warp helps to break up ringing feedback when you have a short delay time, large number of taps and high Regen, letting the delay ring out in a reverb-like way. Used this way, positive time warp generally calls for shorter delay times than negative time warp. Fewer taps brings more metallic ringing, more taps is smoother.
  • For the Tap Delay LFO on the Tone page, Dance varies the LFO rate differently for each tap, while Stereo varies the LFO phase for left and right channels. These can help make the modulation of more reverb-like effects as lush as it needs to be.
  • The envelope follower is a fantastic addition — assign it to Blend for ducking, to Regen for controlled bursts of feedback or for feedback ducking, to Crunch, Shimmer or Doom for a more subtle touch than just leaving them high, to Tone for a sort of auto-wah in your delays, to Decay or even Tap Total to modify the tap profile dynamically for a kind of swell effect… you can even assign it to delay time or Time Warp for weirder wobbles. (If modulating Tap Total, this causes shifts in how Time Warp as well as the panning parameters and Decay are applied.)
  • Assigning a square wave LFO to Time Warp when you have at least 3 taps and some regen is a neat way to get a blend of octave-shifting and non-shifting into your delays.
  • If you’re using a large number of taps and positive time warp, try a saw or triangle LFO into Angle and Rotate to wobble it around a bit in stereo for a bit of a granular delay kind of feel.

Audiority Plexitape

  • Sound On Sound mode was weird on the original hardware and it’s weird here. Frankly I just use Echo, or even Off for the preamp.
  • The Aux Echo knob (if not turned off) has the same scale as the main time slider; both are dependent on the Varispeed knob or sync setting.
  • Control names are a bit odd on this one. “Echo Sustain” is feedback amount, while “Record Level” is the preamp. (Higher preamp levels increase both the first echo and the feedback.) If you want more drive for tone reasons, you’ll probably need to turn down Sustain to compensate.
  • “Echo Volume” is the wet/dry control.
  • “Early/Late” preamp switch affects the tone.
  • Varispeed, as far as I can tell, does not affect the tone, only the delay time.
  • On the Age knob, lower values mean more degradation (the opposite of Valhalla Delay). Due to lower stability, this has a damping effect on the feedback.
  • Gain staging is important here — In, Out, Noise, Record Level, Echo Volume and Mix all interact and give you a variety of control, but it’s not particularly simple!

Audio Damage Ratshack Reverb

  • Like the hardware, this has no modulation of its own. It can be nice to assign an LFO from your host to the delay times, either with Link on, or modulating in opposite directions on L and R.
  • There’s really not much point to the Input switch — leave it on Mic to use the slider to boost the signal into distortion. (Some people own the hardware mainly to use it for the distortion, not the delay.)

Unfiltered Audio Sandman Pro

  • The diffusion on this one has few taps, so for the most part it’ll give you noticeable bouncy echoes with an interesting muted character. You can use this with extremely short delay times (including “No Echo” which is simply a 5ms delay that works with all the other features). Diffusion also sounds pretty cool with Reverse delay mode!
  • Strong feedback does tend to smooth out the diffusion.
  • In Multi-Tap mode, the displayed delay time is the time for the final tap in the chain. Increasing taps but keeping the same delay time increases the tap rate. Negative spacing accelerates the taps, positive spacing decelerates them.
  • A fun thing to try: capture a buffer in Sleep mode, then switch the delay time to Offset or Independent stereo, so the L and R channels repeat the buffer at different rates. (You can adjust start/end times as needed to keep them coherent.)
  • With “Sleep Filter” enabled, some of the effects from the delay modes (Saturate, Wow, Dirt etc.) as well as Diffuse apply to the sleep buffer in real time. When it’s disabled, they are recorded into the sleep buffer. This means you can record into the buffer with Sleep Filter disabled, enable Sleep and then enable Sleep Filter to double the effect.
  • Multitap and pitch shifting are always recorded into the sleep buffer, and can’t be changed afterward. But you can repitch the buffer using Sample Rate.
  • With Sleep enabled, you can assign an LFO to Reverse for ping-pong buffer playback. (Note you can also move the End to the left of Start for reverse playback.)
  • A square, tempo-synced LFO also can be good into Start and/or End for rhythmic variation on your buffer playback.
  • In Pitch Shifter mode, if you shift one channel up and the other down, using X-Feed instead of Feedback can prevent the “shimmer” effect of cascading pitch shift delays. This can work well with Mid/Side enabled.
  • Glitch Shifter is the same, but you’ll probably want much smaller shift amounts unless you just enjoy total chaos.

