#877

I kept both, and am still learning both!

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#878

looking forward to when you make a 3 course meal reel

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#879

Complete with bread and butter synth sounds?

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#880

I switched from V1 Rene to V2 Rene. There are certain aspects of the V2 I like better, particularly the much improved touch plates and how modulation is assigned, but in hindsight I prefer the overall immediacy, MPC mode, and latch mode in the V1 version. To be fair, I don’t use some of the most significant V2 changes such as the Z plane and rarely use the Y or C outputs. I sometimes think of trying to trade my V2 for a V1.

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#881

depends on if the meals are deconstructed or not

#882

As I’ve said before, I think Rene 1 and Rene 2 are far more different from each other than they seem at first, or even second, glance. Suggestion: used Rene 1s are widely available for a song. Pick one up and keep the Rene 2. Swap them out as the mood suits you.

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#883

I received my V1 Rene and got it racked last night and using it as a sequencer is pretty fun! I can see that I have plenty to explore in terms of learning all of its features, but it’s nice that it’s immediately fun to play with.

I’d heard about sensitivity issues with the touch pads (grids?) and learned that I apparently have dry hands… What are folks experience with the sensitivity of V2? Is it about the same?

1 Like
#884

Had the same problem. Blowing on my fingers helped. No problems with v2, sensitivity was perfect.

#885

A thing that works at least for me is to „ground“ yourself by e.g. touching the ring of a jack with your other hand

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#886

I made myself an infographic I can refer to for one of the most important control systems technologies of the—esoteric part of, at least—the second half of the twentieth century.

My patch for the day is Wogglebug > Doepfer A-138m 4x Matrix Mixer > Oscilloscope. Lots of interesting occult knowledge to be learned, possibly. I’m thinking of what it would be like to not have a SIM card in my phone anymore. Stay safe out there.

IMG_3399
IMG_33994032×3024 1.76 MB

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#887

Thanks for that tip! I’ll give that a try later.

#888

@walker: Had a comment exchange with the MN youtube account re: dynamic Morphagene chords and the conclusion was “we couldn’t find a way to implement it that felt right.”

Had a thought while nodding off last night: Text doc option for the built-in CV to output VpO based on varispeed so that one can ‘feel out’ a varispeed value on the knob and then offset sequences by the CV output in order to tune the entire synth to whatever fun thing the MG is up to. While this isn’t the same as controlling the morph chord ratios via CV, it does dramatically increase harmonic flexibility of the module (or, rather, increases the harmonic flexibility of the rest of the elements in one’s case).

Something I tend to run into with the module is having a sort of “pick two” situation re: timbre, harmony, rhythm. The most exciting rhythmic and timbrel possibilities are often in the harmonic zones that make it hardest to add to something / integrate it sensibly in a larger musical context. Having the ability to fluidly center the timbrel data of an entire composition around morphagene gestures (like the harmonic equivalent of the Mimeo gate output) would slay – and provide an intuitive jumping off-point for users to break out of 12tet without totally losing whatever facility they’ve developed internal to that system.

[thanks as always for being so dope + so available]

how to do w/o firmware change maybe

The way to accomplish this under present conditions is to mult an offset, patch one part of it to the MG, and the other part to the ‘root’ input of your sequencer, should it have such a thing, or to a set of precision adders (one per sequence in the patch). Optionally throw the signal through a quantizer before the mult, or a slew, or w/e else feels right. Then, manipulate that offset as a master root control.

3 Likes
#889

Thanks for the suggestion. I think you could do this by just multing whatever voltage you are using to set the initial pitch of the MG, no?

(oh, I see you suggested just that under the spoiler tag)

I think this suggestion sounds functionally equivalent to having a 1v/oct output on a VCO, which is fairly uncommon because of the expense and additional calibration it would add to the module for relatively little functional gain. Here’s the other thing, there is no absolute pitch value for v/oct CV since it would always added to whatever frequency is set by the main offset (panel control) on both the “source” and “destination” oscillator. This can quickly result in confusion unless you carefully tuned them together prior to ever making any patch connections, and then never touched the knobs again. And that’s doubly true on the Morphagene since the pitch can change wildly depending on the recording it is playing.

I think your suggestion of using a mult could actually be more fun anyway because you could additionally run the parallel signals through separate processing - send one through a S/H for example so that it chases the other around.

5 Likes
#890

Totally reasonable.

