Mutable Instruments Tides v2: The Oscillator

Mutable Instruments Tides v2 is a special module to me. Not only is it a multi-outputting wave-generating monster (LFOs, audio rates, and everything in between) with many variable parameters, but it was the first big name brand module that I purchased new; that is, the first one I decided to spend relatively big bucks on.

I've had it for about several months now and you've seen it in many of my videos, where its done things from rhythmic clocked modulation, to acting as a clock source. But for this video, I'd like to show everyone how you can use Tides v2 as an oscillator. 

What I'll be doing in the video below is sending a sequence into Tides, then taking the four outputs of Tides (something new in v2) and varying their parameters to produce some interesting sounds. Enjoy!

I really liked putting this patch together and the sequence sounds amazing, to me, through Tides (see sequence details below). And I love the way the sounds changes even with the slightest turn of the knobs. 

Let's break down this patch now. 

It's not a complex patch I must admit. I have my Arturia Keystep loaded with a 32-note sequence which when started will output this sequence as voltages according to the 1V/oct standard into Tides. Tides is set to "oscillator" mode": 130.8Hz frequency output (red LED), cyclic bipolar oscillations (yellow LED) with its outputs having different frequencies (red LED). The four outputs are mixed together via my DIY mixer, then sent to my DIY Dual VCA, which is opened and closed by a gate signal from the Keystep every time a note in the sequence is generated. All of that is then inputted into Clouds, mainly to add reverb to the sound.

In addition, I have Pam's Workout also receiving the gate signal from the Keystep to set the tempo; i.e. every time a note in the sequence is played. The FutureRetro Transient is triggered from Pam's and adds a bass beat to the patch, to give it a more complete sound. 2HP Arp also makes an appearance, generating a voltage every 16 notes via Pam's to shift the pitch of the sequence (so it doesn't sound like the same thing, note-wise, all the time!)

And that's basically it. Now in the video, I vary three of Tides' parameters. In order, I start with Slope, which adjusts the ratio of ascending and descending segments of the outputted waves. This is sort've like an attack/decay feature built into one and as you can hear, basically changes the sound from a triangle wave to a more sawtooth-like wave. Next, I vary the Smoothness, which depending on how its varied either low-pass filters the wave (counterclockwise) or adds "kinks and bumps" along the slope (clockwise). This made for some funky sounds! Lastly, I vary the Shift/Level. This changes the frequency of each output relative to one another to produce "intonation chords". In the video, I use my DIY mixer to adjust the volume of each output, just to illustrate the difference across outputs. As I said before, changes in a few of the parameters can produce a wide array of sounds; it's quite versatile, and I didn't even touch the Shape parameter for this video!

Before I end, I would like to point out that keen listeners will have recognized that the sequence used in this video is the intro sequence to the song Levels by Avicii (the proper non-radio cut version). I had decided to use this sequence for the video simply because I had always wondered if it could be replicated using an oscillator Eurorack module. In addition to this, last week marked the two year anniversary of Avicii's untimely death, and it was just by coincidence that I had planned to release this video with that sequence, near that date...

-Uncle Peter

Making it Work #1: Clouds, Disting mk2, FutureRetro Transient

"Making it Work" is a new series that I'm launching. It's new take on the classic "3 module challenge". What I'll be doing is picking three modules at random from my rack and find a way to make a decent sounding patch from them. It's something I'm really looking forward to, and I'm hoping I'll be able to learn more about the capabilities of my modules by doing so.

In this first episode of the series, I make a patch using Mutable Instruments Clouds, Expert Sleepers Disting mk2 and FutureRetro Transient. Here's what I managed to come up with:

Not too bad to be honest! From the start, I knew that I was going to use the Transient to make a beat and have it triggered by a square wave from Disting. But I wanted to use a different mode on Clouds just to make things sound a bit different. Luckily, the Parasite firmware I have on Clouds has a cool resonator mode, which allowed me to turn the beat generated by the Transient into a melody-like sound. Who knew!

Here's the more detailed version of what's going on:

Disting mk2 is in "4-B Clockable LFO" mode. Output A generates a sine wave that modulates the FutureRetro Transient. Output B generates a square wave that acts as a clock source for FutureRetro Transient. Both waves are oscillating at a low frequency (1.5Hz or 90BPM). 

