SUTURE SOUNDPatch notes below. Cheers to Aleks from Signal Sounds for sending me the Instruo modules to explore! signalsounds.com
Scion gathers biofeedback data from the plant and converts it to 4 CV and 4 gate signals. The 4 gates trigger envelopes on the Velectronic A-Envelope, which in turn control the level of the 4 channels of the Erica Synths Black Quad VCA 2. Each of those channels is being fed one of Qu-Bit Chord's note outputs. Qu-Bit is set to harmonize to the major scale, and its note/chord selection and waveshape are modulated by some of Scion's CVs. Mixing through Make Noise's X-PAN, two channels' notes are panned a bit to the left and the other two are panned a bit to the right.
All of Scion's output voltages are also converted to MIDI via a Befaco CV Thing, and the MIDI controls parameters on the Hologram Microcosm, which is processing all of the audio. Though I patched and experimented with all 8 outputs I didn't end up using them all; as I recall I ended up modulating Microcosm's Activity, Shape, Time, Repeats, and preset selection. The Space parameter is also providing the lovely end-of-chain reverb.
Plant plays ambient musicSUTURE SOUND2022-03-26 | Patch notes below. Cheers to Aleks from Signal Sounds for sending me the Instruo modules to explore! signalsounds.com
Scion gathers biofeedback data from the plant and converts it to 4 CV and 4 gate signals. The 4 gates trigger envelopes on the Velectronic A-Envelope, which in turn control the level of the 4 channels of the Erica Synths Black Quad VCA 2. Each of those channels is being fed one of Qu-Bit Chord's note outputs. Qu-Bit is set to harmonize to the major scale, and its note/chord selection and waveshape are modulated by some of Scion's CVs. Mixing through Make Noise's X-PAN, two channels' notes are panned a bit to the left and the other two are panned a bit to the right.
All of Scion's output voltages are also converted to MIDI via a Befaco CV Thing, and the MIDI controls parameters on the Hologram Microcosm, which is processing all of the audio. Though I patched and experimented with all 8 outputs I didn't end up using them all; as I recall I ended up modulating Microcosm's Activity, Shape, Time, Repeats, and preset selection. The Space parameter is also providing the lovely end-of-chain reverb.
Chapters 0:00 Marimba patch 0:15 Snares & pebbles 0:29 Envelope to spectral shift 0:54 Vocoder 1:01 Voice to pitch 1:07 Voice to LFO 1:35 Tap mic for cool drums 1:40 Dynamic noise 1:49 10-band filter bankFascinating new granular + sample workflows with TemperaSUTURE SOUND2024-04-18 | An exploration of Tempera! playtempera.com Thanks to beetlecrab.audio for sponsoring this video 🪲🦀
Chapters: 0:00 Fixed rhythm, randomly selected drums 0:35 Feedback bass lines 1:54 Reverb hats with an inverted envelope 3:15 Distort the distortion 3:50 Audio-rate modulation on distortion 5:25 Dropping the clock and playing the feedbackThe FX Jumping TrickSUTURE SOUND2022-12-01 | Honing in on the right ranges of automation for the right effects, plus automating the effects on and off, for sound design that designs itself!
Check out my main channel http://youtube.com/andrewhuangMaking a track with the ARP 2600 MSUTURE SOUND2021-11-12 | Thank you Korg for giving me early access to the synth!
Qu-Bit Bloom, Qu-Bit Chance, 2hp Rnd, Music Thing Modular Turing Machine, Mutable Instruments Branches and Ritual Electronics Pointeuse are all generating random modulation and/or gate streams. Some of them are modulating each other in addition to the voices. I'm basically mixing up lots of different combos of all that CV via a 4ms VCA Matrix and NLC Let's Splosh, and sending it all around the system.
Pitches and laser beam sounds are a Pittsburgh Modular Lifeforms SV-1 with envelopes from Ritual Electronics Anima. Percussion comes from Intellijel Plonk and Mutable Instruments Rings. Happy Nerding FX Aid fades in and out on the end of the chain to provide the pitch-drifting reverb.
