If I had to describe this patch in one sentence it would be: this patch took way to long to make. I kept running in circles, so I had to stop working on this patch multiple times. I even completed two other patches first: NCPJCM (which uses no chord progressions as a reaction to the issues I had with this patch) and TPZ (which uses parts of the chord sequence and structuring as used here).
The initial work for this patch was started three months ago. Chord sequences and note voicings are stored in the Foundry module. For the ambient sound, a couple of voices are created. First there's the Prodigal Son that's playing the root note of the current chord into a wet-only reverb. On a second channel, a two-note voicing (from Foundry) is played by a Dark Energy module and a Cloud Generator module that's sent through a filter to soften up the top-end and a Chorus to fatten it up again. A third voice plays the bass note in three different octaves through the Instruo Saïch module, slighly detuning each of them using a Bogaudio Offset module and three different outputs of a Vult Caudal. The resulting sound is sent through a reverb.
A final addition to the ambient sound is provided by a bass voice. In this voice, two Basal modules and two Bleak modules (sent through a Freak filter and a chorus) are mixed together. A later addition to this voice was a Cs-L module playing through an I-o47 filter to provide some additional grit in the sound (that is faded in and out of the mix using both Ochd and Caudal as modulation sources).
And that's when the running in circles started. The sound of the voices so far is already filling a lot of the sound spectrum, but they are just playing the chords. Thre is variation in the sound, but there isn't any rhythmic or melodic variation. And it took a lot of tries to finally get something that started to fit in the overall mix.
The voice that got it all started again uses the notes of the current chord and creates a sequence out of them using the Bogaudio 8:1 switch. The resulting sequence is played by an FM-OP module, which is sent into a Chronoblob delay that's set to Cascade mode, with the cascade signal being sent through a low pass and a band pass filter before being sent back into the delay module. The sound is then modified by a Vult Freak module that has the filter cutoff, drive and resonance modulated up to the point where the output moves between clean and overdriven, and between copmletely silent and at full volume. This voice started out at a slower trigger rate, but it was only when speed on the 8:1 switch was increased that it actaully started becoming interesting. To make this voice sound as if it is coming from a bit further in the distance, a reverb and a different delay are added at the end of the chain, and the voice is panned from left to right and back on the mixer.
To bring a little bit more melodic-oriented variation into the mix, two more voices are triggered at random by a Bernoulli Gate or a Chances module. The first voice will play six shorter notes when it is triggered, chosing random notes from the current chord and playing them by mixing the Dark Energy and the triangle output of a Bogaudio VCO module together before sending it through a Tap Dancer delay. The other voice will play longer notes through a combination in a combination of the FM-OP and a VCO triangle and sawtooth outputs which are mixed together in a Geodesics Blackholes module before being sent through a modulated filter. When these notes end and start to fade out, a secondary ADSR envelope will cause their frequency to also drop a couple of notes. By sending this into a delay module set to a 1 second delay, this frequency drop is repeated as the note fades out, making it sound a bit more like a moan.
At this point, there was one more input available on the mixer. I wanted to add something more percussive but non-obtrusive here. In the overall mix, you'll barely be able to hear this voice. A Palette module set to the Modal Resonator model at a low frequency is triggered twice each second. The sound is modulated by changing the timbre and harmonics inputs over time and the output is sent into a Chronoblob that is set to a slow ping-pong delay. In the overall mix, it's easy to confuse this voice as being part of the one that's driven by the 8:1 switch, but when the other voices go down in intensity through their modulation, the thumping of this voice can be heard more distinctively by itself.
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__ Setup __
- VCV Rack 2.4.1 Pro on Windows
- All audio generated internally within VCV Rack (no external connections)
- Video is captured by OBS
- RAW FLAC Audio output from VCV Rack
- Audio recording synced to OBS, and fade added at the end with Reaper
- OBS video and Reaper audio are merged and cut to length using Shutter Encoder.
__ Copyright __
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16 июн 2024
