A Patch A Day, No. 29

Published on Jun 6, 2013 hamiltonulmer·30 videos

"Unfocused and pretty long drone-related patch. Been a long day.

I wanted this patch to focus on three different relationships. The first is between the 4 voices emanating from the Maths. Chs. 1 and 4 provide the low rumble, providing a nice open major chord (add 2). The upper voices come from the Quadra. We output the SUM of that, placed appropriately with the relevant attenuverters, into the mixer.

The second relationship is with the three sine waves, coming from two VCOs of the DPO and the Dixie. The three minor 7ths away from each other, providing a lovely sonority.

The third relationship concerns the use of the the Quadras and the DPO, and using the Wogglebug clock to make the Graphic Sequencer move. I had the sequencer output 5v on steps 1, 3, 6, and 8, and was set at 0v otherwise. This provides a rhythm I've always loved. At any rate, the sequencer outputs to the decays of the pitched Quadra channels as well as the DPO's EXPO. So when I attenuate these knobs, we get the lovely chattering you hear. I think it is delightful.

Overall, this is not a very successful performance - the pacing is odd, and the relationships could have been more tactfully manipulated. But the ideas are nice, and I would like to keep exploring these."

A Patch A Day, No. 27

Published on Jun 4, 2013 hamiltonulmer·28 videos

"This patch is fundamentally about attenuating clocks to produce different intervals, and using the same clocks to control the movement form one pitch to the next.

Here, we have the same basic idea - Wogglebug sending a clock into the Clock Divider. But we are using the clock divider in a very particular way, patching out of the various divisions, and attenuating either through the DPO's EXPO knobs, through the Dual Index, and through the Maths channels 2 and 3. These attenuated clocks switch between 0V and whatever voltage is necessary to produce an interval.

In other words, each oscillator is moving between two pitches according to their clock source of choice.

I have the Graphic Sequencer also being clocked by the Clock Divider, and that voltage going out to various modulation sources on the Dixie, the DPO, and ch 1 of the Maths (the fourth oscillator).

All in all, a delightful patch, and an idea I'd like to explore more in the future."

A Patch A Day, No. 24

Published on Jun 1, 2013 hamiltonulmer·25 videos

"A drone patch, utilizing 7 oscillators (dedicated or otherwise), two mixers, and delightful tone clusters.

The entirety of this patch is built on moving between two chords. The first comes from a fully-employed Maths, where chs 1 and 4 are oscillating, and the chs 2 and 3 get cycling Quadra pitches. Carefully mixed and outputting the SUM into the µFade.

The second chord is a secundal chord - that is, a tone cluster. Here I actually use the three dedicated oscillators I have; the Dixie II (outputting a square) and the DPO (outputting a saw and a square). I also have an additional Quadra envelope cycling as an oscillator.

If you're keeping count, you'll notice I have a free Quadra channel open. I would have used it as an oscillator as well, but I have no other slope generators available at this point, and I want my patch to speak on its own behalf, so the last envelope slowly flips the µFade.

The µFade goes directly into the MMG, which I open and close according to the Graphic Sequencer. Was not a huge fan of how this turned out, but I like using the sliders to open and close the filter, even if the sequencer is not, well, sequencing."

A Patch A Day, No. 21

Published on May 29, 2013 hamiltonulmer·21 videos

"A curious patch, which began as a boredom-inducing percussive thing, and got a pinch wackier.

I wanted to attempt to fade out one clock for another, but that didn't work too keenly. I did, however, think of any interesting way of switching between tempos and triggers fairly easily. One flip of the µFade A/B switch and we can jump to a different clock entirely. Still trying to figure out how mixing clocks together might work.

And of course a flip of one of the Quadra expander switches produces many other interesting patterns. I am enjoying using the Quadra as a clocking device. By flipping the 1 + 2 switch, with 1 as a potential clock, a new cycling occurs for both the envelopes of the quadra as well as the clock(s) generated by it.