Valhalla Delay

  • Honestly I think this one is pretty straightfoward, almost foolproof to dial in, has lots of helpful tooltips and so on. But here are some ideas for unusual uses…
  • Disable all the modulation and set Delay at 0. For each mode, start with mix at 100%, feedback at 0%, diffusion amount at 0% and see what kinds of tones you can get with the other controls. Then experiment with mix, feedback and/or diffusion.
  • (You may find while playing with those that some knobs sound awesome when in motion, so why not assign an LFO or envelope follower from your host to modulate them?)
  • Ghost with 0 delay is a special case, since it’s a frequency shifter — sounds great with the mix at about 50%.
  • RevPitch is another special case; the lower the delay time, the noisier it gets. Times in the 0-20ms range can be nice to layer in behind another sound, with judicious tweaking of EQ and mix.
  • The ducking algorithms can be fun with Drive, Age and EQ.
  • Also try the same thing with non-zero delay times and a moderate mix, but without using feedback or modulation. You can still get multiple echoes by switching Style to Dual, Ratio, PingPong or Multitap.
  • And of course, cranking feedback to 100% or beyond just to “freeze” something imperfectly in the buffer, and then playing with the controls to mess with it, is always fun. I find it helpful to make sure Diffusion Amount is non-zero first, so you can quickly crank it up to smear it out into a drone without losing some of the buffer to a glitch as diffusion switches on. Also, a second instance in series can give you even more to play with.

Modulation/Pitch FX

Aegean Music Pitchproof

  • This is a pretty good pitch shifting “pedal” for free, good for doubling octaves or fifths and so on. It can also act as a kind of chorus if you just detune a little and set blend at about the middle.

Bitwig Pitch Shifter

  • Unlike Pitchproof, I like using this for more experimental purposes than simply changing the pitch of a signal. At fully wet you can get texture changes and rough inharmonic sounds. Small shifts with the mix about halfway and modulating the grain size can give you somewhat unusual chorus-flanger-phaser-like effects.

United Pluigins Retronaut

  • This plugin has a lot of character settings, so I love the Random feature here. A few clicks will very quickly take you through combinations of settings you might not have dialed in yourself, and chances are if none of those have the magic you’re looking for, you don’t need to waste time with endless tweaking.

Audiority Electric Matter

  • Mostly a straightforward effect. But in “Filter Matrix” mode, it’s worth trying modulating the Range with an envelope follower from your host. Modulating it at audio rate can get things really dirty.

Audiority Tube Modulator

  • I’ve found I really like the Link mode to get the two LFOs synchronized. Note that turning it on doesn’t immediately synchronize the controls — it takes effect when you move one of the time or amount knobs. So you can keep the amounts independent but synchronize the rates. Try different LFO shapes on the two sides.
  • Mix seems like a small and unimportant knob, but several of the Amplitude effects really benefit from a less than 100% mix.
  • If your host allows it, try separate instances of Tube Modulator on the left and right channels, with slightly different LFO rates and maybe a little Wow & Flutter. It’s extra lush.

Audiothing Lines

  • This odd plugin has several things going on, and one of them is a frequency shifter. It can sound great with the mix level at about 50%, and/or with some feedback dialed in, and it seems to be well complemented by the distortion.

Arturia EFX Refract

  • I think of this effect as a kind of “super-chorus” — as far as I can tell, each of the “Refraction” voices is effectively something like a chorus, with each voice placed differently in the stereo field.
  • Each of these voices can affect one of the parameters of the right-side effect as well, such as the filter cutoff frequency or sample rate. In some cases the Amount setting increases the spread.
  • This spread makes the Comb Filter with high resonance effectively a reverb. (Comb filters are implemented by mixing a short delay with the dry signal.)