The Transient is set to the "RANDOMeYeS" sample and is being triggered and modulated by Disting. Its output is multed to a mixer and Clouds.

Clouds is in resonator mode; an alternate mode in the Parasite firmware. Position is set to 11 o'clock, Size is set to 12 o'clock, Pitch is set to 10 o'clock, Gain is set to 4 o'clock, Density set to 5 o'clock, Texture set to 12 o'clock and Blend set to just over 9 o'clock. It is outputted to the mixer as well, which now outputs both the raw Transient beat and the "melody" generated by Clouds. 

So I think we can call that a successful first challenge. I'm really looking forward to doing more of these challenges, hopefully they all sound as good as this one!

Happy patching friends,

-Uncle Peter

DIY Eurorack Module Resources

Long before I ever got into Eurorack, or even music for that matter, electronics were a big interest of mine. I'd love taking things apart, looking at the weird circuit boards, and trying to understand what was going on. 

Fast forward many years to learning about Eurorack and all its various modules that can perform pretty much anything. It was only a matter of time before I became curious about how these modules worked; what was going on behind the face plate. After a bit of searching, I found the crazy, but fascinating world that is DIY Euroracking. 

Making DIY Eurorack modules is something that is relatively easy, designing them is a whole different story. With a bit of soldering know-how, you can make some pretty cool things.

My goal here is to consolidate all the information and resources I've acquired about DIY eurorack module-making, with the goal of helping beginners or interested people wanting to give it a try. I'm doing this because, to my knowledge, I don't think anyone has put something together like this. 

So hopefully the information below is helpful. I'll keep updating it as I find new resources:

DIY EURORACK RESOURCES

1) Look Mum No Computer 

Look Mum No Computer is a Youtube channel run by Sam Battle that focuses on DIY synthbuilding and music making. Sam is a creative genius and builds some crazy musical contraptions that sound awesome. He also has a collection of modular synth builds that he has created. What's cool about Sam's designs is that he posts the circuit board layout/bill of materials to his website, but also has a Youtube video about each module he designs. I personally think this is great because you can see what a particular module does/sounds like, before deciding to build it. Also, almost all of Sam's designs are stripboard layouts, which makes building them that much easier, and there is a nice forum on his website to ask questions. Sam himself is also pretty friendly and always answered my emails when I had module questions

I should point out though that Sam's modules are not in the typical Eurorack 128.5mm format (since he prefers larger modules), so a bit of front panel layout/design is required, which I personally find to be pretty fun; you can lay things out how you want. So far I've built the multi-channel mixer, 1V/oct oscillator, envelope generator and low-pass filter. Here is a list of Sam's module designs. 

2) Niklas Ronnberg

Niklas Ronnberg's DIY synth page is another great website I've found with a massive collection of various Eurorack-sized modules. His designs are also in stripboard format and some have instructions and audio samples to go along with them. 

A downside however is that Niklas doesn't provide an explicit bill of materials for his builds, although all the required components can be deduced from the stripboard and schematic layouts (see image). He is also friendly and responds to questions about his builds and required materials. So far I've built the dual VCA and distortion unit. 

3) Mouser Electronics
Mouser Electronics is a website that sells pretty much every single electrical component you'll ever need for these DIY builds. It's a pretty user-friendly website and what I like in particular is the filtering system they use for the a search query; you can filter down search results in super detail to get the exact component you want/need.

Mouser also has a really cool shipping policy (for Canada at least). For about $20 of shipping or free for orders over $100, you'll get next-day/two-day shipping on your orders; perfect if you are like me and want to get right into building ASAP.

Updated: 03/03/2020

So that's what I've come up with so far. As I said before, I plan to populate this list as I come across more resources. If you have any resources, post them in the comments below and I'll add them to the list. It would be great to see more people getting into this sub-hobby!


Happy patching friends,


-Uncle Peter

A Dual VCA schematic by Niklas Ronnberg

Ambient Strumming with 2HP Pluck, Clouds, Rings and a DIY Dual VCA

It's exciting times for me at the moment, in terms of Eurorack. I've just finished building my new DIY 2-row rack. Because of the extra space now, I've been able to add some DIY modules that I've built to the rack. Posts about both of these topics are coming soon!

