Bugbrand Modular Mayhem

YouTube Uploaded by otoskope on Mar 29, 2011

"Ain't she beautiful, my new baby? I just recieved this wonderful machine from Tom Bugs - a Bugbrand Modular. It is obviously capable of some serious sonic mess. And I love the colours!

This patch relies mostly on the delay module, modulated and fed by various oscillators, with extra spice added by the button-trigged envelope to the left, and a few dry feeds to give body to the sound (these are soloed after a while).

Enjoy
/Palle Dahlstedt"

Update:

Bugbrand Modular 2 - Spacious Drone

Uploaded by otoskope on Mar 30, 2011

"Exploring unexpected drone possibilities from a patch originally made for emergent cross-modulation rhythms, which brutally failed when I tried to film it. After some knob-twiddling, this was the result.

From 4:35 there are some nice grooves.

This is my second day with the Bugbrand Modular, and I'm quite sure it will keep me busy for a while...

The sound is recorded straight from the line out of the synth (which is mono).

/Palle Dahlstedt"

Bugbrand Modular 3 - Cross-modulation Space War

Uploaded by otoskope on Mar 30, 2011

'A test of how the different oscillators can inter-modulate, in the eminent Bugbrand Modular, which I received yesterday."

Bugbrand Modular 4 - Timpani drummer

Uploaded by otoskope on Mar 30, 2011

"Exploring a way of creating complex rhythms with minimal means, while keeping resources for creating the actual sounds. Various multiplications of envelope and a couple of oscillators create a rhythm that modulates the Buchla-style Low-pass gate. That constitutes the main kettle-drum sound. To spice it up, there is a complementary synth sound. In the video, I explore various knob settings for the patch."

Bugbrand Modular 5 - Omph Omph

Uploaded by otoskope on Mar 30, 2011

"OK, so I made a few experimental videos on the Bugbrand Modular today, but I just couldn't resist trying to do something more, you know, beat-based (although strangely shifting). One hand holds the camera. That leaves one hand to do the beats..."

Pencil Fields - analog gestural interface controlling Bugbrand Modular

YouTube Uploaded by otoskope on May 9, 2011

"This is a live performance by Palle Dahlstedt on a custom built instrument, using a simple pencil drawing as a gestural interface for controlling complex analog synthesis (on a Bugbrand Modular). The instrument works by creating a voltage potential field in the graphite/pencil markings on the paper using custom movable electrodes made from coins. Then, various control voltages are extracted from other points on the paper, controlling various aspects of the synthesized sound.

A big thanks to Tom Bugs for very valuable electronics advice!

The sound is recorded directly from the BugBrand Modular (with a slight reverb), and from contact mics on the pencil sharpener. There is no normal microphone, which explains the slightly awkward silence in the beginning, while I'm drawing.

Recorded at the second performance (of two), May 6th, 2011, Gothenburg, Sweden. Concert arranged by Levande Musik (www.levandemusik.org)

This work is part of the research project Creative Performance at University of Gothenburg, funded by the Swedish Research Council."

Bugbrand Beats - celebrating modular expansion

YouTube Uploaded by otoskope on Jun 2, 2011

"A patch celebrating the arrival of some serious expansion for my blue modular system from Bugbrand.

The sound is recorded directly from the line signal from the synth, and could need some serious mastering, but I had fun doing it.

In addition to Bugbrand, there are some bananafied Wiard modules, and a Haible 'Living VCO' in the system."

Two Bugbrand SV Filters Having a Party

YouTube Uploaded by otoskope on Jan 30, 2012

"An illustration of the complex waveforms you can get from just a Bugbrand PRC3A SV Filter when fed back to itself. The signal chain is one SV filter to each channel (L and R), nothing else. Feedback strength, and self-modulation (frequency, Q) for each filter are controlled by some auxiliary circuitry (VCAs and bipolar modulators) run by gestural sources (sequencers and looping envelopes).

More on this specific technique here: http://www.muffwiggler.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=51588

Actually, the cross-modulating envelopes (2xENV1, in the lower row of the modular) create rather interesting rhythmic patterns. It is an interesting technique. Each envelope modulate the other's timing.

