Category: studio journal

Today’s question: What is the lesser sound of two loops melding in the murky depths? Like many folks who venture into the dense formation of inputs and outputs that comprise the Cold Mac module (from Whimsical Raps), I benefited from the aftermarket manual developed by Martin Doudoroff. In the very helpful document, Doudoroff explains the many pathways through this module, which appears opaque at first, and then, following a bit of study, clear as geometry. In this case, I’m following one specific path through the Cold Mac, that being the AND path (in contrast with OR). Per Doudoroff’s notes, “If you patch two signals into AND(1) and AND(2), you get the lowest (trough/minumum) of the two signals at any one time from AND(OUT).” And so, two Buddha Machines here are sending different loops into the synthesizer. Both loops are immediately sent to the Cold Mac (by way of a multiples, because earlier in this lunchtime experiment I was trying a different approach), and then into the Make Noise FXDf. The purpose of the FDXf is to isolate a few mid-range bands of the signal’s audio spectrum, because the highs were getting a little too high if I went straight to the mixer. Three of those bands then go to the mixer: one straight through, and two with their volumes being tweaked a bit by slow-moving hybrid LFOs from the Batumi/SPO combo. That about covers it. If you have a Cold Mac, or are simply interested, the manual mentioned above is at [doudoroff.com/cold-mac](https://doudoroff.com/cold-mac/).

Video originally posted at youtube.com/disquiet. There’s also a (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAgCxRbmR1MIM4mCYe17nERi9xeEWAD2w) of the Buddha Machine Variations.

Three strands of sound from the first-generation Buddha Machine. The first is the straight audio, its volume raised and lowered ever so slightly. The second is a combined couple of bands of that audio, after it’s sent through a granular synthesizer, and then the contour of that utterance shaped to follow the shadow, or envelope, of the original audio. The third is one more narrow band of the granular-synthesis-derived sound, put through a digital version of tape delay, the speed of the instant replay changing slightly as it rolls.

The audio enters the system through an Erica Synths Pico Input, the gain control of which is quite useful. The initial splitting of the signal occurs via the Performance Buffered Mult by Malekko Heavy Industry. I recommend the Performance Buffered Mult because of that little plastic button at the bottom: It allows you, at any point, to switch back and forth between one or two source audio elements (not that I use it for that purpose here). The mixing occurs in the ADDAC802 Quintet Mixing Console. I don’t know of anything better at this width. (If you do, let me know.) The granular synthesizer is the Antumbra Smog, a narrower remix of the Mutable Instruments Clouds (which is no longer manufactured). The splitting of the bands of the signal occurs in the Make Noise FXDf (also no longer manufactured). The tracking of the source audio’s envelope occurs in a Detect-Rx, from Steady State Fate. (I previously had a Doepfer A-119 for this purpose.) The various LFOs adjusting the volume of the first strand and the speed of the third strand are produced by the combination of a Xaoc Batumi and an S.P.O., the latter also from Steady State Fate. The simulated tape delay occurs in the Expert Sleepers Disting mk4 (that’s setting D2 in the menu). Oh, yeah, and one of the LFO outputs is moving around the position of the granular synth.

I’ve learned a heap from other people’s videos of their work, so I’m sharing these detailed notes in that spirit, and also for my own reference, because once you un-patch the cables it can be difficult to re-patch with any particular fidelity. The track’s title relates to how the sound of the resulting audio, largely due to the tape delay, resembles at times, in an idealized and utterly fictional manner, what a Buddha Machine sounds like when its batteries are dying.

Video originally posted at youtube.com/disquiet. There’s also a (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAgCxRbmR1MIM4mCYe17nERi9xeEWAD2w) of the Buddha Machine Variations.

A simple set of shifting gates are applied here to four different bands of the Buddha Machine loop, which first goes through a granular synthesis stage in the Smog module (aka a remixed Clouds) before being segmented in the Make Noise FXDf. The gates are sourced from the slow-moving Batumi square wave, and then shifted in the O_c module (running the Hemispheres alternate firmware).

This is titled “USB-C Blues” because I’d planned an especially quiet/subtle variation on the Buddha Machine source-audio processing precisely because I thought I’d sorted out how to record from my modular synthesizer to my Android phone (which is what I’ve been filming these clips with) using a USB-C adapter. This approach worked from the Buddha Machine straight into the phone (via the adapter), but for reasons I failed to sort out, no matter the combination of jacks and cables and routing options, no other audio managed to be recorded. So, this video is, again, going audio straight to the phone’s regular old microphone array (a sub-optimal arrangement if ever there were one). In any case, I ordered a GoPro and will be using that (or so I hope, as it also involves a USB-C adapter, albeit one designed for the task, not from a third party) in a few weeks.

Video originally posted at youtube.com/disquiet. There’s also a (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAgCxRbmR1MIM4mCYe17nERi9xeEWAD2w) of the Buddha Machine Variations.

Playing with relative volume and tape delay and granular synthesis. A loop from the first-generation Buddha Machine goes straight into the Clouds (granular synthesis) module (remix version, called Smog, from Antumbra). The output of Clouds is divided in two. One line (left channel) goes straight into the fifth input of the mixer. The other (right channel) goes into the FXDf (a filter bank that splits the audio along the spectrum). Two lines of that, both on the low end, go into the mixer. The relative volume of the audio of both of them is then affected, individually, by a pair of five-step sequencers from my O_c module (running the Hemispheres alternate firmware). Finally, a third band from the FXDf goes into a digital emulation of tape delay in the Disting mk4, and two separate variations head into the mixer. There’s also some clocking and LFO activity from the combination of the Batumi, the SPO, and the Dixie II.

Video originally posted at youtube.com/disquiet. There’s also a (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAgCxRbmR1MIM4mCYe17nERi9xeEWAD2w) of the Buddha Machine Variations.

Unlike [yesterday](https://disquiet.com/tag/buddha-machine/), today I achieved some semblance of what I’d set out to achieve. The source audio heard here is a loop from the first-generation Buddha Machine. That original is already fairly genteel, but I wanted to push it further, to gaseous effect: to find clouds within clouds, layers of clouds, bands of clouds. I sent it first directly through Clouds (well, the tiny Clouds remix module called Smog, from Antumbra). I then sent that to the Make Noise FXDf, a fixed filter bank that divides the audio spectrum into narrow bands. I then sent four of those individual bands, color-coded by their respective patch cables, into the mixer. Two of those, the orange and grey, are then having their volume level tweaked by a distinct pairs of hybrid LFOs coming from the Batumi/SPO combo (“hybrid” meaning each LFO is a combination of two different sine waves from a set of four). And of the four oscillating waves on the Batumi, one of them is occasionally peaking out thanks to an additional push from the Dixie II, which is the module to the right of the SPO. As always, if you keep an eye on the various sets of lights on the synthesizer, you can get a sense of what is pulsing in coordination with some element you are hearing.

Video originally posted at youtube.com/disquiet. There’s also a (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAgCxRbmR1MIM4mCYe17nERi9xeEWAD2w) of the Buddha Machine Variations.