August filter/delay bonks evolution patch notes

I’ve been working a sound built around a bread-and-butter FM’d oscillator (258t) through a lo-pass gate (Natural Gate), then through layers of delay and filtering. I find myself reaching often for this style of patch. The formula sounds great, and admittedly without much work. It’s not hard to create interesting rhythmic narratives from one or two voices.

What started from this formula built to washes of sound through a Verbos Multi Delay (a personal favorite) in a feedback loop with a Belgrad filter. The 208C was introduced, then a Res-4 taking pings with sequences going to 3 of its 4 channels. I picked up a Morphagene because I’d rather have an in-rack looper than not, I’ve learned, and caught–somewhat by chance–a few loops to shuffle through by hand or clock. One in particular makes for texture that plays back like the breath between words. It’s not cadence, it’s space.

Playing the loop got me to stop and listen, to slow down and patch toward another sound: what it could be like to be the reflection of the rhythm. Light and thin as cold air is, up in the high end, full of movement. Techno that isn’t, heard from a city block away. It’s a motif I’d like to explore.

The recording above is a snippet from about 10 minutes of patching and playing. I think it represents the state of the patch well without being, itself, a performance.

Next, I’ll send the kick, and maybe the toms, to the Octatrack’s cue out, then into the mixer, and feel out how a steady kick could feel in the mix. I’ve also picked up a Doepfer matrix mixer to make sending into the Morphagene and filter-to-delay chain a bit easier.

Notes

• Morphagene has bonks sampled into a reel. I still really don’t care for trying to time loops with a clock and Morphagene. Nevertheless…
• Modulation changes the reel, and fades between new bonks and loops at the same BPM. I also fade manually.
• Bonks come from TipTop/Buchla 258t, Buchla 208C, and Res-4. The 258t is self-patched, top oscillator FM’ing the bottom oscillator. Both are fully in their sine shapes.
• In-rank bonking done by Natural Gate. Extra-rack bonks from onboard LPG. I’m sending a bit of modulation to the 258t’s channel in the NG to very slightly open it up from time to time. This gives the pattern a little more life, as goes glide I haphazardly placed on the Rene 2.
• 208C and rack are clocked by Octatrack at 126 bpm
• Nothing special is happening with the 208C. The modulation oscillator is in play with light level modulation, and I’m using the sequencer for the carrier oscillator’s pitch. Bone standard setup.
• 606 samples from an Octatrack are routed into 3 Sisters for swooshy drums. 3S high out goes to the left channel of the MFX, and 3S center out to the right.
• 606 also played clean through the mixer, but not commandingly so. This helps give more than the sense of hi hats through 3S.
• Rack and Buchla processed through EFX2 to BIM to BAM. I’ll probably write this a million more times. This effects chain is immediately great every time. I don’t remember anything running through the H9, but I could be mistaken; nothing of consequence at least, and evidently not audibly.
• Plate reverb, and light EQing and compression in the box. I’m pretty certain that I also used a very, very short delay at about 4-5% mix to thicken up the sound a bit. It’s amazing how well this works without making everything sound resonated and metallic.