Thanks for the very kind comments. Much appreciated. This is the exact rack I used. Happy to answer any questions.
And just in case 5 minutes of this isn't enough for you (it isn't for me) I made some changes to the patch for added betterness, like fading the three voices in and out at different rates which adds a needed element of dynamics. I let it run largly on its own for 30 minutes. It's strangely relaxing. Cheers!
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Thank you both for the comments. I made that after the first four installments of the video series I mentioned. Three more videos have been added with a ton of additional tips and tricks for the Krell, so I think I'll be trying a new version of it this weekend. Fun fun!
Ran the whole playlist this afternoon and yeah, there is a lot of great stuff there. Very cool mix of styles and sounds and techniques. Thanks for sharing. Cheers!
Hi All! It's been a while since I posted any new recordings, but I have been busy recording stuff. This one I recorded early this morning after starting it on Sunday afternoon. It's my first experiment with the classic Todd Barton Krell patch. Huge thanks and acknowledgement to JD Cramer on ModWiggler for his most excellent recent tutorial series on this venerable modular patch and its methods and madness. Search YouTube for "The Krellberg Variations" to see them. I included a full detailed description in YouTube. Cheers!
Yes! Thank you very much for putting this together. I'll set this up to play this afternoon.
This is very cool! Love both the track and the video. Excellent work! Thanks for sharing.
Nice track. Definitely getting some interesting sounds out of just three modules. I might give this a shot since I am about to disassemble my current 29 module patch. ;-)
Great stuff CK, and good timing for me. Winter has properly set in and my hobby desk is almost clear of last year’s projects (just finished a wooden clock kit). I have all the Euro DIY stuff ready and I’m almost mentally prepared to try my first kit. Hopefully I can make a passive mult work more reliably than the clock… ;-)
I started watching one of your Befaco builds and the production quality of the video is great. Is that you original music in the background?
Cheers!
Really enjoyed that. Nicely done. That chirping sound at the end is almost exatly what my backyard sounds like on hot summer nights. :-) Cheers!
Hehe! I agree. If I’ve had enough rack space I’ve had the M32 racked. When I needed more space I returned it to the original stand alone case - but it got less use. At the spend level I’m now at the cost per HP is insignificant, so it’s going into the new case for sure. Cheers!
Yeah, great post Farkas. Thanks for sharing. Building a modular system is a very personal thing. It leads to a very personal instrument. I’m sure my rack would get slammed for having too much of this and not enough of that, but I really don’t care that much which is why I don’t ask. I’m having a blast making sounds I want to hear.
But I’m definitely not finished. I’m actually about to move to the next level in size with a 13U x 168HP Needham case on order. Looking forward to having all my modules racked and all in one case, including the M32 and Subharmonicon. They’ll be used much more having them available in the case.
Cheers and Happy New Year to all on this awesome forum.
Just did a quick sampling of the new release and wow! There’s lots of great soundscapes on offer. Will definitely be checking it out fully. Thanks for sharing. Cheers!
I’m loving this. I should have some time to let this run all the way later today. :-)
I have yet to try setting up a deep, “self-generating” patch like this, but I really want to try.
Cheers!
Damn! I forgot to PM you sooner. Hopefully I’m not too late… Cheers!
Thanks for posting the hi-fi version. Easier to really appreciate the production quality. The Amen break is classic for a reason and this makes excellent use of it. Cheers!
Wow! Those are all really great sounding. I certainly wouldn’t complain if they were all longer. I love to see the SubH make appearances in this kind of ambient. Cheers!
Another great ambient piece. Love it. Cheers!
Thanks for the kind replies. I spent many hours over the last week just noodling with the Iridium through Microcosm and I'm amazed at how immersive that is. The Iridium reverb is decent, but hook up a Big Sky or Microcosm and it is transformative. Really looking forward to more deeply integrating Iridium with the modular to drive crazy modulation in a more immediate way.
Thoroughly enjoyed that! Thanks for the patch description. That’s a level I haven’t reached yet - I still feel like I’m patching in a very vanilla kinda way.
And yes, I love the guest star. I’d really like to have my cats around while I’m noodling, but my big Maine Coon decided it would be fun to “mark” a power strip in my studio so they’re banned for life! I was lucky to be in the next room and I heard the crackling. Could have been very bad indeed. Cheers!
Nice track with a great, complex arrangement. Thanks for also posting the hi-fi version - it sounds sooooo much better. :-)
That’s excellent! Really enjoyed listening to that. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks Garfield and CMB for the very kind comments. Much appreciated.
@Garfield - Yes, this was most definitely not "generative" (which implies a mostly set-it-and-forget-it type of thing). It was a very hands-on "performance" of the patch. I was constantly making changes and I'm actually amazed I managed not to hit one wrong note on the Keystep. ;-)
That specific part you called out at 16:14 was one of the sections with just the M32 and the Starlab, and the resonance was being modulated by Sloths which just happened to peak along with the Cutoff, which was being modulated by Maths which was patched to itself to be pretty unpredictable. A nice happy accident.
