baleen
4880
this also articulates why I’m not interested in “mastery” or “virtuosity” and I think a lot of language for creative production (or understanding of etc) is invested in a linear path from “lack of understanding”/beginning through to master/professional and I have not been on that path for a really, really long time and my time with C-L is a new piece of wilderness for me, maybe I stay a while, maybe I pack up and go sooner or later.
The appeal of Cage has always been in his later period of easy, untethered exploration of sound and location and experience. I don’t think he was a master, I think he said just enough and quite clearly, and a bunch of other things he said with joy.
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Kraus
4881
Congratulations on building this. I’ve built one complete Rollz-5, and have another set of boards populated and waiting to be housed, so I fully appreciate how much work this is. Frustrating and kinda backbreaking work, but so worth it!
I particularly love the sound of the rolls into ultrasound filters on the Rollz5. I’ve heard people say that the rolls on the Plumbutter are less wild, due to the incorporation of voltage control. I still dream of getting a Plumbutter one day, but it’s good to know that the Rollz-5 has a sound and character of it’s own. It’s not just a PB-minus-modulation.
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Chiming in on the whole PB debate (although a bit too late). At first I also went down the rabbit whole of trying to figure out each section with manuals, videos etc, but soon realised that it’s far more fun seeing the instrument as a semi-tameable synth that has its weird quirks and just to have fun and figure out some tricks on your own. Having it for some months now and using it almost every day I always feel like I know the ins and outs of it, but it still surprises me each time with some wild sounds that happen whenever I cross the 25-30 patch milestone and completely abandon any strategy and just let loose.
I also have a Coco and maybe I just haven’t spent that much time with it, but I feel like it’s far more limiting than PB in terms of exploration. Coco is far more perfect for my stile of music than PB, but PB is a bit more fun as an instrument on its own. At least for me.
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909one
4883
Its funny how much I completely disagree with this statement for my own work. I want complete understanding and control. I want to make an emotional connection with people, that’s the end goal for me. The music can still be challenging, but I’d like it to connect. I’ve alwats admired mastery, not necessarily virtousity, but mastery. I think with a certain amount of mastery comes a freedom to be in the moment. It does also come with repetition and other boring, bad things, of course. I always think about this from reading one of the Coltrane biographies back in college. His level of mastery was unparalled obviously and he was breaking new ground and hitting spiritual levels with his work that were unparalleled. I love experimentation, but with it I always hope to gain some level of understanding.
Its interesting, i was just reading about Cornelius Cardew, who was a student of Cage’s. He ended up denouncing Cage because he got really into Marxism and thought his Cage’s work was elitist. Lol.
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walker
4885
I read the last couple weeks of this thread with interest, and wrote a few paragraphs that don’t quite follow one another.
I’ve worked full time with Tony Rolando for nearly a decade and I don’t always recognize him in the things I read. Instead of quibbling I’ll describe him myself: he’s passionate and compassionate; he trusts his gut; he always insists on instrument designs that are both immediately grabbing and have great depth and flexibility. Designs that fail to meet those standards will be dropped and never see the light of day, even if they’ve been in development for awhile. Unusual names or layouts are there to inspire and maximize playability, never to be elitist or obscure. The instrument does have to be exciting and inspire people to want to use it, that is an integral part of the design. The designs that make it all the way to announcement and production are the ones that we are personally excited to use.
I find the idea of obscurantism in instrument design a little hard to understand. Sometimes when I read people’s opinions about unusual interfaces, the implication is that there’s a sort of template for different types of circuits that every designer is always starting from, and that some choose to deviate from merely in terms of nomenclature and visual language in the end product, out of some kind of pretension or standoffishness. But that’s not necessarily the case. I think that Peter’s circuits, and in many case’s Tony’s too, start from ideas that are not primarily based on the existing categories. Once they have been sculpted into their best form in the finished design, it would often be inaccurate to name them based on the existing templates, even if they could sort of be squashed to fit in. And often the instrument and the musicians who will use it are better served if we create the categories and names anew to perfectly fit what it actually is.
