Major props for making a specific effort to grow as an improvisational electronic artist foremost, and also musician. I feel that the format of your medium is one of the most difficult ones to learn to continually improvise on. With acoustic instruments, it’s easy to collab and jam, and force yourself into situations that encourage adaptability, but with electronics not only is there a barrier between traditional musicians to a degree, an intimidation factor as well as a interface/compatibility barrier, even if they’re just perceptual, but there’s also the fact that you’re dealing with an instrument that’s both more and less flexible than traditional instruments. All that adds up. I’m glad you’re doing what you’re doing, and I’m glad we get to be along for the ride.
First and foremost, thank you for your videos and your music. I have and love my Data Bender though, as others have mentioned, it has a recognizable signature if you lean on it too much. I’m going to try moving it up the chain as you’ve suggested to meld it into the mix better. The Qu-bit ‘effects’ modules usually bring something more to the table than just delay (Nautilus) or reverb (Aurora). I’m under space constraints as we all are.
That’s one of the main reasons I ended up selling my microcosm. Before I had a full modular setup I was more hybrid with hardware synths and pedals, the microcosm being a favorite but it just made everything sound the same and put such an identifiable effect on it that I ended up kind of hating it at the end. Sold it off in my big gear shift to build out the early versions of the A case and I don’t really regret it. I’ve been eyeing Aurora too but I’m not sure if it would be worth the hp to have two reverbs, especially if the other one is starlab even though it’s in my A case.
I found you looking for Panharmonium videos then saw you also had an LXR and also related to the way you work. Since then I’ve been having a silent dialogue with you as I develop my live sets so thank you for the inspiration!
@@thismeanswarbasse I've been improvising with live instruments and voice, processing those through the modules. Your methods of routing the input has really helped me refine that. I'm integrating prepared sections/rhythms using the Hermod and field recordings from Blackbox which gives me more places to go. As you said the more you play the more you learn. I'm also using oscillator drones as I like the test equipment approach and the tiptop Buchla 258t works really well. Here's a live performance I did for International Drone Day recently ru-vid.comjGg7_sXFNIM?feature=share&t=2388
I've been making music off and on for 20-25 years. In all those years, I only ever put out 1 four track EP. I enjoy making music, but I find I also have little desire to finish anything and 'release' music. Over the last 6 months, this idea of live performance/improvisational techno has been a lot more attractive to me than sitting on Ableton and building something. Currently building up a 6U working towards trying to move away from computers entirely.
I found my output and willingness to record go way up once I discovered the 4ms Wav Recorder and decoupled my system from my computer entirely. Now it’s always patched even if I’m not planning on recording I can just hit a single button for a take, no launching Ableton or reconfiguring my audio interface. It’s been great
LOVE the idea for Julive lol, it’s a clever name. Is just keeping the Polygogo and switching it in and out of the case when you want/need it? I’m workshopping an idea for an A and B case that are actually the same case but with certain modules being switched out depending on the use case. Allows me to have more modules/more flexibility without having to buy another case and duplicates of utilities and modulation. Could totally see that kind of setup working for your cases.
Oh interesting way of planning it out! I don't personally want to start too big of a collection outside of my cases as I've found that when I sell a module (even one I really liked) it often leads me to trying something I wouldn't have necessarily thought of before or lets me focus in on whats really necessary. "Kill your darlings" or whatever the phrase, is what I've been trying to go by. I do have an overflow case, my original 62hp palette, but its already full of some random utilities, midi module, guitar interface and a cassette deck module that I don't want to sell off just to hold onto the polygogo in that slot. at least yet? I'm not sure what I'll end up doing tbh
Hey @warbasse! I’d say: you keep doing what you’d like with your channel. To me that often speaks to me, wether you sometimes choose to change gears or align more or less with other creators, as long as you follow your own reasons I think that will translate. Might not become the biggest channel but I think it will appeal to the people who watch you. The face worked for me! But just the voiceover works too. One idea, just because I like your motivations regarding using your channel to motivate yourself: why not consider once more to maybe actually do the Julive videos proper live? You might not scare too many people away. And you can always decide later which live takes you keep or not. Cheers!
Couple of reasons on the live stream side of things, first is most simple that I don’t have a tonnnn of experience in setting up and running that well. So I’d need to do a few practice streams at least first. Second reason is I’m hoping to do some more fun camera/lighting/projector setups to make the live sets a bit more entertaining to watch - but I’m not exactly sure how to manage all of that through a live stream as well yet. Finally, some of these might be very late at night - which maybe I shouldn’t care about because people from all over might watch and the VOD would exist too afterwards. I’ve got some thinking and planning to do…
Face! Yes, please don’t change and turn into one of those fake channels that keeps everything positive because they were given something for free. That being said, getting stuff for free is great. Love what you do.
hey thanks! please do call me out on it if I step outside of the zone I've tried to establish here. I figured saying it straight to the camera might be the best way to hold myself accountable
Awesome stuff dude. DataB is the tits. I've found it's tremendously siiiiiiick as a near end of chain module. Having mixed down all my other sounds/perc sending them through DataB with a manually triggered offset into the mix or freeze as a nasty nasty overall destroyer. Sick drops can be achieved!