Reverbs

Phonolyth Cascade

  • This is a reverb that offers an unusual amount of control over the diffusion and number of stages/taps, giving you a wide variety of delay and reverb profiles. But it can be fairly complex to work with.
  • The general outline of the effect is:
    Input Stage > Predelay > (feedback return) > Diffusion > Damping > (feedback send with “delay”) > Output Stage.
    This means the “delay” parameter has no effect when feedback is 0. Predelay, the diffusor, and damping all do.
  • Modulation affects only the diffusion times, not the predelay or feedback delay.
  • When Shape is 1.0, the diffusion section stage is bypassed; Stages, Distance, Spread, Stereo and modulation are ineffective.
  • When Shape is 0.0, the diffusion section is active but delay-like rather than reverb-like — there is very little spread in the delay times of each stage, but the modulation of each stage is different. Use Spread rather than Distance for more flanger-like effects.
  • Note that turning down Stages can take some time to “settle” (it doesn’t immediately kill the ongoing tails in later stages).
  • Distance x Stages = the delay time of the first stage. Changing Stages doesn’t cause a Doppler shift, but Distance does (smoothed according to the Inertia setting).
  • Spread is the additional time it takes to reach the final stage. More stages means Spread had a stronger effect. At stages=24, Spread x and Distance 1.0 is the same total time as Spread 1.0 and Distance x.
  • For a “grainier” sound with more distinct delay taps, use a lower Spread and/or fewer stages. For “smoother” sound, use more stages and/or a higher Spread.
  • Shape seems to affect the amplitude profile of the stages individually as well as their envelopes, from what I can tell.
  • Remember that “Delay” is separate from the delays that make up the diffusion network, and not subject to modulation. It can be used to add space to the repeats, whether the diffusion is creating grainy/distinct repeat taps
  • Damping has a huge effect on the character; a grainier sound with a narrower bandwidth gives a more retro sound.
  • The Infinite button on the feedback is a thing of beauty.
  • When the feedback is in Freeze mode, the Damping still affects the result (but isn’t written into the buffer).
  • There’s no gain control on the input stage. Maybe there should be — watch your input levels so that stacked diffusion stages and/or feedback don’t cause clipping.

Noise Engineering Desmodus

  • Another effect based on a Eurorack module, this one is basically Desmodus Versio with the tempo-sync feature of Electus Versio added. Again, multitap delays with diffusion that can create a reverb. It’s not particularly realistic but very good both for industrial and ambient applications (and especially where those two intersect).
  • It does infinite reverb really well.
  • Like with Imitor, the envelope follower is a great addition. Try it on obvious things like Blend, and less obvious like Tone, Dense, Regen… even Time or Input or Output. The same holds true for square LFOs or step sequences.
  • It’s not obvious, but you can also modulate Lerp Mode and Node Mode. Switching modes on a step sequencer, or even using the envelope follower so that peaks get the octave-up treatment, might come in handy for something…
  • Also not obvious, but (as with other NE plugins) you can modulate both Hue and Fire on the Config page. I don’t know why anyone would want to use Fire, but having the interface color react to the envelope follower is fun 🙂 You can also assign modulation to modulation parameters…

Sinevibes Droplet

  • The design of this one intentionally has a low density, so to get smooth-ish reverb requires a synergy of modulation, feedback and damping.
  • Deviation isn’t random — with no modulation and not changing any parameters, you’ll get the same rhythm of taps every time (including stereo positioning.)
  • You can take advantage of the separate Send/Return knobs by automating Send, to decide whether or not to send the current input through the effect without cutting off the existing tails.

u-he Twangström

  • I once did an A/B test comparing Twangström with an actual spring tank (using a Koma Elektronik Field Kit FX) and managed to dial it in so I couldn’t tell which was which.
  • Like a real spring reverb, you can twang the springs (with the GUI or VST automation/modulation).
  • Unlike a real spring reverb, the spring tension can be modulated for a chorusing effect. (Dreadbox Hypnosis has a modulated predelay stage for its spring reverb, but that’s a little different.)
  • The Input/Drive applies to the dry mix too, which you may or may not want. If not, consider putting this in a separate send or chain with a wet/dry control so you can have nicely blown out, filtered spring reverb alongside your clean dry signal. With plenty of drive, modulating the filter can be rewarding too.

