Cold Mac Ideas

[madeofoak]

picked up one a month ago when my lack of attenuators/utilities was getting me down and it mostly sat in the skiff doing jobs way below it’s pay grade. read the great Patching Cold Mac, thought i “got it”, kept underusing the module. then a few nights ago it really opened up after i realized it didn’t need to be limited to one of it’s functions at a time (i know this should have been obvious, but i just hadn’t considered it for whatever reason). anyway, now i’m kind of obsessed with it (especially when paired with JF and a wogglebug), and have started a notebook of patches i stumble on.

since there didn’t seem to be any dedicated discussion of it (and because i know i’m just scratching the surface), how is everyone here using cold mac? any interesting self patching starting points to recommend?

(side note: what’s an efficient way to describe complex patches on the internet? I just started writing one out as a starting point for this discussion and it’s a mess. is there an extension of modulargrid or something that makes this easier?)

[sellanraa]

I’m sort of having the same issue - I KNOW it has all this potential, but I have just scratched the surface. I need to spend more time working at it, but I end up having all these other things come up that distract me from more committed exploration. Anyway, I’m excited to see what people throw out there. I’ll have to make it more of a priority now that I have no shows coming up if I can find the time to pry myself away from learning MAX and playing with the Just Friends.

[sellanraa]

As for describing patches, I just take pictures I guess to document any patches that I do.

[madeofoak]

here’s one, hopefully the picture is helpful, using the “patching cold mac” names for the CM i/o -

JF is in sound/cycle mode
Mother 32 set to a slow tri lfo & square wave bass tone

Wogglebug STEPPED > RIGHT
JF 3 outputs to OR (1), AND (1), CREASE
WW trig > SLOPE
Moog mother 32 tri lfo > FADE
FOLLOW > mult > LEFT, JF CURVE
LEFT (OUT) > SURVEY
RIGHT (OUT) > mother 32 MIX CV
SLOPE (OUT) > JF TIME
MAC > mother 32 ext audio in

not in the photo (just started unplugging when i thought to photograph it), but I had another of the JF outs, 2N, routed to the JF FM in. wild, noisy fm bass tone with triggerable accents from the ww.

EDIT: also, clock sync coming from ableton > mother 32 > WW > wogglebug

[shellfritsch]

i’m glad you started this thread. i was hoping to have more cross-pollination on the cold mac front.

would you mind expanding on what your patch does? i find that when i’m recording a patch (usually a combo of drawings & text) i also include a short description of what sort of effect it has. sometimes i shoot a quick video for my records so i can hear the effect and see the interaction.

[glia]

good idea

i’ve been stumbling into better things with CM after pairing mine with cousins JF and 3S

here’s a weird self modulating patch where macs are warping/resetting a JF TT cycle somehow

no i dont understand or notate this stuff usually but I try saving brief videos and written notes on my phone midpatch

[Galapagoose]

This is entirely ridiculous. I love it. Thanks for continuing the discussion here in a place where I don’t feel disgusting for visiting!

[madeofoak]

https://soundcloud.com/madeofoak/cm-patch-idea/s-FixjH

here’s a recording of it, the basic idea was to make something that would do a really complex, somewhat unpredictable crossfade between three tracks of JF in sound mode and the moog pulse wave drone, trying to emulate radio station interference. to make peaks that would “cut through” the floor/noise whatever, i also had it generate a quick AD envelope via SLOPE off a trigger from WW, which then gets used for lots of other stuff like messing with the curve, and is added into the cv crossfade going on with the LEFT and RIGHT (mixing the stepped random voltage from the wogglebug with the AD WW envelope, crossFADEd by the moog’s lfo), which then goes both to survey and the moog’s mix between the two sound sources. then you can play with the moog’s mix knob and SURVEY to vary the offsets, either making it more JF-noisey or more moog-y, with lots of complicated areas in between. there’s some 4ms DLD in there at times too.

[shellfritsch]

thanks for sharing this. i haven’t had enough time to mentally wrap my head around what’s going on in your patch, but i’m looking forward to further investigation.

set aside a lil time last night to further experiment with patch surveillance (ie. no inputs to CM, other than light survey modulation via JF) - constant surprises!

[madeofoak]

i think the nature of cold mac is that you can’t entirely wrap your head around all the interconnectivity (or at least I can’t). the only way for me to really get anywhere with it is to follow a couple basic ideas and then just keep responding to happy accidents until eventually you have a really complicated routing that you have to try and mentally untangle after the fact.

