first test - moog werkstatt driving a mattson mini modular

Published on Jan 28, 2015 hewstigator

"testing my laurentide synthworks modded moog werkstatt running patches to and from the mattson modular to make sure there are no weird grounding or stability issues between the two. if you haven't seen what laurentide does to these werkstatt's you should definitely check it out - nearly all available space is taken to install a giant bevy of 1/8" jacks, a MIDI-CV converter, fine tuning, and more (even a sort of "grit" circuit is added...) basically turning this thing into a super compact, modular workhorse! (http://www.laurentidesynthworks.net/)

in this video, the werkstatt sends out a clock (via its square LFO), gate and keyboard pitch CV to the mattson, which in turn sends back an arpeggiated pitch CV to the werkstatt oscillator (you don't hear the arpeggiated oscillator until about 1:15). sorry about the wacky video angle - the area i have the modular set up is pretty tight!

all of the bwazillion patch jacks obviate the need to play the werkstatt's built-in keyboard, but it is super handy to have the tiny keyboard right there tucked in with everything else while setting up patches.

this werkstatt/mattson combo can also be heard on the track "a healer is born" starting at around two minutes in our band's latest EP (although the patch is a fairly basic since i had just gotten the werkstatt when finalizing the song!) https://thenewlines.bandcamp.com/albu..."

demonstration of sequenced ring modulation, mattson mini modular

Published on May 5, 2014 hewstigator·41 videos

"george mattson did me a solid a few weeks ago by sending me one of his own personal stash of CVA's and so i thought i would upload a short video of some of the stuff i've been testing out with it...."

http://mattsonminimodular.com

the new lines - 8239

Published on Nov 18, 2013 hewstigator·34 videos

Mattson Mini Modular intro.

"off of the LP, 'Fall In Line' on Moon Glyph: www.moonglyph.com/releases/mg60

music/s.r. (c)/(P) 2013 the new lines
video by jenn and mark di donna"

mattson mini modular filter pings

Published on Oct 9, 2013 hewstigator·30 videos

"this simple patch looks like FM and sounds like ring modulation, but if i recall is mostly noise through a nearly self-oscillating filter whose frequency is set by a sample and hold module."

mattson mini modular, bass drum driven clock

Published on Apr 14, 2013 hewstigator·29 videos

"thought it might be novel to use a bass drum to send clock pulses to the sq-816. unfortunately, this bit of insight was not accompanied by any great ideas as to what kind of sequence, or drum beat would really make this more compelling, sigh! anyhow, this is a short clip of the setup in action. (sm57-envelope follower-various buffers with a bunch of division6 jacklights from meme antenna-sq816)"

http://mattsonminimodular.com
http://www.division-6.com

fake marimba repeat patch test with Mattson Mini Modular SQ816

Published on Feb 26, 2013 hewstigator·25 videos

"just screwing around, obviously there are a lot better simulations of the lowry marimba repeat (and the baba o'riley intro) around... it would have been much better to patch over a polyphonic organ into the mattson mini modular's gates but the organ i have (a farfisa) was a little heavy for my current lazy saturday evening mood...!"

New Mattson Mini Modular / Division 6 Sequencer Videos by hewstigator

mattson mini modular / division 6 sequencer key-change (minor to major) demo

Published on Jan 24, 2013 hewstigator·24 videos

"a demo using the mattson mini modular / divison 6 sequencer's individual stage gate outputs to change particular notes of the sequence (here, the minor 3rds to major 3rds) on the fly...

in this case i took the gate pulse from each stage where i landed on a minor 3rd to tell the modular to transpose that minor 3rd to a major, with a switch to turn the transposing on and off as desired. the flinty-eyed observer will note that i am also taking a gate pulse from the stage AFTER each 3rd - this is to tell the modular to stop transposing (to leave the rest of the notes of the sequence in their normal places...