Valhalla Room

  • The addition of the Space knob in version 2.0 pushed this reverb into my list of favorites, adding a feedback loop around the predelay and early reflections. My favorite way to use the plugin is to start with Depth at 0, Modulation at 0, Diffusion at max, turn up Space, and play with the Predelay and Early Size — the ratio between those two controls determines the smoothness or “bounciness” of the reverb. I might or might not bring in some depth (and adjust Decay) to let the late reflections play too.

Valhalla Supermassive

  • This isn’t a go-to ambient reverb for me, but try crystal-clear delays as a starting point instead. No modulation, no density, start in Gemini mode and Warp at 0. Each delay repeat will be slightly different due to phase cancellation with the input. Now slowly bring up Warp a bit and notice how the timbre changes. You might find something fantastic here staying entirely in “delay” territory, with a low Warp setting and no Density or Modulation. Note the Mode setting will affect the delay taps (it might multiply the selected time, or give you a predelay or tap patterns).
  • From there you might bring in Density, to see what it does. Or of course, modulation to make it all 80s synthwave lush.
  • Alternately: crank feedback to 100%, fill up the buffer with something, and play with the controls to mangle the resulting drone/noise.
  • For a subtle enhancer, try 0ms delay, 100% warp, about 80% density, no modulation. Pick your mode and dial in feedback, width, mix and EQ (I seem to prefer bringing the low cut way up).

Valhalla Vintage Verb

  • To design spaces with this plugin, I start with Predelay, Size, Attack, Diffusion, and Mod Depth at 0, HighShelf at 0db and BassMult at 1.0x, and Color at 1970s. The different algorithms reveal interesting textures with longer decay times. From there, working with one control at a time makes it clearer what’s happening. Generally, Size opens up more space between “repeats”, Early diffusion smooths the attacks of those repeats, Late diffusion smooths them all into a whole.

Distortion

Minimal Audio Rift

  • I prefer to work in Advanced View since it doesn’t hide any controls.
  • But to simplify things a little, I usually set the positive and negative distortion to the same type and enable Link. (I’ll separate them only if I want to modulate Blend to move between softer and harsher distortion types rather than changing the gain, or to crossfade between noise types.)
  • The plugin has a built-in envelope follower, but you might still want to assign one from your host if possible, to work with different attack and release times to encourage more movement in the various parameters. There are a lot of potential modulation targets…
  • The Feedback section and Filter section both have MIDI modes which track that last note played. Assigning an envelope follower to the feedback amount works very well.
  • Any overwhelming resonance on the filter can be tamed a bit by enabling Multiband, setting that section to only affect the filter, and adjusting ranges and levels as needed.

Noise Engineering Ruina

  • This can be a tricky one to dial in, with a lot of weird interactions. I don’t think the default from the Reset button makes much sense, so here’s mine: Blend, Filter and Center at 100%, Phase at 50%, everything else at 0%, Mobile/Cancilla/Under modes. From there, trying one or two sliders at a time can give somewhat more controllabel results.
  • Don’t forget about envelope followers (internal or DAW-assigned); dynamic control of parameters can really wake things up.

u-he Runciter

  • This is my favorite part of the Uhbik collection (I also like Uhbik-Q) — a combination of distortion and filter is always more interesting to me than either one alone.
  • Using two instances in series can make a lot of sense, with the second one taming the first or the first preparing the second.
  • It’s got its own envelope follower for cutoff, but I will harp on this again: an envelope follower from your host, assigned to mix, drive, fuzz, resonance, etc. can also be very nice.
  • The MIDI key follow option for filter cutoff can be useful, depending on playing style (not so much with legato polyphonic phrases).

Lo-Fi

d16 Decimort 2

  • If your DAW can assign MIDI pitch tracking to a VST parameter (as in Bitwig Keytrack+), try assigning that to the resampler frequency, turning on Images Filter and shfiting it up maybe a tiny bit. Set Approx Filter to taste.
  • Of course you can also apply it to the pre/post filter, but that’s not as exciting.
  • Modulating Approx Filter with an LFO can add a bit of vibrato due to the phase shift it induces. You can really get some results that don’t sound like a bitcrusher/sample reducer at all…
  • Aside from the digital distortion, don’t forget there’s a preamp right there, which can lead to badass distortion that works well with the filter(s)… and (say it with me) an envelope follower.
  • If you’re using a DAW that can’t assign modulation sources to VST parameters in this way, and you’re still reading this… sorry, you’re missing out.