Apologies for bad image quality."

Bugbrand Major Drum first test (2xDRM1+DRM1x)

Published on Feb 28, 2014 otoskope·45 videos

"Testing a double Bugbrand DRM1+DRM1x 'Major Drum' setup, driven by a simple step sequencer. In essence, this is a two-voice percussion synthesizer. The voices are heavily cross-patched. As you can hear, these modules can do far more than just drum sounds. Each voice contains a dual waveform syncable oscillator, noise source, multi-mode filter, four decay envelopes and much more. 23 knobs, 10 switches and 20 patch points per voice!

In this video I just fiddle around with settings to explore the sonic possibilities. Sound is taken directly from the two drum modules, one in each channel (L+R). No external equipment used. No mastering. No FX."

duo pantoMorf goes analog: gestural Bugbrand modulars

Published on Mar 4, 2014 otoskope·48 videos

"duo pantoMorf is a duo known for their electronic free improv, based around instruments developed by themselves. The idea is to achieve the same freedom they are used to on acoustic instrument. Here they for the first time try the same approach on analog modulars. The basic idea is that when you lift your hands, the instrument goes quiet, and that all sonic gestures correspond to a physical gesture. Hence, no self-playing structures.

Here, they are performing on Bugbrand modular synthesizers. Per Anders also uses a Gotharman Little deFormer 2 for some processing.

duo pantoMorf is Palle Dahlstedt and Per Anders Nilsson"

Bugbrand Modular 6 - A moment of low-dimensional chaos

YouTube Uploaded by otoskope on Apr 2, 2011

"Don't ask me to explain this patch. I've had this little miracle machine for three days now, and keep discovering new ways of intermodulating things. Basically the three oscillators are modulating each other's fequencies connected clockwise, and waveform's counter-clock-wise. At the same time. Plus an audio-rate looping envelope gets modulated in different ways by this chaotic system.

The sound is recorded straight from the Bugbrand's line outs.

Enjoy!
/Palle Dahlstedt"

北鏡-編集-DV NTSC アナモフィック

YouTube Uploaded by KyotoTheatre on Aug 8, 2011

"Northern Mirror, composite video Noho THeatre Group's 2011 July 18th production"

via otoskope who brought us the bugbrand and Palle Dahlstedt custom pencil interface videos here.
"In July I made a collaboration with traditional Japanese dancers and musicians, and this is one of the performances. The NoHo Theatre Company in Kyoto commissioned a piece, and I chose the title Northern Mirror, and composed it in my studio. In Kyoto, director Jonah Salz together with me and the performers created a story around my title, and then performed it at the beautiful Oe Noh-gakudo, one of Kyoto's oldest Noh Theatres.

The electronic pre-recorded part was made from alternate-playing piano sounds, and then processed in a Nord Modular G2, using evolutionary algorithms and custom gestural mappings to control the parameters of complex shuffling algorithms."

otoskope also let me know that the stages are sacred. You have to wear special socks placed in front of it and no electronic devices are allowed on stage. Speakers were discretely placed in front which made monitoring the acoustic musicians a challenge.

Baby Bugbrand noisebox mayhem - DIY micro frame

Published on Oct 28, 2012 by otoskope

"I spent my day converting an old toy drawer from my childhood into a small modular synthesizer frame for some Bugbrand modules.. This is the first test, with a chaotic feedback patch, just for fun.

The baby frame holds 7 frac-widths worth of modules plus power supply and distro. Currently I stuffed it with the following modules:

front side
CTL2 joystick/touch control
SYN2C tri-core oscillator
SYN2A utility oscillator
PRC3A SV multimode filter

back side
PRC1 PT Delay
DD1 Ring mod/LPG

and a Mini Power module"

Heart-driven modular synth - first test

Published on Nov 2, 2012 by otoskope

Bugbrand Modular

"I hooked up my heart through an ECG monitor to my modular synthesizer. From the ECG monitor, built from a kit today, I get the sound of my heart, and a control voltage signal. I use these to modulate various oscillators and filters, and also to clock a sequencer.

This is just a first test, and it seems to work."