additional flinty-eyed observation will note that i am not using the sequencer's run/standby switch - instead, i leave it in the run position but have the clock generated by an external metronome"

using the mattson mini modular sq816 sequencer on part of "only the vulture knows" by the new lines

Published on Jan 24, 2013 hewstigator·24 videos

"having just delivered our masters to our mastering dude, mat @ mobtown studios, i thought i would send over, for posterity, a little snippet i captured of using an early mattson mini modular sequencer SQ816 prototype on one of the songs from our second LP, "fall in line" due out on moon glyph later this year...

i believe george mattson is currently just waiting for a lump of sequencer parts to arrive before production of these things begins in earnest... the sequencer is the top cabinet, and at the bottom with all of the glowing lights are my beloved division 6 jacklights (which plug into a 1/8" jack and light up to tell you what voltage they are seeing)... here they are glowing red with each clock pulse coming from my korg metronome which i had been using to make sure the sequencer stayed in time with the rest of the song on my computer. (this was before i realized i could just take an extra output from the computer to deliver clock pulses much more precisely)... dreck!"

syncing the mattson mini modular sq816 sequencer with a daw

Published on Jan 20, 2013 hewstigator·22 videos

"i had to sync my mattson sequencer to my digital audio workstation to start using it on recordings of my band (thenewlines.bandcamp.com), and since the firmware doesn't yet sync over the USB input, i decided to take a quarter note pulse into an envelope follower, and then send that envelope into my sequencer's clock in. seems to work great, and it's a pretty great application for the humble built-in soundcard on my laptop that usually doesn't get any use when i'm recording music. here's a quick demo!"

http://mattsonminimodular.com/

mattson with sample and hold driven percussion accents

Uploaded on Jan 12, 2013 hewstigator·20 videos

"here my mattson mini modular's sample and hold is driving an LFO clock rate which causes it to randomly generate percussion accent patterns. because i have the sample and hold sampling at the first stage of the sequencer (with the sequencer expansion gate output) it changes the accent pattern once for every loop of the sequencer.

i plugged in a bunch of division 6 jack lights to show you the output of the LFO to help you see how it is affecting the percussion accents."

http://mattsonminimodular.com
http://division-6.com

Worth noting is that although the Mattson Mini Modular is a different physical format than eurorack, you can patch them together. I do so often. My Mattson Mini Modular is the heart of my modular system.

Mattson Sequencer Short Performance Demo

Published on Dec 18, 2012 by hewstigator

"This is just a really short demo of me experimenting with using the Mattson sequencer at the end of a new song that our band, The New Lines (thenewlines.bandcamp.com), is currently recording...

What you see is me flipping the play mode switch (to "program") to allow me to play an oscillator on my keyboard, and then at the end, I flip the play mode into "run" to start the sequence. And then I put the clock way up, close encounters of the third kind style...

sry about the audio quality - was running out of time and had to just use my cell phone audio for this one...!"

Mattson Mini Modular Sequencer - first patch

Published on Dec 14, 2012 by hewstigator

"Just a quick cellphone video of a patch I built shortly after receiving my shiny new mattson mini modular sequencer - a quirky and versatile beast whose capabilities i have barely even begun to uncover, but i figured i would post a brief snippet in celebration of its surviving the voyage from the west coast (where these mmm modules originate) to my location on the east coast.

everything is being generated real-time on my mattson modular's three oscillators and a noise generator (albeit all through relatively primitive, simple patches... i probably spent too much time wrestling with the sound sync on this video and too little time actually making an interesting patch hah!)

PS sorry about repeatedly cutting the sequencer off at the top of the frame!"

mmm playing along to a drum loop...

YouTube Uploaded by hewstigator on Apr 19, 2012
(click through for more)

"mattson mini modular color changing lights relocated to the power panel (and playing part of a song)"

Mattson sample and hold used to sample pitch cv...

YouTube Uploaded by hewstigator on Apr 30, 2011

"Many of you no doubt already know this technique well, but I stumbled onto it today and thought I would share just in case. Usually sample and hold modules are used to sample an oscillator or audio signal... but here is what it sounds like if you use it to pluck a pitch here and there out of a melody.