Unfiltered Audio Lo-Fi-AF

  • If you have an anti-click plugin (I can recommend Izotope RX De-click), this removes the clicky bits from Skip Chance, for smoother buffer glitches. You can modulate Skip Time for an unusual take on “tape” warble.
  • Envelope follower. Seriously. Works on all kinds of things here, positively or negatively depending on the control and the vibe you’re going for — do you want it to get cleaner and steadier with louder volumes, or worse and messier? Of course you do.

Inphonik PCM2612

  • This is another one that can benefit from De-Click.
  • Also some gain staging experimentation. Cutting the signal going in and then boosting it going out dramatically worsens the signal-to-noise ratio, which might be what you wanted just this once. Of course, boosting the signal level going in and cutting it going out has the opposite effect unless you drive your signal to clipping.
  • A noise gate in front can stop it from constantly spewing DAC noise (or a noise gate after, but you’ll probably need a higher threshold).

AudioThing Speakers

  • I like this plugin a lot, but don’t have any special tricks to suggest other than… you know. On the mic/speaker mix knobs or the filter cutoff in particular.
  • I suppose a regular envelope triggered by MIDI could be fine, I just like envelope followers, okay?

Other

Noise Engineering Librae

  • Yes, it’s a compressor… but I use it more for the drive sections, especially for stereo enhancement. Turning up Soft Drive and Soft Blend, and maybe a bit of the hard version too, on the Side channel can really wake up a stereo image (and you’ve got the goniometer and handy mid/side slider right there, as well as a bevy of other gain controls to make sure the mid is still stronger than the sides).
  • Watch out for hot signals into this one, especially if they were supposed to be “clean” with relatively little in the upper end of the frequency spectrum. Increasing Release can help prevent unwanted… grindiness or scratchiness or whatever you want to call it.

Sound Radix SurferEQ

  • A clever EQ that can track pitch (via MIDI or the audio itself) and move bands around automatically for you, with adjustable detection threshold and glide settings. It also offers not just typical shelving and peak EQs, but harmonic shapes specifically tailored for resonator (or anti-resonator) duties, which you can set in terms of ratio to the detected fundamental. You can really shape timbres in fun ways with this…
  • This pairs well with the free MeldaProduction MAGC, to restore lost (or excessive) volume.
  • It also pairs nicely with distortion, since you’re exercising a lot of control over the harmonics going into it.

released: Closing Our Eyes…

The new album is out!

I have been describing it as “moody, noisy, droney, dark ambient-adjacent cousin-to-Berlin-School occasionally-shaking-hands-with-industrial, improvisation.” As always it’s free/pay-what-you-want.

The patch notes are here.

As I often do, I went through my notes and tallied up usage of various bits of gear. The distribution came out flatter than usual among both Eurorack modules and effects plugins, with no clear favorites and nothing getting neglected. Blades and Beads were just a little ahead of others, and on the plugin side, Imitor. My Dreadbox Hypnosis as well my Strega/Minibrute 2S pair got a lot of action though. The K.O. II and Zorlon Cannon which really only arrived at the end didn’t have that much of a chance, but I enjoyed incorporating them. I didn’t have that much bass guitar on this one, but the Miezo got a lead part and the uke bass contributed key elements to a couple of tracks. So everything is in balance, pretty much.

released: Yuki-Onna

New album release!

This is what was going to be my Best of Jamuary release, but almost all the best stuff was consistent in style: dark, noisy drone “ambient” stuff, full of controlled chaos.

(Since I went so heavy with the Make Noise Strega, I thought… winter month + witch = …hmm, I don’t want to name it after the Snow Queen or White Witch specifically, but how about a spooky yokai? Yes, that works.