I've been on a "ambient patch" binge lately as well (mostly because of my purchase of Mutable Instruments Clouds), trying to see what cool and different sounds I can come up with, while still making it sound ambient in nature. 

I decided to see how one of my favourite modules, 2HP Pluck, sounded when it is passed through Clouds. But I wanted to incorporate some of my DIY modules also, mainly a Dual VCA and a mixer. I kinda felt that I needed to, since they were the newest additions to the rack.

So here's the result of all that, something I'm calling it "Ambient Strumming", featuring 2HP Pluck as the main voice, Rings as a backup voice and some gate sequencing with the DIY Dual VCA and Pam's Workout, all sliced and diced together with Clouds!

To be honest, this is probably one of the most awe-inspiring (to me, of course) patches I've managed to wire up to date! I was completely surprised by the sounds that this patch produced. It's such a relaxing sound, delicate, yet clear when each note is triggered, from both of the voices. What's also cool is the different feeling the sound gives off at different tempos (who knew a change from 40 BPM to 60 BPM could make that much of a difference)!

Let's break down this patch now, since there's some pretty neat tricks I've included it in.

As I said before, two voices are present here. The first is 2HP Pluck, acting as the main voice. It's being triggered rhythmically by 2HP Euclid and given quantized voltages by 2HP TM and 2HP Tune every quarter of a beat (16th note). The other voice is Rings, in quadriphonic (red) modal (green) mode, acting as the backup voice. To be honest, I wanted to play down the role of Rings in this patch, mainly because I didn't want this to be another "Rings into Clouds" patch.

Each voice is then sent through a VCA, via the DIY Dual VCA, which receives gates from Pam's Workout (gate sequencing). Each gate is one beat in length, thus a beat's length of sound is outputted from each VCA; Pluck on the first beat and Rings on the third beat. This is something that I found to sound similar to call-and-response pattern found in various types of music.

The VCA-controlled voices are mixed together via the DIY mixer and inputted into Clouds. Clouds is in granular mode, with all its blending parameters set to 12 o'clock except for reverberation, which is set to ~4 o'clock. A gate from Pam's Workout that opens every fourth beat also controls the freeze parameter. I particularly like this setting of Clouds that I've found. As I said in a previous post, many people find Clouds very finicky, so I'm content to keep this setting for now.

The Doepfer LFO is generating three LFOs; a triangle wave, attenuated by Shades, to modulate Pluck's decay parameter, an inverted sawtooth wave, to modulate Euclid's outputted rhythm, and a sine wave, to modulate Rings' brightness parameter.

So that's pretty much what's happening. On a final note, I was really torn about what tempo to set for the patch, simply because each tempo generated a completely different mood. That's why I decided to go with both.

What did you think of this patch? Let me know in the comments below!


Happy patching friends,


-Uncle Peter

First Look at Mutable Instruments Clouds

I've gone into much detail about the Mutable Instruments brand in a few of my posts. They really do offer a vast range of powerful modules and are some of the most recognizable.

One of their most famous (now discontinued) modules is the texture synthesizer Clouds. Clouds is a really genius module that takes incoming audio, divides it up into tiny samples and, frankly, does some pretty crazy things with them in terms of reverberation . Early on in my patching career, way before I even owned a module, I heard some ambient patches using Clouds and was instantly hooked!

So I took the plunge. The good thing is that there are plenty of manufacturers that make a replica of Clouds, or its thinner counterpart uBurst; the original models can be very expensive no doubt. My first impressions of it were positive, from the bit that I've explored. The reverberation feature is pretty mesmerizing, to say the least, and the density parameter can really do some funky things when modulated.

After playing around with it for a bit, here's a patch I'm calling the "Mutable Instruments Trifecta"! Rings into Clouds (a very common practice), both modulated by Tides v2.

Not that bad. I'm getting a cool space-like vibe from this, "space strings" or something to that extent. The contrast between the background hum and sharp sequence of notes is pretty cool as well.

Let's look into this patch a bit more.

Clouds is in its basic granular mode, with all its blending parameters set to 12 o'clock except for reverbation, which is set to ~4 o'clock. This is what adds that nice reverberation to the patch.

