#21

I’d love to hear an example of that, if you want to share. No pressure though :slight_smile:

#22

Unfortunately don’t have anything recorded and up just yet with the ADDAC 506. Once I finish some minor edits of the recording, I’ll get up a live set I did with a friend from Sept that has some of those characteristics :slight_smile:

Here is one with more of the bass drum (that was done manually): https://ddoulos.bandcamp.com/track/live-at-blo-april-28-2018-mono Edit: should note this was with Lyra, Music Easel, and Pedals. It is in the earlier times of me working on this approach

#23

Awesome! I loved the feedback and the distortion. I thought it built well and the length was manageable.

Speaking of feedback and drones, self-patching in the Euro world seems to be a great source of controllable feedback. I personally enjoy doing this with Elements in VCVrack (I’ve never owned a hardware Elements). Any favorites for self-patching?

1 Like
#24

A recent favorite drone machine of mine on the less glamorous end of the instrument spectrum is the Ensoniq VFX SD. There’s several elements of this synth that are useful for creating drones with a lot of motion in them: wavetables, multi-stage looping envelopes, polyphonic aftertouch, a very capable sequencer, decent grungy effects, 4 outputs, etc.

2 Likes
#25

Soon I’ve been hunting for some drones for 2 years and I’m still searching. Eager to follow this discussion.

Eliane Radigue is of course my all time favourite,
followed by Kevin Drumm:

Another classic:

this is awesome as well:

with interesting liner notes, giving some nice ideas:

The piece consists of a dense, continuous four-note chord, each note in the chord recorded in a separate pass to one track on a Scully 4-track studio recorder. Each track consists of a single sine wave oscillator which is frequency modulated by a group of eight additional sine wave oscillators. Those oscillators are all tuned to different tones, each harmonically related to the fundamental chord tone. The amplitude of each harmonic oscillator is continuously varied under the control of an individual sequencer, and each sequencer is free-running - that is, the sequencers are not synchronized to each other, but rather running in their own independent timebases.The result is a continuously-changing complex harmonic waveform which modulates the frequency of the chord tone oscillator, generating a continuously-changing complex timbre based on the fundamental pitch of the note.

The center tone of “White Night” is 212 Hz, slightly higher than the G below Middle C. The other notes create a chord consisting of a perfect fifth below the center tone, a major seventh just below the center tone, and a major second above the center tone. “White Night” was composed without reference to the standard A-440 tuning system, as we had no such pitch reference in the studio; I just picked a center tone that felt right, and went from there. As such, “White Night” lives in its own pitch world.

14 Likes
#26

Grendel DC-2e with the expander is a favorite of mine. I have 2 of them and could just sit in front of them for hours. I have a Soma Lyra FX module in the way and plan on having the Grendels permanently attached to that.

Dreadbox Medusa is nice for drones as well. Using the grid for modulation is fun.

Tasty Chips GR-1 for sample based drones too.

1 Like
#27

no need for electronics (outside of recording)

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#28
#29

Thank you for this I was not aware of Tony Conrad.

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#30

I have a full size male tanpura. I have yet to make an electronic drone that is as inspiring to sing with as a real acoustic tanpura. I’d really like to, but it hasn’t happened yet. It’s really a magical instrument.

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#31

I use 3x MengQi DPLPGs for this. All passive and compact. Another good option is the POCA from Future Sound Systems

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#32

Thanks, I was contemplating the Meng Qi route.

Do you find any signal loss with the passive modules?

#33

Calineczka was already mentioned, this is his label:


I am a fan. Definitely check out if sustained tone minimalism is your jam. Extra points for checking out Angelo Vicente Jr’s work!

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#34

I’m very interested in what Calineczka is up to at all times, his current operational guide seems to be: inharmonic yet balanced tone combination.

His label also reverberates that.

I have not checked out Angelo Vicente Jr, what should I hear?

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#35

Listening to this. Lovely.

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#36

Im sure there is some. But I go out via mannequins RIP and that absolutely drops the signal anyway. Recording 24bit into a decent adc has plenty if range to bring it back up though. Comes into the daw ~-24db after all the passive grinding

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#37

I really love Negative Feedback. It a ResEQ and a spring reverb. That’s it. Obviously it’s really Angelo and not “just” the gear. It’s about listening, like so much in this area.

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#38

If you can reall do without pots, I was looking at the Muton for similar purposes. It provides eight VCAs in 10hp (on top of a host of other functions).

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#39

if i could only have one drone album, it would be this one:

(possibly some folks would argue that this isn’t strictly drone? but it’s close enough & takes me to that zone, so.)

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#40

oh also, this little drone box looks really fun. have thought about picking one up:

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