Which caused me to read up a bit more on yuki-onna. Apparently there are many different varieties of them and conflicting stories about what (not) to do if you encounter one. If a granny or a woman with a baby or just any visitor comes along, begging for water or shelter, you can’t just leave them in the cold… but maybe make sure they have a hot bath. And dress warm and maybe carry a shovel. Or don’t live near a valley in Japan in winter.)

August 10 update: patch notes are now available here.

where the magic is

My spouse got me three books from my wishlist for my birthday. The authors wrote them, the publisher was responsible for marketing blurbs, and I chose them and am the reader. So any disappointments here were not my spouse’s fault, but I’ll give her some credit for where I find delight or enlightenment in them. 🙂

Currently I am reading Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry For the Future. It is a fictional story of an international organization tasked with saving the future from the present, mainly in terms of climate change and equitable distribution of resources. There’s a fair bit of nonfiction sprinkled throughout. It grapples with all kinds of geoengineering, carbon capture, and energy technologies, the question of how to value human and nonhuman life (present and future), and most importantly, where and how to apply the leverage necessary to do what must be done. It is excellent so far.

Sonic Possible Worlds was, unfortunately, a hard pass. When I was quickly going through lists of books about music and sound, it seemed interesting. From the introduction and the start of the first chapter though, maybe it is brilliant and esoteric in some way but to me it is just impenetrable word salad. I gave up.

Sound Objects is a set of essays that mostly center around Pierre Schaeffer’s concept of objets sonores. Schaeffer was famously the inventor of musique concrète — a sort of musical collage assembled from snippets of audio recordings — and performed studies categorizing sounds according to their actual characteristics rather than what produced them. (I may be oversimplifying that.) Most of the essays are drily academic and philosophical arguments about what the words mean and what words would have been better, and honestly not exactly inspiring.

However, “Spectral Objects: On the Fetish Character of Music Technologies” by Jonathan Sterne grabbed my attention — it is about the relationship of musicians to instruments (and other equipment) in terms of the Marxist concept of “commodity fetishism.” That is: a sort of worship of goods as having intrinsic value, without recognizing the labor and social relations that produce that value.

"The deep feeling that an instrument brings magic or power to musicians, rather than they to it, is a residuum of this more general way of thinking. This agential inversion of musician and instrument defines the role of commodity fetishism in sound."

The highlighted last couple of sentences in particular is what really grabbed me.

Where is the magic located — in the wizard, or in the wand? Or did it come from whoever made the wand? Or is it in the mind of the one witnessing the magic? That can be a key question in fantasy fiction or in roleplaying games, but I think this article has a good point where it comes to musicianship.

I can’t bring myself to say that in electronic music, the instruments are unimportant. I’ve often found switching gear (heh) or finding the right kind of setup to match one’s temperament helps bring inspiration, and certainly each instrument has its own character which can contribute to the music. But I do think there is something skewed about many electronic musicians’ relationship to gear, and perhaps that is more true in both modular and software-based electronic music. Like we do a lot of chasing more and different things, when we already have more that we can handle. Perhaps the related concepts of magic and agency are the right way to contemplate this.

what I did on my autumn vacation

It was nice having a week off. Not as nice as an actual road trip, and I could have done with less rain and another walk around the lake, but it was all right.

For Thanksgiving, we had jerk chicken and zucchini on the grill, sweet potato fries, coconut rice and cornbread. My spouse also made me a German chocolate cake for my birthday. We Skyped with our families, which felt pretty special and holiday-like since it was the first time for my side and almost the first for her side (and we got to see the new house and our young nephew).

I recorded three tracks for the new album project, and am confident the theme is going to work.

I wasn’t tempted by any Black Friday sales, but did get my Christmas shopping done. [UPDATE: I did get four little Puremagnetik plugins at 50% off on the Tuesday part of “Cyber Monday” though.]

