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