Mutable Instruments Marbles provides the main clock. An ALM Busy Circuits Boss Bow Tie randomly switches between the negative and positive LFO output of a slowly cycling Make Noise Function, and that signal modulates the clock rate - sometimes launching it into audio rate or slowing it to a crawl. At times the clock rate remains steady when Function's Hang input is engaged by a gate from a 4ms Quad Clock Distributor + Expander, which itself is being clocked by Marbles.
Sacrament Cursible switches between six sound sources: Synth Tech E330, After Later Juggler, two channels from Endorphin.es Furthrrrr Generator (one going into Intellijel Rainmaker), Mutable Instruments Ripples self-oscillating into Monsoon (left and right channels). Each voice has varying degrees of random modulation dialed in.
Cursible's output is fed into a VCA opened by a Make Noise Contour. This is the only envelope in the entire patch! Its attack and decay are both being randomly modulated but with a bias toward shorter gestures. An interesting chain triggers it: Marbles' t3 output, fed through Branches for random skips, clocking a 4ms Pingable Envelope Generator with its clock division being randomly modulated, and taking the Half-R gate output from there.
The signal is then multed to both sides of a 4ms Dual Looping Delay, both at half wet, with their delay times being modulated independently. This results in some of the glitchy sounds you hear.
Those two signals are then sent through different but mirrored chains - a modulated high pass filter followed by a compressor. In one case it's Random*Source Serge VCFQ into Audio Damage Kompressor, and in the other it's Ritual Electronics Altar into 2hp Comp. Both filters' frequency and resonance parameters are being modulated with smooth random. The signals are then mixed with Make Noise X-Pan, with a little modulation over pan amounts.
X-Pan's outputs go to a Make Noise Mimeophon, mix at about 40% wet. Skew is on so the two channels' delay times differ from each other, and most parameters are being modulated so that delay times might be tiny or huge and have varying levels of feedback. This is also the reason why multiple sounds are often layered in the patch even though Cursible is only spitting out one at a time. Halo (Mimeophon's reverb) is swelling in and out with semi-random timing.
Patch notes: I did have an external pulse just to get things going - triggering Chance at quarter notes. Chance's Rhythm output triggers BIA, and its Discrete, Wavetable and Blend outputs modulate BIA's Morph, Fold, Attack, and Decay. Smooth is self patched to modulate Blend. BIA's output is processed by Rainmaker. The clock is shared to Rainmaker's Trig input, which has been assigned to randomize a randomly selected parameter with each trigger received. (Ignore Rainmaker's Mod A and Mod B inputs which aren't active here - there were just cables hanging out from a previous patch.)
Pluck model selected on Surface, driven by a stochastic pentatonic sequence from Winter Modular Eloquencer. A second Eloquencer sequence changes Surface's decay time semi-randomly with each note.
Audio is fed through a Bird Kids Bateleur for a bit of a low pass filter envelope with each note (env from Doepfer A-141-2), as well as slow modulation of the cutoff and subtle tremolo-like modulation of the resonance via some LFOs from Mutable Instruments Stages attenuated through Veils.
The signal is further processed with a 2hp Grain, adding a 16th note delay that is pitched shifted up a whole tone, giving the original pentatonic sequence a more lydian flavor (or is the whole patch just vamping on a IV chord?)
Everything is compressed a bit with the new 2hp Comp and then passed through an Erica Synths Pico DSP for reverb.
There are two voices in this patch: nRings plucking through a Pittsburgh Analog Delay, and a self-oscillating Tràigh whistling above it.
This was my first time experimenting with the Harrington 1200 mode in Ornament & Crime. It’s a special kind of multi-channel quantizer that operates by transforming chords into other closely related chords without regard for an overall key. Essentially they tend to be chords that share one or two notes in common - but of course, a few transformations away and you can land on a chord that doesn’t share any notes from the one you started on.
Stages is triggering O&C via three unsynced LFOs of different speeds. I stumbled upon a timing pattern that triggered the right succession of transformations, and modes of transformation, to cause my note sequence to gradually work its way up and down through a huge range of chords in different registers.
I was invited to compose this piece for an installation my friend Derin Emre was putting on at Arta Gallery in Toronto. The concept was to have a few artists score different videos of the lights around their city. Of all the clips Derin had I felt the most compelled by this one of fireworks going off by the lake.