Folks who are already experienced with electronic instruments are often the most vocal among those who wish the established terms would be used, because they’d like to already know everything about the instrument before they set hands on it. It’s an understandable instinct. But the process of discovery is a key part of the experience of an instrument. Discovering what it does through actual use leads to a fuller mastery. No two circuits of any given “type” behave exactly the same even when they are nominally similar designs. The knowledge you bring to an instrument won’t tell you the whole story, and sometimes it can even get in the way of learning that story.
To move from generality to specifics, in my experience Peter B’s designs are particularly resistant to the methodical approach, because different parts of the instrument almost always affect each other in ways that break the linear block diagram we create in our heads. Additionally the distinction between input and output, which you can almost always count on in modular synths even in the most non-traditional designs, tends to be far more malleable in the CL instruments, and since banana and node-patching alike involve connecting many jacks together you are very likely to encounter this malleability at unexpected times. I personally find this very freeing, in the sense that it frees me from myself when I’m playing. I can attest that there are many, many patches that can be done the same way twice and will not behave the same, not because they are random or nonsensical but because the interaction space is too complex and dynamic to likely encounter the same state. Many times I’ve been close to walking away from the Plumbutter after doing something a little too basic to be inspiring, and five minutes later I suddenly find myself in a zone I’ll never be in again. I really don’t think this is a matter of the instrument’s true nature being obscured. It’s the opposite: the true nature emerges through play.
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baleen
4886
concludes quite properly. maybe quoting myself but I’ve had very few experiences like this with non-CL instruments, and regularly have this experience with CL instruments.
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909one
4887
Very rad! Well said, thanks for the extremely thoughtful input @walker !!! I love hearing this. I’m extremely enamoured with instrument designers’ philosophies. I often daydream of making designs myself, but don’t have any chops for circuit design, so it stops pretty quickly. Lol. I just want to make it known, that any criticism I may have voiced is weilded in love; Tony and Peter are some of my favorite modern instrument designers! I have utmost respect.
In regards to the Plumbutter, I’ve actually had a bit of a breakthrough, I bought it with the intent of replacing my small Serge setup, but actually, its the perfect companion. Now, I have to figure out something else to sell to cover my Plumbutter costs. 
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baleen
4889
Ciat Lonbarde x Cinestill 400 for maximum gear trend content
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i have both sides in me, it’s a bit weird i have to agree but when i completely understand something then it gets boring really fast for me. if i don’t understand something, then that’s like an appeal to me to learn about it, it makes the thing interesting to me. but yeah, just like you i then want to understand the thing i didn’t understand before. i demystify it for me and have then the problem of it becoming boring…so i move on. maybe i’m weird with this, but for example as a teenager i began listening to modern classical music heavily, not because i enjoyed it from the start, on the contrary, but these weird and alien sounding mostly atonal sounds just had an attractive “ugliness” for me and i thought “well, i can’t be right with my untrained verdict that this music sounds just ugly, so i have to learn to listen to it correctly etc etc” anyway long story short, it was just like with food for me, i found it fascinating to learn that taste isn’t just a static/fixed thing you’re born with, it’s something you have to acquire and you can indeed expand it pretty easily. so that’s why the cage quote speaks to me, the unknown, the weird is for me a chance to expand my understanding and taste…but yeah, it usually is followed by the urge to get/understand something. the harder to “get” the more i like it usually, that’s why a module like fourses from ifm is really special to me.
anyhow, sorry for the offtopic!
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crucFX
4891
that being said, everyone needs an IFM Fourses and Sprott in their lives
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Thhhh
4892
Which stand is that?
I would love a small IFM system. For now I enjoy seeing how Shnth makes the concepts in these modules come alive digitally.
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baleen
4893
idk how far off topic this thread can actually get
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909one
4894
We should have a new thread that’s ‘philosophies inspired by CL instruments’, lol.