Varispeed response in non-VPO mode > VPO response for textural studies (and I do keep all of my oscillators in tune), which is sort of the reason for the ask. I know they’re not worlds that are easily bridged (the harmonically rich and the timbrely rich), and get that the existence of an ‘almost’ solution to the (highly niche) use case makes the idea seem frivolous.

Thanks for replying.

1 Like
#891

Hey lines gang, this week my coworker Pete, an awesome guy who runs the Make Noise Instagram, is swapping places with me for a sort of “Freaky Friday.” You can find my vids on Insta this week - I’m doing “Crate Digging Lightning Rounds” that are sort of inspired by Mass Appeal’s “Rhythm Roulette” videos but with the 1-minute constraint of Instagram.

Meanwhile, today at noon eastern you can check out Pete’s contribution to the YouTube channel. Hope to see you there:

Cheers!

Walker

23 Likes
#892

John & Yoko in brutal no-coastal splicefest!

1 Like
#893

Is everyone familiar with Tony’s talk on East Coast and West Coast synthesis?

I’ve had my Shared System for several months now (an earlier CV bus version with mkI René, Phonogene, expanded with an Erbe Verb). Whilst I have explored a lot of noise and established it’s fantastic for glitchy madness, it’s not necessarily where my heart is at. Consequently I’ve found two possible distinct ‘sub systems’: Essentially a System Concrete without the MMG and with an Erbe Verb that is fantastic for ambient loops and external audio wrangling, and a Buchla inspired music box.

Anyway, the reason I mentioned Tony’s talk is that in it he identifies that it’s the dynamics section as a response to the playing interface that is a crucial aspect of the ‘West Coast’ Instruments—fast organ-style keyboards requiring contour generators and fast VCAs; sequenced material and the LPG more suitable for AD function generators. So the 0-Coast then was designed to use this East Coast organ-style keyboard as an interface for the West Coast complex oscillator/LPG ‘sound’.

That got me thinking about the fact that the Easel has a chromatic keyboard. Even with the tactility of Pressure Points and René, I always feel like there’s a barrier in between me and this ‘West Coast voice sub system’, and I usually feel like I’m being led more toward machine music than physical ‘playing my of the sound in the way that the Easel looks like it offers.

Does anyone here approach the ‘Make Noise voice‘ with a chromatic interface? Similarly, has anyone MIDI’d a System Cartesian or Shared System to a MIDI sequencer!

3 Likes
#894

I have a SS+ and occasionally will hook up my Arcturus Microbrute cv to it. It’s not my method of choice.

In general I feel that if I was to play a “keyboard” then I’ll either play an instrument with a built in keyboard (ms-20 or Microbrute) or play a plugin in Ableton.

I most enjoy using the modular for drones and sequencing which I can interact with and not have to think about note entry.

I’m a passable keyboard noodler but it’s never been super comfortable compared to guitar for me…

YMMV

Edit: fixed typos

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#895

I don’t have a MNSS but I do have a 0-Coast and 0-Ctrl pairing and find that the 0-Ctrl carries a take on the elements of the Buchla Easel that sit somewhere between chromatic and atonal playing. If you want to you can dial in specific notes to the plates - when I do this I might put in a scale (bookended at the top end by a higher repetition of the first/root frequency) - but I don’t find myself wanting to do that much, largely because, as Ed says, it feels more logical (which is to say, less restrictive towards the nature of what it feels like the 0-Coast wants to be) to use a synth with a keyboard for that kind of thing. Instead I find that I want to let it guide me towards playing melodic textures with an oddly percussive slant which the LPG seems to afford (if not actually encourage).

I’m not sure that really answers your question though, I’m afraid.

2 Likes
#896

One thing about the Easel’s chromatic keyboard: a lot of Easel players underutilize it. Some even ditch it for tunable plates (along the same lines as Pressure Points, 0-CTRL, Doboz) because all those chromatic keys consume space that could be put to purposes of more interest to them, or to physically prevent themselves from reverting to chromatic habits. A lot of Easel patches might only need 2-4 “notes”, and it’s not that hard to manually tune 2-4 notes. Of course, the arpeggiator and the preset voltages on the 218 have their own uses.

I recall @noisejockey swapped his 218 for two Buchla format Doboz TSNM, which bought him two independent arpeggiator/sequencer/quantizer/pressure CV recorder modules, and freed space for two 200-series modules.

My impression is that the chromatic keyboard was viewed with a degree of suspicion from the very start at the SFTMC. Don only dabbled in them, with the Easel’s taking on a life of its own over time. Serge neither.

4 Likes