There's a lot of fiddling around attempting to get the clock divider to switch the clock via the µFade, but that didn't workout very well."

A Patch A Day, No. 15

Published on May 23, 2013 hamiltonulmer·15 videos

"A straightforward patch that demonstrates, pretty clearly, the strong relationship between pitch and rhythm.

We use the Dixie II (playing the LFO, outputting a square) as a clock source, and also as a means of modulating the pitch of the two channels of the DPO.

The magic comes entirely as one of the channels of the Maths very, very slowly ascends, increasing the frequency of the Dixie II. As the frequency spins higher, the Clock Divider follows closely, and the DPO spits out what feels like new pitches altogether, despite what you're hearing being the "same" as you heard at the beginning.

Here I use the Graphic Sequencer to create something of an new oscillator as well. By alternating between 0 and 5v, the signal goes into the STRIKE input of the FOLD section of the DPO. As the frequency increases, so does the pitch. Go figure.

The same happens with the MMG, but with a different effect altogether. The MMG ACCENT occurs at a quarter the frequency as the STRIKE circuit on the DPO, and the STRIKE on the MMG occurs at a 16th the frequency. The result is fucking gorgeous - these rich overtones appear, other wonderful overtones have counter motion, and the rest is history."

STG sequencer.

A Patch A Day, No. 14

Published on May 22, 2013 hamiltonulmer·14 videos

"Three rough sine waves, playing a nice dominant chord, with a brief rise in frequency from Maths.

The three sines come from the DPO and Dixie II. I used the Graphic Sequencer to modulate the FM on the DPO, which gives the lovely rhythmic feel at the beginning. Definitely going to keep that one in mind.

Those three sines get mixed, and then go to the µFade. Yes, another µFade-focused patch.

The second main voice is Ch. 1 of the Maths, with the Wogglebug stepped CV output (for some reason) running through the Tame Machine, and then out to the BOTH in for the Maths. The Tame Machine actually produces a fun walk between pitches. Because I set it to "link" and not "trigger" it changes pitch according to its own tempo, not the Wogglebug-clocked Clock-Divided one that runs everything else. That gives the Woggling a fun bend in pitch as it corrects mid-note.

The rest should be pretty clear at this point - the Clock Divider opens on the /64 and exposes the MMG'd Maths channel via FREQ 2, while FREQ 1 slightly pulsates according to one of the other smaller divisions.

Very fun patch."

A Patch A Day, No. 12

Published on May 20, 2013 hamiltonulmer·12 videos

Starts like a train whistle in the distances.

"Another drone-slanted patch. This time utilizing the µFade a little more clearly than yesterday's.

The core of the patch involves two dichotomies: the MMG having everything go through it, and resonances / overdriving the circuit in the usual way, and; the µFade managing two very different sounds.

I took three sine waves - two from the DPO and one from the Dixie II - to create a very simple triad. That went into one of the µFade channels. I also took the SUM of the Maths, which in this case has the pitched channels 1 and 4 outputting something delightful. I modulated the FALL of Ch. 1, which produces the lovely movement. That all gets fed into the MMG, which opens and closes very quickly, according to the Wogglebug CLOCK.

I also have the square out of the Dixie going into the RING MOD of the Wogglebug, which outputs the RING MOD to VCO B LIN of the DPO, which you hear when I turn those knobs. The VCO A LIN comes from the woggly oscillator on the Wogglebug. Really fun just plugging random signals into those LINs. Haven't regretted it yet.

I submix two quickly-oscillating Quadra channels, both of which have the decay modulated by the Wogglebug's stepped & woggly CV outs. That's what I'm doing when I turn up the lowest knob on the mixer.

At any rate, fun patch. The MMG sounds so wonderful when overloaded."

A Patch A Day, No. 10

Published on May 18, 2013 hamiltonulmer·10 videos

"Very unsatisfying patch, and an unsatisfying (hilariously silly) take. It's been that kind of day, though.

The premise of this was essentially an attempt to use a bit of what I've learned about using the Quadra percussively, and what I've come to understand about the Make Noise modules, and do something different with them.