When the tune starts, you see me dialing in and then adjusting the octave of a vco whose pitch is coming out of the sample and hold unit. The sample and hold is capturing pitch voltages at a very fast rate at first so it seems to play in unison with the other vco but I slow it down so you can hear it just grab a note here and there. You can also set this particlar mattson s&h module to track and hold so that on the downside of the clock cv it will just play the melody as is, and on the up-side it will hold whatever note it sampled....

the tune i have here probably doesn't do it much justice, but trust me, it sounds VERY and psychedelic with the right amount of reverse 'verb or multi-tap swelling. i was going to just use the effect (e.g., on my memory man hazarai) on the video, but then i realized it was too hard to hear what was going on... shrug!"

the new lines - voyager program 1977 [Mattson Mini Modular & EMS Synthi]

YouTube Uploaded by hewstigator on Apr 22, 2011

"This track features two of our favorite synths, the ems synthi and the mattson mini modular working together to produce the electronic creaks and chirps in the background...

We considered using actual voyager footage but somehow shots of computers being sent into space... lacked the appropriate emotional impact...

single available on thenewlines.bandcamp.com
Split 7" with the still corners in the works via the great pop supplement"


mattson mini modular color changing lights relocated to the power panel (and playing part of a song)

YouTube Uploaded by hewstigator on Apr 29, 2011

"The point of this video is just to show where I relocated my color changing led lights from a prior video... since I used up the spots where my blanking panels used to be, I stuck the leds behind the power panel on the lower right... no other mods needed since the light shines through the panels as is (the aluminum behind the graphics have a 4x4 pattern pre-drilled).

The melody is just some draft song which we may complete later... to hear a full song please check out our recent video,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcEhpxl6GwU [above]
or thenewlines.bandcamp.com

There are some moogerfoogers shown also but only the freqbox is used to add some high melancholic overtones... I say melancholic because it is quite difficult to get the v/oct scaling just right so unless you hit the sync it will be a tiny bit out of tune but I like the effect...!

Although the mattson modular plays all of the parts of the song, the video only really shows it playing one of the melody lines since I only have one midi/cv converter and can only have it play one part at a time."

another demo of the rock band 3 pro squier midi output

YouTube Uploaded by hewstigator on Mar 8, 2011
Follow-up to this post.
"OK after that first video i realized i hadn't taken advantage of two key features of the rock band 3 squier guitar so here is another demo:

because each string of the guitar transmits on a different channel, you can assign each one to a different instrument. (imagine 6 fat monophonic synths assigned to each string!). here, in the first track (the large video) the top two (thickest) strings are assigned to an acoustic bass, and the lower four (thinner) strings are assigned to a modular lead on my beloved mattson mini modular analog synth... (because i was not feeling very coordinated, i am only playing the 1st, 2nd, and 4th strings though)...

the inset video is all of the strings assigned to control a lead patch on the mattson modular synth, but this time i have enabled the pitch bend - i said before that the guitar did not detect any "string vibrato" you may give it.. well, if you enable pitch bend, and set the max bend depth to one half step (it is very sensitive), then if you wobble your hand to give the note vibrato, the guitar will sense your hand shaking the guitar and actually output a useable vibrato via pitch bend... so that is what you want to pay attention to in the inset...

i think, if i recall correctly, the large video lead is the mattson + a VCO from the moogerfooger freqbox, and the inset is the mattson + moogerfooger ring modulation...

finally, a close listen to the bass line track will reveal that sometimes each finger-pluck sends a bunch of note-ons which is a little muddy... i think that this would not happen if i were wearing "finger picks", but i didn't have any on hand at the time!

also, sorry about the pre-mature fade-out, my android phone randomly decided to stop recording the large video prematurely..."

