Maon | Generative Ambient Patch in VCV Rack 2
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- Опубліковано 8 вер 2024
- Sometimes you find something interesting and then you get stuck. And you stay stuck. For a long time. For a very long time. And then you find something else that works and suddenly everything goes very fast.
I started this patch after re-watching the Cs-L overview video by @instruo. It gives an overview of what the module (in its hardware version) is capable, and shows that despite all the connectors that are on it, you can achieve a lot without any patching. So I decided to try and use it for a bass voice with a bit of crunch in it. After playing around for a while with wavefolding, routing and applying some modulation (coming from the ochd module), I had something that sounded good to me once it was sent through a filter. For this the traigh seemed like a good choice, mixing two of the Cs-L outputs together before going through the filter. To broaden up the sound a bit, it is sent through a Surge XT Chorus and Reverb and then to the main mixer.
A simple eight step chord sequence (programmed into the addr-seq module) is used as note input for this voice, and for the rest of the patch
A second part of this bass chord progression is playing a combination of root, third and fifth of the current chord. To drive this note combination, a combination of switches and a Bernoulli Gate are triggered on all four beats of each measure. The first beat will always play the root note and the last one will always play the fifth, while the second beat will either play the root note or the third note (leaning more towards the root note) and the third beat will either play the third note or the fifth note (leaning more towards the fifth). So in most cases, there will be a root note starting on the first beat, and a fifth note on the third beat. But occasionally, a third note will sneak in there on the second and/or third beats.
This note sequence is then played by the Dark Energy module, with all of its three outputs mixed together before being sent into a Tap Dancer delay.
And that's where I got stuck. After watching another @instruo overview video (for the neoni this time) I started on a new voice that uses the neoni in through zero FM mode but I couldn't find something that worked together with the existing voices. For a couple of weeks, I tried some other ideas with other modules, other voices, but nothing worked. I couldn't figure out how to fit something into the more melodic part of the patch.
Until I put a Prob-Key module in front of the neoni modules, and a Prince of Perception delay module (by @FlagAudio) behind them. By using a different trigger rate on the Prob-Key (eight notes at 90bpm) and the Prince of Perception delay (500ms delay, so 120bpm), I got the interesting pattern that was the missing key to be able to continue with the patch.
To make the voice sound a bit more spacious, the Instruo carn module is used to move the the delay signal coming from the Prince of Perception around from left to right and back while the original neoni signal is played straight through the middle. That way, the delays seem to move around all of the time. This result is then sent into the main mixer. To thicken up the overall sound a bit, a second instance of this result is also sent into a wide reverb, from which a wet-only signal is sent into a separate track on the mixer.
As if the inspiration that solved the neoni voice issue wasn't enough, the full second melodic voice in this patch was also built on that same day. The functionality of that voice is much simpler: a Bernoulli gate is triggered with eight notes, which then triggers a Sample and Hold module that gets quantized to the notes that make up the currently active chord. The resulting notes get played by the Macro Osciallator 2 (i.e. Plaits) which is set to the Granular formant oscillator. Some modulation is applied to the harmonics, timbre and morph settings and the result is sent into a Tap Dancer delay. When listening to the patch, this voice will probably grab your attention first, since it is playing in a higher register then the other voices.
One additional nice effect that I ran into near the end of constructing this patch is the sound that the reverb in the neoni voice makes when you move the Pre-Delay knob. While moving that knob, the changing pre-delay will result in a kind of a moaning sound as long as the knob keeps moving. I liked this effect, so the patch now also contains an occasional modulation of that pre-delay, resulting in some moan-like sounds. And that moan also what provided the name of this patch: just switch the two vowels around.
__ Setup __
- VCV Rack 2.4.1
- Audio generated internally within VCV Rack
- Video is captured by OBS
- Audio output sent through VB-Audio Virtual Cable to Ableton Live
- Audio recording synced to OBS, fade added with Reaper
- OBS video and Reaper audio merged using Shutter Encoder.
__Support__
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ko-fi.com/not_...
__ Copyright __
All rights reserved
Really changes how I think about creating ambient music. Very nicely done!
Thank you, that's very kind!
Wow this is amazing! Nice job
Glad you like it!
So fucking great
Thank you!
Huge sound. I really enjoy it.
Thanks, glad you like it :-)
This is really really nice! Anywhere I can purchase this track? It's been sublime listening whilst reading - and inspiring me to get back on working on VCV...
Thanks! Right now it's only here on UA-cam, but it will end up on my bandcamp page together with my other tracks, although that might take one or two weeks since I have some administration and cover design to do before posting it on there.