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