I totally agree with you, the same paradox exists in me… while I crave understanding, I do often get bored as well once I feel like I’ve gained such ‘understanding’. I think every electronic instrument has an element of initial puzzling or problem solving that I just love. In this phase I usually record everything because it all sounds new and exciting to me and am truly letting the instrument take me wherever to gain understanding. When I feel like I understand the instrument, the excitement starts tapering off and it either becomes part of the permanent arsenal of tools or I sell it.
Taking this back to CL, Sidrax and Coco have been two of the only instruments I consider to be part of my permanent arsenal. They continue to inspire even after this initial period. There are very few other electronic instruments I feel this way about. Plumbutter I’m still on the fence about. I really do like it but it hasn’t settled into this category yet.
I think many of my thoughts on these instruments come from being a long time guitar player Im realizing. With guitar or any ‘traditional’ instrument the learning curve is way longer and there is no immediate gratification. I think the dopamine fix coming from seeing an instrument on social media, then acquiring and learning said instrument, has changed my attitude towards instruments in many regard but also I’m still looking for those guitar-like instruments in these machines. This is probably best saved for the GAS thread though… Lol.
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I have all IFM modules except grassi and a mocante and I played a lot of shows mainly just using IFM modules, but nevertheless I have a hard time really loving the Sprott. Somehow I don’t really gel with it and end up using it as a simple filter or as a
Feedback loop module with fourses. Any pointers for more esoteric uses?
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crucFX
4896
One of the things I think that causes people not to gel with it is not understanding it.
It’s a… complex module with so many more uses than just a filter!!
Always keep in mind, high signals to the diodes semi dampen the sound so you can start to lose what youre looking to get out of it by missing the main in as high and the diode in as “feed me super slow rising slopes or LFO’s”
Decouple the oscillators on Fourses with dummy plugs into the bounds and send all 4 oscillators into each intput - you can start sending feedback from the HP, BP, LP, CP and VCA (though I would monitor VCA or BP) into the Fourses Attenuverters or even back into the diodes with stackables!
Using every Input is really a fun thing with Sprott - noting to yourself that everything is tied together and every input is an integrator in the differential equation that is the chaotic jerk system. 
It’s truly all about experimentation with Sprott!!
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I feel like CL is more of an overexposed portra 400 if we’re talking about trend content, but the halation here is really nice
I define myself more as a very instinctive person, which is why I think I have so much fun with CL instruments. Nevertheless I am curious to know or identify the DDD nodes better. Also, I don’t know all the CLs but I find the DDD approach quite special. It is a very high and demanding level of letting go. Especially in the perspective of a live performance. I don’t try to “master” my Fyral because that would be meaningless but rather to adopt strategies that allow me to deal with it. Yesterday I had on Stuber and it’s exactly the same effect. There is a side where the instrument does what it wants to do and you have to deal with it. It’s a very special experience. I don’t know what you think about it.
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My understanding is Sprott is fundamentally a chaos circuit. Chaos knob is like feedback control for entire circuit…so turning Q up right to edge of oscillation and also adjusting ( or really either or is good to explore) chaos knob you will find a point where the Sprott comes to life.,and depending on the toggle settings you will have chaotic signals audio/lfo/cv at all four outputs. That is an area to explore, along with using input signals. So, Sprott can put out four related chaotic lfo or etc to modulate your patch,think nlc sloth for ex but here we have input and attenuverters to modulate each stage,along with inputs and diode inputs which are also a very good area to explore with gates or etc. basically experiment with everything, everywhere, and If you put audio into one part see what happens when you change the toggle to lfo or cv rate! The diode inputs are very good area to explore with different signals.,as well as putting audio rate into a section but setting its toggle to cv or lfo and etc.l.
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20 characters of thanks to @triangle & @crucFX
Will dive deeper into the diode inputs. I’ve neglected them maybe a little too much
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