I am loving the Iridium. It's great out of the box, but it's also very easy to do sound designing - especially for dynamic ambient sounds. The Mod Matrix is the best I have seen. Once you spend a few hours with the UI you'll love it.
Cheers!
Howdy! I got a bunch of new toys to play with (after saying goodbye to a bunch of old ones) and just recorded this long, mellow ambient piece that features the Mother 32, Hologram Microcosm and Strymon Skylab with the Waldorf Iridium for additional
texture and swirly deepness.
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I am improvising through the entire recording with constantly changing chord combos on both the Keystep arpeggiator and on the Iridium (using the built-in pads). Also doing manual wiggling of the Maths modulation amount on the M32 LFO Rate and making loads of periodic changes to the arpeggiator speed and divisions as well as the M32 octave range. Also also occasionally lowering the Microcosm mix to zero and dropping the Iridium to let just the M32 and Starlab dance together. I’ve had this patched up for a week and really enjoyed messing around with it. Cheers!
Keystep > M32
Mother 32 > WMD PM > Aux - Microcosm > Starlab
Maths > M32 LFO Rate - Cutoff and PWM
Sloths to M32 Resonance
Batumi to WMD PM Pan
Batumi to Starlab Shimmer
Batumi to Starlab Glimmer
Sloths to Starlab High Damp
Starlab onboard LFO to Delay
Edit: Now with more space!
This sounds great! Just my style. I have yet to try "Beads as a voice" but this is convincing me I should. Thanks for sharing.
Nicely done. Congrats! I am partial to track 1, but maybe I am slightly biased there. :-)
That sounds great! Gotta love new-synth-day. I’m not keen on some of the Behringer drama, but these ARP clones do sound very good and you can’t argue with the “bang for the buck” factor. Looking forward to more!
That sounds amazing! Is Usta just feeding a slow sequence into Polygogo? Where’s the envelope coming from? Looks possibly like the attack is slowly modulated by a Batumi sine wave, but I’m just guessing. Cheers!
That’s frigging awesome! I love the transition that happens at around 2:40. The detune effect is magic. This concept could totally be stretched out and not get boring. Cheers!
It's funny how modularists share this taste for Star Trek. I don’t escape it either... There is a Communicator (a nice toy version) preciously placed between my Mother-32 and my 0-Coast... :))
Artificial Singularity is a good ambient track. Congratulations!
I especially like the density and the smoothness of the pads. The depth of the mix and the spacialization too.The length may seem daring and we too often hesitate to produce on such a dimension. But the theme lends itself well.
Great, see you on the bridge!
-- Sweelinck
Thanks for the compliments! Much appreciated. I just finished going through ST:V again and started another run through TNG. Star Trek is just so much more appealing to me than pretty much all other TV/movies. But these days I keep shouting “why the hell is it so easy to get locked out of those systems?!” Haha!
Thanks Garfield. Yeah I too love that “lead” sound that pick up in the last section. I just wish I could remember how I did that. ;-) I didn’t write anything down for this one. Oh well, that’s modular. Cheers!
Thank you Mowse and Troux. Yes, it is definitely better in headphones. I probably heard it 30 times through my good set and completely vegged out. ;-)
An experiment with some new stuff I've acquired over the last couple of months: The mighty Doepfer A-151 Sequential Switch, Qu-Bit Bloom, Qu-Bit Chord V2 and Frap Tools Brenso. I got the A-151 so I could replicate the osc round robbin feature of the Sequential Pro 3 witch is an effect I really love. I just got Brenso a week ago, so there's a lot to learn on that, but it is mega!
For track 1, Rene is feeding note CV to Piston Honda Osc A and B as well as to Plaits and using Plaits two outputs. Those oscillators are getting the same exact sequence which is split by the clock and the switch.The sequence is 11 steps, so each time a different note value is sent to a different oscillator at a different time. The two PH outputs are fed into Bionic Lester, then into Chronoblob which has its Mix level modulated by an LFO. The two Plaits outputs go to Vult Freak, then to Mimeophon where its Mix level is modulated by a different LFO. The four outputs are panned 9:00, 1:00, 11:00 and 3:00 so they bounce around the stereo field. Rene is feeding a second sequence to Chord V2 and I have the main out into Ripples and the Root and Fifth outs to QPAS.
For track 2, Bloom is feeding a long-ish branched sequence to Brenso going into QPAS. Various modulation for QPAS and Brenso parameters. Track 3 is a short bass sequence into Brenso into Freak, fed by a Keystep. Drums are pieced together and modified from EZ Drummer.
The video shows Studio One and the automation lanes. Track one is the core track, so it's simple, but for dynamics, tracks 2 and 3 levels are in and out a lot. The automation on the drums is for adding some chorus effects.
Cheers!
I totally dig it! That was a really good listen. Going to play it again. I love the pads from the Rev 2 - I really do love mine.
My recent long piece was a good experiment in the long form, but it still doesn't approach where I want to go. This is closer. As you say, this is in the Tangerine Dream/Schulze style. I am struggling to conceptualize multiple separate sections that all marry into one long form, but maybe I am overthinking the transition requirements. Cheers!
