Uploaded January 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
My submission for the Hardware Jams “Tolkien” Weekend Challenge.
This is my imagining of what a forest full of ents and woodland elves might sound like. As the wind rushes through the leaves of the trees, the groans of the ents can be heard. Later some woodland elves add their song to the melody to help the forest to grow and flourish.
I made the creaks and groans of the trees and ents on my modular synth and used the roll trigger on the drumbs combined with randomness on the beat step to trigger clicks and groans. I’ve also recently build a DivSkip and used a couple of channels in ratchet mode and a Bernoulli gate to add more layers of random triggers. The elves were made with a patch on my Yamaha YS100 keyboard and multiple of layers of reverb.
This week’s challenge prompt:
Greetings Jammers!
And happy Friday. As the third of January is also National JRR Tolkien day, this weekend we want you to explore your inner middle earth. I would like you to get fantastical with your imaginations.
Tolkien was known for writing long, lengthy tomes and for having created an entire universe, timeline, and history in his mind. I would like you to transport yourself into one of Tolkien’s lands, the time and place of elves, orcs, dwarves and Hobbits and magic.
You could create a soundtrack for embarking on a great journey, an electronic theme for a dragon, an elven song, a dwarfish drinking song, think about what sort of dark techno music the Nazgûl might like to listen to, a wizard’s battle theme, a solitary lilt for Gollum, a nocturne for Mirkwood, a mighty song for Ents, or worry a Hobbit with some banging techno. Take your inspiration from the worlds, characters, places and ideas of JRR Tolkien, then smash it together into a fantastic jam.
Always Learning
════════════
I'm a strong believer in continuous improvement and always trying to learn something new. I got to experiment with a couple of the modes on the DivSkip I built recently. This module has a lot to it and I’m looking forward to leaning more in the next few weeks.
My DIY Synth Rules
════════════
I aim to meet the following criteria when adding modules to my synth:
◦ I must have constructed it.
This can be a kit or from scratch but I must have soldered it
◦ The audio signal path should be analog.
I'm trying to avoid digital modules so I can learn more about analog electronics
◦ Learn something new
Try to learn something while constructing the module. Learn about the circuits, experiment with different signal processing options. Be creative.
◦ Have fun
My submission for the Hardware Jams “Tolkien” Weekend Challenge.
This is my imagining of what a forest full of ents and woodland elves might sound like. As the wind rushes through the leaves of the trees, the groans of the ents can be heard. Later some woodland elves add their song to the melody to help the forest to grow and flourish.
I made the creaks and groans of the trees and ents on my modular synth and used the roll trigger on the drumbs combined with randomness on the beat step to trigger clicks and groans. I’ve also recently build a DivSkip and used a couple of channels in ratchet mode and a Bernoulli gate to add more layers of random triggers. The elves were made with a patch on my Yamaha YS100 keyboard and multiple of layers of reverb.
This week’s challenge prompt:
Greetings Jammers!
And happy Friday. As the third of January is also National JRR Tolkien day, this weekend we want you to explore your inner middle earth. I would like you to get fantastical with your imaginations.
Tolkien was known for writing long, lengthy tomes and for having created an entire universe, timeline, and history in his mind. I would like you to transport yourself into one of Tolkien’s lands, the time and place of elves, orcs, dwarves and Hobbits and magic.
You could create a soundtrack for embarking on a great journey, an electronic theme for a dragon, an elven song, a dwarfish drinking song, think about what sort of dark techno music the Nazgûl might like to listen to, a wizard’s battle theme, a solitary lilt for Gollum, a nocturne for Mirkwood, a mighty song for Ents, or worry a Hobbit with some banging techno. Take your inspiration from the worlds, characters, places and ideas of JRR Tolkien, then smash it together into a fantastic jam.
Always Learning
════════════
I'm a strong believer in continuous improvement and always trying to learn something new. I got to experiment with a couple of the modes on the DivSkip I built recently. This module has a lot to it and I’m looking forward to leaning more in the next few weeks.
My DIY Synth Rules
════════════
I aim to meet the following criteria when adding modules to my synth:
◦ I must have constructed it.
This can be a kit or from scratch but I must have soldered it
◦ The audio signal path should be analog.
I'm trying to avoid digital modules so I can learn more about analog electronics
◦ Learn something new
Try to learn something while constructing the module. Learn about the circuits, experiment with different signal processing options. Be creative.
◦ Have fun