I gotta try triggering an envelope or modulation into it more. Great idea. I’ve got extra channels on zadar and the drum sequencer that would be perfect for that
Are you considering a Spectraphon? I have one on preorder. I'm most excited/worried about whether it will replace Panharmonium for me. I bought Panharmonium with the intent to abstract field recordings to various degrees. It never really worked out that way, but it has become indispensable as an ambient pad generator I never knew I needed. I only like the sound with further processing, though. I'm hoping Spectraphon will provide the abstraction I wanted from Panharmonium and if it can make pads too, all the better. Hopefully, I don't feel the need to expand to keep both. However, that would at least prevent a showdown between my other effects modules (Data Bender and Nautilus among them) for the reduced space.
I haven’t really given it much consideration. Panharmonium is a future classic for me and I don’t really enjoy dual mono modules unless they come with a linked stereo switch or mode like Lubadh does. Suuuper curious what you think when you get it, as most reviews I’ve watched seemed to come form people who didn’t know of or ever use a panharmonium
Love the Databender! Did not really get along with Nautilus when I tried it. Databender is not even really my style for the most part, but the vinyl sim is so good, and I like mixing that with some subtle glitchy stuff. Nice to smooth out the harshness with some Beads or some filtering, too. It is pretty underutilized in my system, though. I have been tempted to get rid of it to make room for a bigger VCO, but I have a hard time letting go of it.
I haven't even tried something subtle enough through it for the vinyl sim to be that noticeable - especially since I'm patching it before putting everything through the 200-grit distortion path. I've gotta get something patched up to try that out
@@thismeanswarbasse everybody has to Lofi hip hop through it once! Haha. Or like some filtered drums, IDM kinda atmospheric stuff is pretty great. Probably not gonna cut through the mix on some hard techno, but maybe during a really mellow melodic interlude or something.
Have been playing with my LIP from noise engineering. its a 20 hp industrial powerhouse. Have you messed at all with noise engineering oscillator wise? Seems up your alley for B case
I haven't! Kind of always wanted to though and I agree their oscillators would probably fit right in there. the LIP is one that is essentially a full voice right? vs just an oscillator
Yup built in envelopes with cv over everything including envelope depth. On its own it can get to absolutely wild timbers and definitely more suited towards atonal stuff. I personally like to put it into free mode then use the envelopes for modulating its parameters. Cool thing tho is it sends out the same envelope as well for use in your system.
@@GatedCaffeine worth a look for sure then. I might end up going full percussion & effects with this case in the end, though initially I’ve also been eying the entity ultra kick but I’m not sure if that’d be redundant
Why choose one over the other? Just swap between them when the mood strikes. Like you say they’re the same size. Just my opinion 🤘. Great vid as usual.
Normally I’d agree and that’s not a bad idea at all, but my overflow palette case is currently full of other goodies I don’t want to sell just in case I want to swap them back in - and I’m trying my best to maintain a limit to just the cases I’ve got 🤷♂️
@@thismeanswarbasse fair enough. If you cut the polygogo you would have room for the data bender as well as a make noise xpo which is an amazing osc and would fit well with your whole stereo signal path. Food for thought? 🤛
I'm still stuck! I took out the polygogo to simulate it being gone and play with both effects. Its sitting on my desk at the moment, but just doing that has created the other question I'm asking myself beyond Nautilus vs Data Bender vs Both - which is just do I even need something as big and complex as polygogo in that case? I might be able to get away with no oscillator, or just a single simpler oscillator (Acid Rain Chainsaw has always had my eye and I've thought alot about how it and clank chaos might work together) but for now, I need more time.. I still have the polygogo, still love it. but I just might not neeeed it
since I’m also limited by hp and also have a Beads which I love, I may end up letting Nautilus go. It’s fantastic, but Beads satisfies a lot of my delay needs and I already have too many delay/reverb/spatial effects. I LOVE Data Bender though, it brings something unique to my system that I can’t replace.
@@akuro2685 Same here. I need to experiment with beads in a drum-heavy context. It lives in my other case which although they are almost always patched together, creates this kind of weird mental divide at times that they are ONLY two separate instead of just capable of being two separate instruments. The other thing I noticed with data bender is that I prefer to have it in my signal flow before I patch the stereo mix through my 200-grit setup. Where as nautlius played better being patched after the filter/distortion. Maybe a duh obvious thing, but data bender realllly clicked once I moved it further upstream.
I have a similar dilemma. I own and love both Data Bender and Nautilus, but I'm actually thinking about getting rid of both and returning to Mimeophon (which Nautilus replaced). Data Bender has been out of my case for a couple months and I don't miss it too much. I found that it started becoming too recognizable in my compositions, especially in blue mode. However, I rarely modulated it, so that may just have been the problem. If I decide to stick with only one of these effects, I feel like retaining a complex delay will be the most flexible. I miss the long delay/loop times on Mimeophon, which I can't seem to replicate properly on Nautilus, even with Cascade mode. Mimeophon's Karplus Strong "voice" is also great. The biggest down side to trading away both the Qu-bit modules would be the loss of the bit crush effects, which I love. I'll probably hold onto Data Bender a while longer in case I expand my system further.
