#145

I got lost in this one for a long time today. Sadly I didn’t get a recording but there’s so many options here it’d be hard to pick and choose anyway:

  • Mangrove formant out to a LPF to tame some noise if you’d like
  • Mangrove square out to tides (2018) clock in
  • Tides in looping/cyclic mode, “different frequencies” mode
  • Most all tides knobs at noonish, and you’ll be playing mainly with freq (aka clock div) and shift
  • Tides outs 1 and 4 back into just about any Mangrove cv in

So yeah basically: Tides modulating Mangrove at an audio rate that is some integerish division of Mangrove’s pitch frequency (which of course is analogous to how mangrove’s utone features work already, and is something you could use just friends for instead?). Almost every Mangrove cv input became super interesting with this modulation. I particularly liked barrel and formant, but air was also really interesting (you turn tides’ freq down enough you get into tremolo territory, turn it back to get a nice smooth pitch tracking AM, etc). FM was fun too, with tides 1 going to FM and tides 4 going to FM index (with tides at a ccw shift setting).

What’s also cool is you can still radically shape the result using the knobs even while they’re under CV control. Putting it in utone (between 7 and 12 for barrel and formant, constant formant mode) with the knobs while CVing barrel and formant made some really wild stuff. I’ll see if I can get a recording tomorrow some time

EDIT:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/lr70h6imeir4nho/tidal-mangrove.mp3
here’s a recording. nothing particularly musical, just exploring the textures this can create. I didn’t take notes, but I believe it was something like this order:

  • 0:00 - tides 1 to formant, tides 4 to barrel. play with formant and barrel, and with tides’s shift and freq. Formant and barrel are in a utone position such that the output pitch is basically always the same from the formant out, but the square output is jumping octaves radically changing the way the modulation sounds
  • 1:30 - tides 1 to formant, tides 4 to air. playing mainly with tides’s shift and freq to get a cool AM/ring mod overtones effect as it scrolls thru the integer divisions
  • 3:00 - i think here I was FM’ing my VCF with tides 4?
  • 3:30 - tides 1 to mangrove FM, tides 4 to FM index. more overtone jumping, again via tides’s shift and freq
  • 4:50 - back to CV’ing formant and barrel, i think for the rest of the recording. here i’m more playing with different formant and barrel knob settings, while also playing with tides’s shift and freq some too
20 Likes
#146

hey everyone,

i’m getting a lot of “clicky” sounds when i try to send an envelope in to the mangrove air. also getting the clicky sounds when i use an external vca. im sending envelopes out of tides in vcv rack through an es-8. i know this probably has to do with the envelope cutting of the sound when its not “through zero”. any ideas how to get around this ?

#147

A tiny bit of attack on the envelope will dull the click. You can use the attack time (at very short settings) to set the brightness of the onset. It acts kind of like a lowpass filter on that sound before it starts to actually sound like a ‘fade in’.

4 Likes
#148

If you mult your trigger to sync, the click will be more predictable. Then whatever mitigation you apply (like
increasing attack time) will work more broadly.

8 Likes
#149

these rule so much!!! it’s like a complex version of why I like mangrove, can’t wait to try this stuff…and combine with some of my feedback tricks I’ve found that I like on both those modules.

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Also at around 5:10 and a brief second at 6:44 you get some very interesting more high-pitch timbres I don’t think I’ve gotten exactly out of my mangrove before.

Thanks for sharing these!

2 Likes
#150

Thanks for the tip. Had no idea there was a low pass gate sound just sitting there hidden in the air input ! So cool

#151

Here is another noob question. In my constant journey in trying to make my mangroves sound like a melodic yet free jazz horn / bagpipes, I’ve been messing with sending different envelopes in to air input. I really like the sound of the mutable elements “blow” exciter so I’ve have been messing with putting it in to the air input on the mangrove. I put the blow output through an envelope follower then the cv in to the air in. I’ve gotten some really cool sounds but I have a lot to learn and fidget with. Haven’t quite figured out the right combination of air setting and envelope follower settings. Does anyone have any advice as far as using a setup like this ? Really just trying to get the volume to move around in the shape of the blow output if that makes sense ?