I was tempted to pick up the last Mystic Circuits Portal in the special edition black panel — having decided that I don’t need another delay or reverb in my modular, nor more modulation sources. Portal is a unique distortion module that, above a threshold, wraps around to 0V instead of folding over or clipping. And it can wrap around a ridiculous number of times, feedback itself into ultrasonic ranges, generate interesting rhythmic crackles, perform “oscillator sync” with only one oscillator, and other things. This got my attention because (beyond “Black Portal” just sounding kind of badass) it’s similar in concept to an experimental plugin I wrote years ago, but takes that concept much further. There are two other derived outputs, one of which is a somewhat gentler quasi-quantized output, the other a spiky delta output. While the module can do ludicrously heavy distortion, I’m more interested in the other things it can do. So this is definitely more about curiosity than absolute confidence I will love this module, but satisfying curiosity is a valid use of remaining rack space.

I played my usual Dirt Rally 2.0, Noita, Bewejeled 3 and Guild Wars 2, all of which have been in rotation since before this pandemic struck, and Art of Rally which has been out for a couple of months. Noita has been getting significant updates even after leaving Early Access, with surprise new spells and monsters, so it’s always fresh.

I also grabbed Drag, which is neither about drag queens nor drag racing, but rather, an Early Access game of futuristic-ish off-road racing. The setting is a little strange, with sleek driverless rail buggies that have what seems like a vestigial roll cage too small for a human driver, with a long steering column ending in an odd bracket where the driver’s head would have been. Two of the courses are muddy wilderness roads that occasionally cross concrete or metal bridges or overpasses, bounded by forcefields to either side, occasional radio towers and oddly shaped concrete towers in the distance; the third is a raised bridge-like track mainly covered in a mound of mud, in an arctic setting with mysterious cranes and towers numbered in Arabic numerals but Cyrillic text. Graphically it looks good, within its sparse design. In terms of physics, it’s challenging, slippery and feels fairly realistic (although, once you’ve started to roll over it goes a little nuts, like many racing games do — and wheels are prone to pop off at the slightest provocation). Gameplay-wise there is not much to it yet, just different sections of course to do time trials on, with no sense of competition or career progression. I’m curious to see where future development takes it.

Probably where I spent most of my time was reading Rhythm of War, the fourth and longest book (at ~460,000 words) in the Stormlight Archive.

(I also read Dawnshard, a novella that takes place a little before Rhythm of War. I technically should have read it first, but at least thus far, it’s almost entirely a side story. It may very well become important to later novels, but if so, it will probably be retold.)

One thing I like about Sanderson’s novels is the “hard SF” approach to magic; there are definite rules and mechanics, the magic is highly integrated with how society works, and in most cases there’s a very scientific approach to determining the limits and applications of magic. This extends to the Cosmere as a whole — an overarching setting uniting most of Sanderson’s series, permitting some characters to cross between them and carry exotic artifacts with them.

But what I love about his books is the emotional impact of the story, both the lows and the highs. I care about the characters and want them to stop hurting and being frustrated. I celebrate with their moments of incredible triumph. I reel from the big revelations, shudder at the implications and cheer on their discoveries.

For a while I felt that the Stormlight Archive books kind of “cheat” at this; human emotions attract “spren” that can telegraph how they’re feeling even if they’d rather hide those emotions (or hide themselves!), while the Parshendi people speak and hum to rhythms that make their attitude explicit (with some conscious control when they concentrate). But this ties in nearly with the nature of this world’s role within the Cosmere, and it’s not as if his stories in other settings don’t convey emotion just as effectively.

Without even considering connections to other worlds, there are a lot of characters in this series. That is both a strength and a weakness of epic fantasy, I feel. This particular novel concentrates on three in particular, with lesser concentrations on a couple of others, and interludes, flashbacks and side trips to keep up with a few more. But the three main ones get a lot of development and growth and some of those great emotional moments that I love. The book also crams in a ton of that “scientific” discovery, and revelations about the greater universe and historical perspective on current events. Mental health is a huge theme — when you put people under continuous stress as these have been, they break. Their ability to hold it together, heal from emotional trauma, or just get some rest for once, is as important as how they face external threats. The truly important battles in this book were — for the most part — either against personal demons, or battles of wit and cunning rather than spear and sword.