Hi Folks! I haven't been on the site too much recently, but I am looking forward to listening to all the new tracks posted. I've been focusing on learning recently purchased modules (Bloom, Chord v2, and the mighty Doepfer A-151 Sequential Switch), as well as trying new production techniques. I really wanted to take a stab at long form ambient, so I submit this example. It's looooong, but that was the point. It's another installment of my Star Trek dialog manglings. Drop it on in the background or throw on some headphones and zone out. Hope you like it as much as I do. Cheers!
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The core foundation for this is a patch I developed on the M32/Subharmonicon. I then layered on a load of other stuff from the modular and again used Pigments 3 to do the granular treatment on the voice. So much of the work on this version was all about removing stuff I initially layered on, to reduce density and have some ebbing/flowing of sections. It was a lot of fun to work on and I definitely want to do more.
That is a very cool track! Great melancholy mood. I love how shaking the dictaphone makes it do vibrato!
Swapped the VCF303 for my Polaris to see how a different filter sounded and with a bit more modulation capabilities, also trying something new with the MSCL, interesting module 🤔 This is an excerpt from a longer jam but I like the structure of it ok even if it starts out a bit slow, hope you enjoy!
Bundled the last couple tunes I made with this (along with the @TumeniKnobs collaboration) onto a mini EP which you can check out here https://stevehand.bandcamp.com/album/september-acid
-- troux
Nice track! I missed the whole rave thing (living in Tokyo from 90-95), and I won’t even pretend to know what “booty house” is… Haha! And that’s very cool dropping the collab version on the ep. Thanks for credit and the link. :-)
Cheers
Interesting devices! Please send updates when available. Cheers!
Love the crazy rhythms in 9721, and the guitar in Enthusiasts is way out there. Not sure I’d want to hear that after a night of heavy drinking. :-) Your Board Chirper recordings are making that thing very tempting. Cheers!
Heterophony! Never heard this term before, but it’s something that is in a lot of patches I make, including the “mega-patch” I currently have running. Right on!
Hi Garfield - I love the Subsequent 37! But not without some effort. The mod section requires some practice to manage. And this is very subjective, but I didn’t like a lot of the presets so I ended up replacing most of them with 3rd party presets. That completely transformed it into my favorite synth in my studio. Hook up a delay and a reverb and you are in synth heaven! It’s keys are full size. Cheers.
Had loads of fun jamming to that track. Thanks to Troux for the collaborative efforts. I used the aforementioned Acid Wiggler patch (tweaked) on the Subsequent 37 and I used the arpeggiator along with a Moog CV pedal to ride the filter cutoff. Cheers!
Thank you all for the very kind responses. It's much appreciated. I've said this before in other threads, but modular has really prompted me to do so much more recording than I have done in decades. It's the combination of pushing me to different types of music than I have ever made before (like ambient) with less formal "song" structures, and the fact that there's no "save" button. What a fantastic hobby!
I did do a new cicada recording the other day - this time with some great thunder claps accompanying them from a storm that passed by. Now I just have to re-arrange my racks then see if I can put something together for that.
@Farkas - yeah I live in Carmel. Where are you?
Cheers
Those features plus the ability to update the firmware via SD card would be great. And yes, so raw, such power!
You guys have all been posting great tracks recently and I humbly submit some mellow ambient for your chill out time. This is the short version... ;-)
This was going to be just an ambient track with the sounds of a steamy, hot summer day as the base, however... a squadron of Warthogs (A-10 Thunderbolt) started doing laps over my house. It was race day in Indianapolis and they were getting ready to do their fly-by. I figured I'd just let the recording roll. There's almost no processing to that field recording, just a bit of reduced levels for the fly-bys because they were very loud.
There is a simple modular track with a slow sequence running into Plaits which is running into Bionic Lester using both filters, one is LPF and the other is the comb filter which makes cool glitchy sounds when freq is modulated. Beads is providing additional glitchiness with the Size knob being modulated. There's a track using a lovely pad on the Prophet Rev2 which, when the resonance is turned up, really does sound an awful lot like the sound of the cicadas, so I am riding the cutoff and resonance knobs for each pad swell. Since I'm slowly fading in the resonance you can barely tell it's not just more cicadas. There's also a track from the Subsequent37 adding some high end swells with fast warbling. Then there is a pulsing bass sequence provided by the Moog Taurus Pedals. I am using my foot to ride the cutoff up and down manually (pedally?). The chirping you hear is a Northern Cardinal . :-)
Cheers
I have this cranked in my studio right now and this section from about the 2:00 mark sounds fantastic. You know I love lots of delay and reverb (who doesn't?), and the effect is great between my monitors. :-)
Funky, would love to hear another acid line over the top of that :)
-- wishbonebrewery
I was just cranking a preset called Acid Wiggler on my Subsequent 37 over the top of this and it sounded awesome. Nice track!
Great video! That thing does have that classic Moog tone. Mmmmm buttery!
I dig Lightbath for his music, tutelage, and sense of humor. And for ambient music I gravitate to State Azure and Inverted Popes a lot. Red Means Recording has a music channel that is mostly techno vibes I believe.