Also, does anyone have some cool ideas for getting those reed / horn / bagpipe sounds in general out of the mangrove ?

4 Likes
#152

Run your envelope into offset and attenuation and fiddle about. Ideally you want attenuation of the envelope, an offset added to / subtracted from it, then attenuation of that signal (the air attenuator). That way you can really dial things in. Maths or SPO work well for this.

I’ve also found using multiple versions of the same envelope into mangrove (or its modulator / filter) to be useful / fun. Remember to modulate the envelope shape as well, since variable expressivity is key to horn playing. Horns have such a wide variety of timbres, and mangrove is so good at producing them, that quickly iterating on different signal routings and dialing things in will almost invariably bring the brass out

4 Likes
#153

I’ve been mixing grey (any) noise into a vca with an envelope (and/or lfo sometimes), then that into the Air Input. Attenuate Air, Formant and Barrel to taste. It’s been my go too sax / reed / bassoon / clarinet / trumpet maker

Here are a couple examples - all lead solo voices are the Mangrove.



19 Likes
#154

I find that the magic happens when modulating barrel, air, and formant. Like others have said, envelopes that are related work nicely. Just Friends is a natural pairing, obviously, but I am planning on playing around with a Quadra for this.

3 Likes
#155

thank you for the tips everyone! i’ve been messing around with these ideas. been getting some sounds i really love. some real howling sax / bagpipes / screeches / windy flutes and all types of wonderful weirdness in between. using more organic sources for envelopes has been a revelation. i’ve been using the blow exciter from mutable instruments elements in vcv rack through an envelope follower to modulate the air and barrel along with an external vca. here are some examples from from my instagram.

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28 Likes
//// pictures of our sound-making machines ////
#156

My go to modules for ambient stuff - Mannequins

22 Likes
#157

I love everything about this, really nicely done

1 Like
#158

so i got obsessed with this patch and had to have a go at it. i used cold mac to crossfade between this and a weird sax sound. love using the asynchronous lfos to modulate the vocal quality of this patch. tried to sync the lfos by ear but ya know, happy accidents are much cooler

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11 Likes
#159

That is absolutely wild. Thanks for this.

I just picked up a Mangrove, and will have to try this method. Was experimenting with it over the weekend and was really pleased with a lot of the cello like sounds I was getting out of it.

Now to just add a Sisters and Cold Mac, and probably another Mangrove to the setup (if and when they’re eventually back in stock).

2 Likes
#160

When racking mangrove + just friends but using JF as oscillator, are there good ways of using mangrove as modulator (shaping envelopes)? Or even as modulator + vco?
I mean besides square to fm

1 Like
#162

This is from the 2x Mangrove vs Complex Osc. thread but @Galapagoose had some fun suggestions on using a Mangrove as a modulator. Cheers!

13 Likes
#163

Hello, just to share with you my last patch. I’m still at the beginning to learn the Mangroves ( yes take two directly ). Here one mangrove is the bass and the other one provides additional sounds at the end. There are really great and unique ! Main voice is form Verbos HO into Three Sisters :slight_smile:

17 Likes
#164

Was ever discussed without wishing to break the wonderful magic of the mannequins module, what the barrel, formant and air functions are if you would try to patch that to another voice like just friends? I am right now looking at some diy waveshapers from „fricko“ in australia and at least by description i am quite fascinated. I understand formants okay, but is barrel sth that can be described in other modules? And what makes air different from a nicely distorting vca, are there internal connections that are rather one of a kind?

Just trying to educate myself btw. I ve upmost respect and love for all of the mannequins modules

#165

Hola.

Formant might be a bit misleading as in it is not the vowel type of formant meant here.

Barrel is controlling the angle of the ramp waveform, where turned counter clockwise it does not retrigger until the end of rise is reached, thus can create subharmonics.
Formant is akin to a pulsar VCO, where you can influence the duration of the actual wave shape w/o changing the fundamental.
Air is a nicely saturating VCA with an exponential response, which makes it great for audio rate modulation.
The elements themselves are all kind of known, but the sum and combination make it a magical module.

Further reading: https://rabidelephant.com/blogs/general/mannequins-mangrove-guide

2 Likes