Rings is in quadriphonic (red) sympathetic strings (yellow) mode and sends both its odd and even outputs to Clouds. The reason for using the quadriphone mode here is to add as many notes into the mix as possible, all of which contribute to the ambiance. 

Tides is in 1/8 Hz (green) cyclic bipolar oscillation (yellow) mode, set to output different shapes (LED off). Output 1 is an LFO that modulates Rings' damping parameter. Output 2 is a low-frequency triangle wave that modulates Tides' own shift/level parameter, which in turn attenuates Output 1's signal. Output 3 is a gate that controls Clouds' freeze setting. It opens at the end of the attack phase of the main signal and closes at the end of the oscillation.

The Doepfer LFO sends LFOs of various shapes to Tides' slope and frequency parameters, Clouds' position parameter and Rings' brightness parameter. Yes, that's six LFOs in total now, which may actually be a record for me at this point!

As always, perhaps a personal favourite of mine, 2HP TM sends random voltages (quantized via 2HP Tune) to Rings. 2HP Euclid sends a Euclidean rhythm to trigger Rings. Finally, Pam's Workout is set to 126 BPM, and triggers TM every quarter of a beat (sixteenth notes) and Euclid every half beat (eighth notes).

I will admit, many users of Clouds experience finickiness with their patches and to a lesser extent that was the case with this patch. It was a bit challenging to figure out the exact sound I wanted Rings to send to Clouds such that the reverberation did not die away too quickly. In my case, varying the damping parameter of Rings even the slightest has dramatic effects on decay time of the reverberation. But hey, it was pretty fun experimenting around with it, so I don't see this challenge as something negative. 

That sums up my first attempt at using Clouds. Naturally you can expect more videos featuring Clouds for anything ambient-related; I really want to learn the ins and outs of this module and what each mode is capable of.

Also, if you've been following me on Twitter ( @UnclePeterMod), you'll know that this is my last video in my current 1-row case. I just finished building a new 2-row case, maybe I'll make a post about that too, it was pretty fun to make!

Do you have any suggestions on patches to make using Clouds? If so, leave a comment below!

Happy patching friends,

-Uncle Peter

Funky Electro Beats ft. Future Retro Transient, Rings and Tides v2

Most of the patches that I post about are ambient in nature. That's no surprise, seeing as a majority of the modules that I have were bought for that reason. 

There is one module that I haven't featured yet in my videos. It's the Future Retro Transient, a versatile sample-based percussion module, with over 250+ modifiable samples in its register. I've mostly used this module to overlay some low bass beats over patches and I'm pretty happy with it (from the little I've explored).

Recently, I've been thinking of ways to make the Future Retro Transient jive with the rest of my modules. I remembered from creating a few of my previous patches that Mutable Instruments Rings can produce some funky beat-like sounds when it's parameters are CV modulated over a wide range. 

So that's what I tried with this patch. Here's the result. 

I have to admit, I was pretty surprised with how cool this patch sounded. It's like a mix between funk and electro beats, maybe even some EDM? An added surprise was that changing the attack/decay of the LFOs modulating Rings acted as a way to build the beat, changing it into a more synth-like sound; I had to throw in a little pitch sweep too because of that! And the Future Retro Transient, although just providing a simple bass drum, fits in so well. 

So what's going on in this patch?

As you've seen in previous patches, I use Mutable Instruments Tides to generate my LFOs, mainly because it offers many options for waveshaping. Tides is in 1/8Hz (green) cyclic bipolar oscillations (yellow) mode and being clocked by Pam's Workout every beat (quarter notes at 126BPM). It is producing four clocked LFOs of varying frequencies (red). 

Rings is in monophonic (green) inharmonic strings (red) mode. It is being strummed by Pam's Workout every quarter of a beat (sixteenth notes) and receives CV modulation of it's brightness and damping parameters from Tides's LFOs. 

2HP TM, through 2HP Tune, sends quantized voltages to Rings, to change it's pitch every quarter of a beat (sixteenth notes). The randomness is about 50%, as indicated by the 12 o'clock position of the "prob" knob of TM.

The Future Retro Transient is set to output the "INDUSTRIAK" sample; a tight mid-pitch bass drum. It receives a quarter note trigger from Pam's Workout. I really like this sample because you can adjust the tightness and pitch of the drum, without it having a lot of structure.