Quick test of rock band 3 squier stratocaster guitar midi

YouTube Uploaded by hewstigator on Mar 7, 2011

"So I just bought this rock band 3 pro guitar, and viola, my xbox 360 decided to give me that infamous RROD 2 years out of warranty, sigh...

...feeling weird about throwing more money into another xbox (or a repaired one) I decided to do some preliminary messing around with the guitar's MIDI. Here, there is one track with the guitar doing rhythm work into a wurlitzer EP patch (it's not a great interesting sound, i know, but i use it to show that the polyphonic tracking is pretty decent), and then, just for kicks another track with the guitar controlling my new addiction, the mattson mini modular, with some impromptu knob adjustment and then adding an octave saw with the moogerfooger freqbox.

the guitar is nice in that it is $280 for a guitar midi controller. it is not so nice in that (a) it will not detect any bent notes, (b) accurate transient detection requires putting up the string mute (thereby making it not well suited for using both the guitar's audio output and the midi output at the same time), and (c) if you are plugged into a bright amp, you can hear the midi messages clicking away if it's on... oh also (d) sometimes, depending on what you're connecting to, having both the midi and audio connected will cause the midi generator to "go crazy".. i think it's a grounding thing...

all that being said, i think it's probably unbeatable at this price - the entire fretboard is wired so that each fret is divided into 6 contact points (one for each string) meaning that polyphonic note tracking feels perfect - with the caveat that since it doesn't use the audio for any pitch tracking, it will ignore vibrato, etc.

the guitar attempts to compensate for this by adding two axes of position detection - lifting the neck will send a scattered bunch of pitch bend signals, that, with smoothing, could be made usable. tilting the face of the guitar down towards the floor sends expression controller data which seems a little more smooth than the pitch bend... so in theory you could re-map those to get back some of the functionality you lose by not being able to wobble the strings around on their frets...?"

using the thingamagoop RGB on a psych rock song

YouTube via hewstigator | February 16, 2011 |

"basically i am demonstrating using the thingamagoop to generate a rhythmic drone pattern on top of a psych rock loop...

although the thingamagoop has a CV output, i opted here to just apply an envelope follower to the thingamagoop's audio.

the amplitude of the thingmagoop audio is being used to drive drone tones on the moogerfooger freqbox (i forgot to turn on the ring modulator which is next to it) and a korg monotron.

the first thing you see me doing (perhaps lamely) is dialing out the thinamagoop's raw audio on the freqbox so you just hear its oscillator.

then i dial up the korg monotron on my beloved mattson mini modular quad vca (which has already become crazily handy in function as well as reducing a lot of clutter!), futz with the envelope follower (to get a less "gated" pattern on the monotron), and then mess with the ribbon controller..."

thingamakit and various modulars

hewstigator | February 01, 2011 |

"here are a bleeplabs thingamakit and a mattson modular sample and hold driving a monotron and two moogerfoogers. since the thingamakit doesn't generate CV by itself (unlike the new "thingamagoop 2") it is running through an analogue systems freq to CV converter."

dealing with empty-case malaise: psychedelic lights behind mattson mini modular blanking panels

YouTube via hewstigator | February 15, 2011 |

"OK so I realized quickly that this "case lighting project" was pretty lame without video, so here it is... but i couldn't record any "modular synth audio" without nesting the case in a horrible tangle of wires (my system is currently spread out between this mattson mini modular case, an analogue systems case, mooger foogers, and a korg monotron (which, once the CV inputs were added, is pretty nice EXCEPT for the layer of white noise on top of the audio output$@#!@). as you can see, at the moment i only have 2 mattson modules, a shortage which i am trying to rectify!... the orange "m"s are not standard, but were "leftover" plates that george mattson was kind enough to let me experiment with!

The music is just a semi-germanic unfinished song by my band the new lines...

note re: monotron - people have figured out that the noise comes from the VCF, theoretically fix-able by replacing the chip that amplifies the outbound vcf signal...

http://www.muffwiggler.com/forum/view..."

http://mattsonminimodular.com/