[glia]

Seeing a new idea from the MW thread:

Listen to MAC OUT
patch CREASE to SURVEY
= white noise ?!?

I’ve gotta try when i get home

also for you folks i dug up a patch note I saved from march:

audio > MacA SLOPE in
FOLLOW > OFFSET
SLOPE out > MacB SURVEY
LOCATION > RIGHT
CREASE out > LEFT
RIGHT out > MacA SURVEY
OR out >
AND out > MacB SLOPE in
MAC out > Mixer

MacB FOLLOW > MacA OR in
MacB SLOPE out > MacA AND in
MacB MAC out > Mixer

[madeofoak]

NOW we’re talking. deep spaghetti-on-a-fork zone. stoked to try these out.

that white noise patch sounds like a great starting point, excited to see how it works.

[glia]

[quote=“madeofoak, post:12, topic:3840”]
white noise patch sounds
[/quote]uh wow

just spent two hours attempting this weeks junto with cold mac percussion drones and totally failed at making “music”

i will post results anyway here because i think the results were intense and informative (because i didnt know what synthetic noise is good for)

[Galapagoose]

haha that is a crazy idea for a noise patch. I don’t have a full picture of exactly how it’s working, but the CREASE output is a combination of inverter & schmitt trigger (half of a Triangle-core oscillator). I always suspected this thing could oscillate in some kind of way but never poured enough time to figure out just how.

A couple interesting patches I found experimenting w this idea. Pls note there’s probably a lot of variation module to module when it comes to these fringe cases.

#1
Output from MAC
CREASE > OR(1)
OR(out) > SURVEY
FOLLOW > SURVEY (w stackcable)

With Survey control around 9:00 you hear the ‘thud’ discontinuity. Turning clockwise you get supersonics eventually approaching ‘helicopter’ noise as if the noise is being processed by a square tremolo. Further CW the ‘square’ trem becomes wider in pulsewidth until it’s just ‘noise’, and further still you get what sounds like HF filtered noise for that crackly radio sound. All of this is between 9:00 and 10:00 on the dial. With some very touchy movements there’s a chaotic sounding HF oscillation at 12:00 when approached from the CCW direction.

#2
Output from MAC
CREASE > external VCA (at max level)
ext. VCA > OFFSET
LEFT > SURVEY
FOLLOW > SURVEY (stackcable)

With Survey from 10:00 and further CCW Cold Mac will create a rhythmic drum sound. Kind of like a kick with some harmonics & short decay. It will playback with a relatively regular (and fast) rhythm. Different kinds of VCA (or attenuator) will change the character of the sound. Using the GATEs in isms results in 3 very different timbres. Once you have it thudding away, experiment w the VCAs level & Survey control to find a huge range of self-generating sounds.

Ed: Adding additional VCAs or active attenuators to this patch creates lower-pitched sounds & more room for inconsistent edge-case rhythms.

[glia]

you are really a madman

so technically #2 gives me a clock with CM merely self patched? i mean just wow

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

i’ll post the newer subtle session later . PORTIONS OF THIS MIGHT DAMAGE YOUR EARS
https://soundcloud.com/zunaito/rakug0
but there is a reward at the end for anybody who makes it that far

first 30 seconds is from today and once i heard the noise i recognized it as a mystery sound in a previous synth session

[barksten]

Awesome! I figured out that I mixed up LOCATION and CREASE OUT in my first attempt to create the noise.

When patching #2 above with -isms gate in “lpd” mode and knob at 12 o’clock you get some nice laser kicks. The gate in lpg-mode sounds like vinyl scratching.

[accountboy]

this was amazing, loved every second 0:00-2:00

[accountboy]

Usually when I think of utility modules cold mac doesn’t really spring to mind because of its general complexity. This thread though.

[glia]

i honestly cant recommend it enough

it CAN do simple straightforward things (sum, pan, fade etc) but lord is it capable of some weirdness too

and i love it

[madeofoak]

@accountboy @glia

totally agree. obviously we’re getting into some more ‘out’ stuff here, but one of my favorite starting points with the module is to use it in a completely straightforward way (vca, cv crossfader, whatever), and then keep adding ins/outs while listening to the whole patch become more complex and interconnected, with the survey knob being a kind of master controller.