And finally, both outputs of Rings and the output of the Future Retro Transient are mixed together via Shades, then outputted. I realize that this, in effect, negates the stereo output of Rings, but at the monment it's the best I ca do. 

This was a simple patch, but a real eye-opener for me. I continue to be amazed at all the features and possible sounds that can be created from my modules. It really makes me want to explore them even more.

A tip to myself for next time: perform a pitch sweep using TM's OUT dial, so the sweep is quantized by Tune.

Do you own a Future Retro Transient? What's your favourite sample on it? Let me know in the comments.

Happy patching friends,

-Uncle Peter

Ambient Arpeggios using LFOs and a Quantizer

One of the coolest things about Eurorack is that there are tons of neat tricks you can wire up with your modules, to produce some really cool sounds. 

A common trick, one that I recently came across, is the idea of using a LFO (low frequency oscillator) with a quantizer to produce an arpeggio. 

How exactly does this work? It's all in the quantizer, which takes incoming voltages from the LFO and adjusts them such that they match the voltage of a note that belongs to a scale (in accordance with the 1V/Oct Eurorack standard). That's why the outputted voltages (notes of the arpeggio) sound melodic, when connected to a voice. 

Here is a quick graph (not my graph) which should help visualize the concept of quantization.

As you can see, the blue line is the result of quantization; a discrete set of voltages, whereas the red line represents a LFO sine wave.

I decided to try out this trick by using Tides to generate some LFOs, 2HP Tune to quantize the notes and Rings to act as the voice. Here's the result:

Wow, Rings really does make some mystical sounds when you send an arpeggio into it, like the twinkling of a star! I love how melodic it sounds and the relaxing mood it puts you in.

Now let's break down this patch into a bit more detail. As I said, I've set up Tides to generate some LFOs. To do this, I've set the frequency range to 2Hz (yellow), the ramp mode to cyclic bipolar oscillations (red) and the output mode to different frequencies (red). That means that each output is producing a LFO of different frequency. Pamela's Workout is also clocking Tides.

The first Tides output is sent to Shades, to set the range of voltages. It is then sent to the Disting MkII, in full-wave rectifier mode, which takes the absolute value of the voltages (i.e. removes negative voltages). From here is goes through 2HP Tune, which quantizes the voltages to a melodic scale. As I mentioned above, this quantization creates the arpeggio of notes.

Rings is the voice of this patch. In particular, it's set to the quadriophonic (red) alternate "Karplusverb" reverb mode (flashing red) and receives the arpegggio sequence from Tune. This mode, I've found, is great for generating ambient-like sounds, mainly because of the reverb it creates. 

The other outputs of Tides are used for CV modulation, the second output modulating Rings' frequency setting and the third output modulating Rings' position setting. This adds a bit of dynamics to the patch, so it doesn't always sound the same.

The Doepfer LFO provides even more CV modulation, modifying the Tides' slope and frequency settings (this is what speeds up and slows down the rate of the arpeggio) as well as the brightness setting of Rings.

And finally, to add some randomness to the patch, 2HP TM generates a random voltage to set the bias of Tune. This modifies the base pitch of the arpeggio.

And that's pretty much it. It may sound a bit complex but the core idea of this patch, again, is passing a LFO through a quantizer to create the arpeggio of notes. Such a neat idea this is!

Have you tried out this trick? How did it sound for you? Let me know in the comments!

Happy patching friends,

-Uncle Peter

Sequencing with Pamela's Workout

Pamela's Workout was one of the first modules that I added to my rack.

From the start, I knew it was a powerful module that had a variety of features (kudos to ALM for that). In my videos, you've mostly seen it as the clock source for my patches and I must say it does a very good job at that!

A couple of days ago, I was going through the user manual of Pam's Workout and found a small paragraph saying that the module could also be used as a sequencer. For those who do not know, a sequencer is a module that generates a sequence of notes, with defined lengths and pitches.

I decided to give it a try and create a four beat sequence. Here's how I did it:

1) Set four trigger outputs to /4 (division of 4)

2) For each trigger output, press and hold to bring up the "advanced settings"

3) Scroll to the "n" setting. This changes the "length" of the trigger (essentially turning it into a gate). Setting the value to n = 50 represents an eighth note and N=1 represents a quarter note and so on.

