Is it possible to use the editor for looking at the patches without a device connected?
I understand it has a GUI, so it could be useful to check the patches even if not owning one…
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@bgc yeah you can open, edit and create patches within the editor without ever connecting the Nord. This is exactly what I did for Yves when he did a remix, he has the Nord G2 and I have the G1, so I manually copied over the patch and settings purely on looking and sent him the patch. Although I never heard it, he said it sounded pretty different but still very useable, so presume the G1 and G2 settings like for like are a bit different.
@doomglue 
I think you mentioned them 3 times this week 
it’s good though as been keen recently to record some of them again into a collection all mastered, as most of those patches are recorded really quietly, especially the more minimal/lowercase ones. I think No.3 was done between 6am and starting work as it was super quiet and misty in London. The earlier patches were definitely right off the back of the Mimosa Moize stuff on DER, so it was all super high frequency stuff and edges of perception themes.
@ParanormalPatroler The techniques I used varied across the years, before working with Lucia and different again after. FFT based filtering, convolution and resonance generally in Max/MSP and also an early version of Audiosculpt, which was spectral editing (really buggy software) was pretty key for a big bulk of the years. We often started with a field recording or in the case for more synthetic sounding stuff maybe something from a synth, and then grabbed very narrow frequencies. Later with the mono-log stuff my own FFT stuff was replaced with the filters in the Nord, and as @yoyosandshoes mentioned, lots of square wave or pulse waves run through highpass filters or similar. This was actually a big starting point for the Reloc release with @encreuxmusic, which although more rhythmical, was based on one wave with different filters creating both tone, spatialisation and rhythm. It was serendipity that the Berlin tubes have a similar sound, which kick started the project, although with only one release, a remix and a single live performance, it ended as quickly haha.
Also listening to the early 12k/Line stuff and particularly @taylor12k Stil and Richard Chartiers stuff was pretty key in making the really minimal stuff, how he used panning integrating in the sounds, so this inspired a focus on using the square wave to be the single sound through many different filtered variations, rhythmical variations, and also controlling panning.
I always felt unlike recent years with the loudness wars, in that era there was a kind of pushing to the egdes of perception with some releases, the quietness wars ha. Yeah interesting era for sure. I still think about Richard’s stuff today and imagine what that music would have to do if played really loud, it’s definitely a key consideration when making new stuff.
The Nord G1/G2 is great as allows for a simple single starting point and then basically creating everything else out of that starting point, and typically when something starts working it was a case of dialling in a little eq to present that single sound. The idea of mixing a track, at least for me, was never a consideration, it was just making a sound that had what frequencies I wanted present.
Myself and @encreuxmusic were very much uncomfortable with layers, still are actually, so anytime that seemed to be the case we stripped it back. Even when we played live together, which we did quite a bit, Lucia typically did the high frequencies, I believe her favourites was 12khz, and I did the sub 30-35hz normally, and we shared textures and resonances in the mid highs.
Another concept we kicked around a fair bit, and still do now in some respects, was music that could be played loud, but talked over, as so much space around it, not just in timing but in frequencies more so. Again lots of highs and lows.
I’ve always personally really struggled with making complex layer music, it just confuses me, although I’ve got better over the years, but normally whenever I think I’ve made something dense a fresh set of ears points out a very opposite experience haha.
Anyway, with all that said, and I hope that wasn’t too much, I totally agree with @doomglue in creating less with not much, it allows better focusing in on the sound and perceptions and that being it.
Happy to chat about it all some more if needed.
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Today was a holiday in Berlin. I dug out the micro and had some fun. Later I took the ugliest synth I own (törööö) for a spin and I thought it sounded quite a bit like the noisy side of oval when cranked. Makes sense as it is a wavetable thing.
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Ordered a few of these a while back and truly appreciate the contributions. Thank you. From personal experience, I know things like this are a labor of love.
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Really early in my music making years i was fascinated by endlessly layering guitar sounds on top of each other (obvious Loveless reference) but with the years I found a connection with what sculptors do. Take a very dense material and start removing bits and pieces. It’s my way of creating till today. Make a very dense sound and then start removing bits and pieces till it’s stripped down to the essential.
What is essential is at the decision of the artist. For some it’s the limits of perception like you mentioned which is a very interesting idea.
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Noisy Oval sounds ideal. I started wiring up the Nord a few days ago, looking to dive back in again.
@ThanosF reduction is a great approach for sure. These days I occasionally do something similar, typically build up a load of stuff and them cut back to the core.
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Regarding this
There is a sound there that makes me curious. I’ve heard many times people playing with noise(?) in similar fashion and this reminds me somewhat of SW radio. There are what one would call “normal” sounds then this noise pattern. It is quite interesting this noise. Any hints on how to replicate it? Not an exact copy, but the technique itself to obtain something similar… It seems like a mix of some tone with noise that then is ripped apart.
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try mixing the two together and give them some movement somehow (modulated filtering, FM, so on) but maybe have the actual volume envelopes controlled by different parameters - so you’ll have movement in the tones/texture independent and un-synced to your the actual volume of the sound. I’ve done it more with digital than analog gear in the past, but also instead of just starting with typical white or pink noise and going subtractive try different oscillator shapes or wavetables and apply FM or AM with noise or noisy sources until you are left with something very far from the initial osc sound. ring mod is also your friend in these situations.
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This is so great. What modules are you combining?
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Thank you, glad you like it. I have two 4U panels: Loudest Warning Sing to Me and R*S 4x4 (Carnivore, Divide and Compare, ResEQ, Filters)… I can’t really remember what I used for that patch though.
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Back when Scott Harper (Knobs from YT) had his Nudges project from his patreon, each one of us made a song with 10 or so tracks. When we were finished, he gave us a instructions which something like: 1) remove track 4 2)remove track 13 and so on. At the end we got a very different song from what we started with, showing a lot of details that were left behind the deleted tracks and lots of space, which made the composition more interesting.
There´s an album of those tracks: Plot twist | Knubs | Nudge
Its a great and easy exercise to try.
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I get this effect by pinging a resonant filter with noise modulating cutoff…when tuned correctly ull have the noise following with the amplitude of what ever ur feeding the filter audio input in a dynamic fashion.
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