The whole enchilada - percussion and pitches - runs into the MMG, which opens, closes, and strikes according to clocks, envelopes, and Maths. That's the premise behind this whole thing. It is conceptually pretty delightful, really, even if this recording doesn't do it justice.

The Wogglebug clocks the Clock Divider, which then goes out to several bits here and there. Took the stepped CV out of the Wogglebug, piped it into Ch. 3 of the Maths, attenuated the signal so it wouldn't be too strong, and put it into the Tame Machine. If the signal into CV IN is too strong, the Tame Machine often switches patches, which is quite annoying. The output of that goes into the DPO, which provides the weak stepped bits I would turn up and down via the mixer (hardly comes out in the recording), using the FINAL out.

The kick sound comes out of the Dixie II, which opens and closes via one of the Quadra channels, using the Dual Index for VCA duty. I use the other channel of the Dual VCA to take in the RING MOD from the Wogglebug, which was fed Ch. 3 of the Maths, oscillating wildly.

The same stepped CV out of the Wogglebug is what is opening and closing the MMG to create the random RING MOD attenuation.

Some of the clicky sounds are just the hard snap of the Quadra. Some of them are STRIKEs into the MMG, which was being struck through the Graphic Sequencer, whose steps were determined by the Clock Divider. Pretty standard idea, overall.

The bit where I am plugging into the two different Maths channels is interesting, at least conceptually. The Maths here does a lot, and is sort of the real star. I had a patch cable going from the MMG MODE IN, and depending on which channel of Maths I plugged in, would do different things to the filter. We know Ch. 1 was going into the RING MOD IN of the Wogglebug, and it was outputting at a pitch frequency. So plugging into that would open up the MMG. Plugging into Ch. 4 would output much more lightly. Between the two, you get a really nice effect, overall.

I also hit the limit of what I can reliably do with one hand, while the camera films. I want to get more performant with the modular synth, and it is impossible to do with only one hand. So this video looks silly.

Good days and bad days. One must roll with them."

A Patch A Day, No. 8

Published on May 16, 2013 hamiltonulmer·8 videos

Those are some close-up wobbly knobs...

"Pressed for time, & probably more technical than musical patch - I wanted to direct the Quadra EOC's into each other's TRIG, thereby creating a poor man's four-stage sequencer, with the duration of each stage is determined by the end of the slope. The Quadra pings itself in a circle.

Sadly I am very pressed for time on this patch today, so it is enough that I finished the video at all.

The first channel is just the Quadra itself snapping hard, making a simple blippy kick. The second channel has a bit of fm-modulated VCO A sine of the DPO, fluttering according to the Graphic Sequencer. The third channel hits a ring-mod'd DPO VCO B. Finally, the fourth channel uses the SUM output of two quick-oscillating MATHS, tuned in major 2nds from each other.

Some of this was motivated by my recent drone patch, using Quadra and Maths as dedicated oscillators. Quadra can provide a decent snap of a kick, and of course so can Maths. Pretty excellent.

(I hope I have the order of these right - I am away from the synth and can't verify by actually watching the video again.)"

Follow-up to A Patch A Day by hamiltonulmer.

A Patch A Day by hamiltonulmer

Update: you can find hamiltonulmer's page here.

"I am not new to music, but I am new to modular synthesis. So I am creating one simple patch a day in order to get used to my small system.

I will do approximately 365 patches over the next year. Over that course of time I will likely add modules, change my setup, and explore various rabbit holes.

Two questions arise from these constraints. First, is a small 6U, 84HP system musically sufficient and diverse enough for a worthwhile patch, every day? Second, given that no matter what I intend on recording a patch a day, regardless of the outcome or circumnstance, what is the relationship between quantity and quality?"

via Pierre Serné on The MATRIXSYNTH Lounge

Playlist:
(these are in reverse order by hamiltonulmer - Day 1 was missing in the playlist so I embedded it below).

CLICK FOR MORE »