4) Scroll to the "r" setting, which sets the order of the sequence by offsetting the triggers. For my output 4 -> 3 -> 2-> 1 sequence, I used the following settings:

Output 1  -->  r = 1 (Gate)

Output 2  -->  r = 2 (Gate)

Output 3  -->  r = 3 (Gate)

Output 4  -->  r = 0 (Trigger)

Not too bad! A pretty melodic yet mellow sequence. You can definitely hear which notes are eighth notes and which are quarters. 

Let's get into the details the patch:

Since I didn't have a four-channel mixer, I had to get a bit creative. I send the first three outputs of Pam's Workout (which are producing gates/voltages now) to Mutable Instruments Shades, which is in attenuverter mode. This allows me to adjust the pitch of the notes via the knobs of Shades and mix the three inputs to a single output. This output is sent to 2HP Tune to be quantized to a scale.

The fourth output of Pam's Workout is actually a trigger, the start of the sequence, which I send to 2HP TM to generate a random voltage. This voltage is sent to change the bias of Tune, which offsets the scale, essentially changing the pitch of the other three notes, randomly, but still following the sequence. You can think of it as randomly setting the root note of the sequence. 

Finally, Tune sends the quantized voltages to Mutable Instruments Rings. Some CV modulation from the Doepfer LFO adds some depth to the sounds as well. 

And that's it! This was a pretty fun patch to build and it's always interesting to try out unorthodox ways of using modules.

Have you ever sequenced with Pam's workout? Want more details about the patch? Let me know in the comments below.

Happy patching friends,

-Uncle Peter

Ambient Sounds with Rings

One of the main reasons I got into modular synth/Eurorack was because of the music you could create, specifically ambient generative. 

Ambient generative is a subset of the ambient genre. This is music that is ambient in nature but the music itself is self-developing and randomly changing. No two songs are the same and in fact, it is quite hard to replicate a patch, even if you wired it up identically. The idea behind using a modular synth to create ambient generative patches is that no human input is required to develop the music, it does it all on its own!

This is my first attempt at something that you could quasi-call "ambient generative" and it features the Mutable Instruments Rings module. I've gone into much detail in previous posts about how powerful of a module Rings is and in particular, I'm using it in this patch as the main voice. 

I'm very happy with this patch! It hit all the notes (no pun intended) that I wanted it to, that smooth ambient strumming, all randomly modulated and changing! The randomness, particularly with the rhythm generation was something I was experimenting with for quite a bit.

Now let's break this patch down in detail, as it is slightly more complex than previous ones.

Rings provides the "ambient" component to the patch. It is set to duophonic sympathetic strings mode (yellow-yellow), which allows for those overtones as the pitch changes from note to note. Rings receives notes from 2HP Arp.

The "generative" component is provided by 2HP TM and the random octave mode of Arp. TM generates random notes, which are then quantized via 2HP Tune to a melodic scale. The quantized notes are sent to 1) Arp, to set the root note of the octave, 2) the length input of 2HP Euclid, to set the length of the rhythm Euclid generates and 3) the steps input of Euclid, to set the rhythm that is generated. Euclid also triggers Arp.

So every time TM generates a note, we have a new pattern, pattern length, root octave note and, as a result, a new sound.

To add some more randomness to the patch, I use Mutable Instruments Tides as the clock source, in cyclic oscillation - different shape mode (yellow, OFF, yellow). Tides tells Pam's Workout when to turn on and commence the triggering for TM and Euclid.

And to top things off, I use the Doepher LFO to modulate the slope function of Tides so that the on/off gates generated by Tides for Pam's Workout are not of equal lengths, but varying lengths. This means that sometimes notes will be generated quickly and others slowly.

Whew! That was a lot to explain. I hope it all makes sense. And of course, here is the diagram of the patch, which will hopefully make things a bit clearer:

If you have any questions or suggestions, let me know in the comments below.

Happy patching friends,

-Uncle Peter

Strings of Time

When I first started building my rack, I remember being very eager to hear what sounds I could actually produce. My first patches were nothing special, an oscillator being fed some voltages, changing the pitch, mostly. But it sounded so cool to me and it was unlike anything I've ever heard before.