My friend Jan Willem put together an application called Mideo (link below) which allows you to select colors to track in a video and converts their position on screen into MIDI note data. Loading the fireworks video into this, I sent the MIDI from my computer to two channels of Hermod, creating two streams of notes out of the one (splitting MIDI between multiple Hermod channels makes it cycle through them for each new note it receives).
The first note stream is quantized by Ornament & Crime to a scale of B C# D# F# G# A# and sent to nRings. nRings’ Brightness is modulated by the original sound from the fireworks video, which is sent to the modular and converted to more usable CV via a Pittsburgh Detect envelope follower.
The second note stream is quantized to a different scale of B C# E F# A# to sequence the bass voice, a sound I created with Plonk. I also removed the majority of the note triggers via Branches, so that the bass voice would sound much less often.
With the two-scale set up we thus have a bass that anchors our harmony on the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, and 6th degrees of a major scale, while the melodic flourishes from the other voice play pretty stuff that works on top of that (ie. a major scale with no 4th, which is the note I find the clash-iest).
Plonk goes through Z-DSP with the Valhalla card and nRings is given a bit of delay and reverb via uBurst.
This was multitracked to Ableton for mastering, and I edited out a few bass notes I didn't like - some that happened too rapidly in succession, and some where it was the same note repeated multiple times in a row.
Art by Katie Hicks http://katiehicksart.comRain II | Andrew HuangSUTURE SOUND2018-11-08 | A variation on the patch I posted yesterday. I randomized Eloquencer's sequence, randomized Rainmaker's settings, changed nRings' to sympathetic strings mode and fine tuned some of its other parameters, and this whole other piece arrived in a matter of minutes. This has now been released has track 5 on my album "The Lyres In Trees": http://fanlink.to/lyres
Generative sequence coming from Eloquencer - about half the notes are set to skip or slightly vary in pitch about half the time. The sequence plucks nRings (4-note polyphony, modulated/inharmonic string mode) which runs through Rainmaker for delay, Jellysquasher for compression, and Morgasmatron for a bit of low pass filtering in the outro. Towards the end I also fade Rainmaker gradually to full wet.
CV coming from Noise Tools' slew output (attenuated by Quad VCA), Pamela's New Workout, and Dual S&H, to modulate the delay time and nRings' "brite" and "damp". In hindsight I should have attenuated further because the delay signal's pitch gets a little too warbly at times.
In this video all sounds come from BLCK_NOIR with no post processing. Sequencing from Winter Modular's excellent Eloquencer.
Disclaimer: Endorphin.es sent me a pre-release Blck_Noir unit, because we are friends. They didn't pay me or ask me to do anything specific with it.DrumBrute Impact: Pros, cons, comparison to original DrumBruteSUTURE SOUND2018-07-19 | Disclaimer: Arturia sent me this unit a couple weeks ago. They didn't pay me and they didn't ask me to make this video.Cascades | Eurorack modular ambientSUTURE SOUND2018-03-29 | Circadian Rhythms clocking Z8000 sequence quantized by Brain Seed controlling Braids' pitch (PLUK mode) into MA-35 (low pass) into Streams (vactrol mode) into Clouds (default mode) and finally into Z-DSP with Halls of Valhalla card. Some parameters of MA-35, Braids and Clouds modulated by the Z8000 or Chance. Over the course of the piece I raise and lower MA-35's cutoff frequency, and sweep Streams' envelope from plucky to long and soft.Akemie’s CowbellSUTURE SOUND2018-02-25 | Early jam with a couple modules that were new to me. Generative melodies with Akemie’s Taiko on a sort of 808 cowbell-esque sound. Shapeshifter doing a weird bass thing. BIA for unpredictable kicks and Mutant Rimshot as an attempt at anchoring everything. Best part is probably all the atmosphere added by Rainmaker though I can’t remember which combo of voices it was processing.Akemies CloudsSUTURE SOUND2018-02-21 | My Akemie's Taiko arrived with the pitch calibration slightly off but I ended up kind of liking it for this simple patch. Tuned hand drum sort of sound in this not-quite-major scale, thrown into Clouds for some pitch and space modulation.Unsettled Bells // Eurorack patchSUTURE SOUND2018-02-06 | 🛎