I don’t think this book would make a lot of sense without reading the previous Stormlight Archive novels. It should be fine without reading any other Sanderson novels, although one would miss recognizing many tidbits scattered throughout. But then, there’s so much going on that I’m not sure even the wiki-article-writing superfans are able to catch everything. I don’t feel too bad not realizing on my own that so-and-so mentioned by a minor villain in this novel might be such-and-such character from a different series, who died, and now has a different name and completely different goals… while Sanderson’s novels are full of that sort of thing at this point, that’s not the main attraction for me.

that time again

It’s October 28, and definitely a good time to break out the scary music. I’ve never wanted to watch the movie a second time because it just wasn’t that amazing, but every year I break out the 30 Days of Night score. The composer invented several new instruments for it, some of which involve objects whirling dangerously at high speed…

For Halloween, I’ll be staying home, wearing a t-shirt with a skull-faced mermaid lounging by a pool, and keeping an eye on the end of the charity auction. Though the bid totals are quite good (over $22.5K so far), there are relatively few hardware offerings this year. I’m not interested in any of the sample or preset packs. There are a few software items I could go far — but in many cases they are bundled with a bunch of stuff I’m less interested in, so bidding competitively doesn’t make sense for me. Right now I am only trying to win one particular item, though I might throw a bit more money at something for the sake of the charity. And in the secondhand auction, there’s one minor plugin that I have a $5 bid on that’s on sale for $7 anyway.

Although… maybe on Halloween I may have to drive over to Lake Creve Coeur and walk around for a while, if it’s not too crowded. Hopefully the fall colors will be somewhere at peak, though it might be late for that. I’m probably too out of shape at this point to walk the full distance without overdoing it, but some semblance of “forest bathing” will probably do me some good. Unless it’s raining of course, in which case it would be a forest shower and not quite so pleasant.

With COVID cases hitting new records, we are following the advice to not risk travel this Thanksgiving. It’s a shame we will miss out, but it is not worth anyone getting life-threateningly ill.

I finished watching Neon Genesis Evangelion, and… I was not really prepared for how broken the ending is. I feel like the state of the series kind of reflected the apocalyptic events in the story and peoples’ mental states, but it also apparently was a reflection of the writer’s depression and the exhaustion of the overworked production team and pressures that were hitting the studio in general. Things just sort of fell apart, and aside from some (disturbing) hints, we lost perspective on events other than Shinji’s inner voice in the process of merging with everyone else’s…

There was a movie that presented sort of an alternate viewpoint and alternate ending, called appropriately enough End of Evangelion. Where the original series ending was, in its odd way, “the good ending”, this is the bad one in terms of Shinji’s personality and which conspirators “win” the apocalypse. There is also a remake slowly in progress called Rebuild of Evangelion, which apparently makes the main character more macho and has a lot more fanservice. I’m going to eschew those, and consider the original series and all its flaws a complete work of art. (Granted, one that doesn’t quite stand up on its own without a little support from outside explanation.)

I’ve sent the DAFM synth back to Kasser in Spain for repairs. Given that it took a month to arrive here in the first place, I will not be surprised if it doesn’t get back to me in 2020.

The album is up to 57 minutes of material. I feel like I’m on a roll and have more to say here, but an album shouldn’t be overly long or it challenges the attention span and does the music a disservice. If my next set feels like a continuation, I could always call it a Part Two.

Listening to what I have, I think it needs something to close it right, and I’m considering dropping one of the songs. But I do expect to release it on Bandcamp Friday on November 6.

I did do another recording with three parts rather than one or two, although the third is just using the other output of Akemie’s Castle which was used as the first voice, and some different processing to make it a simpler, background part.

detour

I had, over the last couple of days, decided I was going to make some music based on a particular esoteric insight that has been reinforcing itself. It would have fit nicely with the planned album theme.

Instead, I did something spooky.

I suppose that shouldn’t be a surprise.

I’m going to go ahead and blame Stranger Things, and last night’s drive home. “It looks like we’re making a bad choice,” my spouse said as we drove from a relatively bright and sunny world into a sinister, gloom-shrouded one, where night fell three hours early and the wind whipped leaves from the trees, “…but this is where we live.” Neither of us realized at the time that she had just named a song.

Only the lack of fiery streaks divided it from the sky that Will’s “shadow monster” descended from.

I’ve already used “Cumuloominous” as a title, but I think this one is more intense than that. Not calmly foreboding, but fully foreboding. Maybe angrient.