After a bit of tweaking, researching and frankly just exploring what each of my modules could do, I managed to put together a patch that sounded pretty decent (at least to me). 

Without further ado, here is my first real patch: "Strings of Time"

Remember in Guitar Hero those notes that you could hit without strumming? That's exactly what's going on here!

When Pluck is strummed, TM varies it's pitch. If the decay of Pluck is fast, no additional notes are heard (staccato), but if the decay is slow, you hear a soft variety of notes. The Doepfer LFO varies the speed of decay. 

Here are the full details:

• Pam's Workout is strumming 2HP Pluck on every 4th beat, triggering 2HP TM every 16th of a beat and triggering Expert Sleepers Disting mk2

• The voltages from TM are put through Shades (in attenuverter mode) to control the range of voltages that pass through. From 12 o'clock, turning clockwise increases the range. These filtered voltages are put through 2HP Tune, to quantize them to a melodic scale (major here), then inputted into Pluck's V/OCT input

• Pluck's audio output is sent to Expert Sleepers Disting mk2, which is set to clockable delay mode. In this mode, Disting mk2 will add a delay/echo effect to an inputted audio source, clocked to a inputted clock source

• An inverted sawtooth wave from the Doepher LFO is sent to Pluck's decay input, to add some modulation to the patch

What struck me most about this patch was that it was exactly the sound I was looking to get out of my rack, an ambient, echo-like feel, with some randomness added to it. It's feelings like these that make you want to explore even more, to see how you can make what you love sound even better!

What was your first patch like? How did it sound? Let me know in the comments below!

Happy patching friends,

-Uncle Peter

Rhythmic Clocked Modulation with Tides v2

As I mentioned in my previous post, I recently added a Mutable Instruments Tides module to my rack. As I began experimenting with it, I began to realize just how powerful of a module it really is. 

As part of my learning process with Tides, I watched a very informative Youtube video from Ali the Architect about Tides v2. The 22-minute video covers many of Tides's features and was immensely helpful to me; I highly recommend it if you've recently purchased this module.

One of the topics that Ali mentions is using Tides for "rhythmic clocked modulation" (i.e. CV modulation that is synced to a clock). In other words, sending a clock input into Tides and having it output various oscillations that are "in time". 

Here is my take on some rhythmic clocked modulation

A Mutable Instruments marriage we have here, with Tides sending rhythmically clocked CV to various parameters of Rings! The CV modulation here results in Rings producing unique synth-like sounds, from the long, drawn-out tones to short, beat-like staccatos. The notes sound as if they're coming from a mixture between a harp and a synthesizer! It really is such a unique sound.

So what's going on in this patch?

• Tides is set to generate 2Hz order (yellow) cyclic bipolar oscillations (yellow). A clock input is given to Tides via Pam's Workout, allowing Tides's outputs to oscillate on time. Rings is set to duophonic sympathetic string mode (yellow-yellow).

• With a clock input, adjusting Tides's frequency multiplies or divides the inputted clock signal, allowing Tides to output oscillations of different periods, when in varying frequency output mode (red). Counterclockwise divides the time and clockwise multiplies the time

• Outputs 1, 2 and 3 are used to modulate the brightness, damping and position functions of Rings, respectively, which is also being strummed by Pam's Workout. It's as if we are quickly turning the dials of Rings, in time

• 2HP Arp sends voltages to the V/OCT input of Rings and is being triggered by 2HP Euclid. 2HP Arp's mode is set to random notes spanning an octave

• 2HP TM, via 2HP Tune, sends quantized voltages to 2HP Arp, to set the root note of the octave, and sends triggers to reset and change the number of steps of the rhythmic triggers that 2HP Euclid generates

On a side note, as you probably have noticed, most of my patches involve 2HP TM and Tune. I primarily use these modules to incorporate a bit of randomness into the patch, so there's a low chance of pitches and rhythms repeating.

Again this is just a single feature of what Tides v2 has to offer. If you have Tides, let me know in the comments below how you use it. And be sure to check out Ali's video for more things to do with Tides.

Happy patching friends,

-Uncle Peter