#1661

I’m wondering if people have thoughts about which of Peter’s banana instruments would be a good partner for the Lorre-Mill Double Knot? I’m leaning towards the Cocoquantus but I also really love the sounds of the organs (Sidrax, Tetrax, and Deerhorn). I’ve had a Bistab for 5 years and it’s wonderful but VERY specific so I’m looking for something a little more versatile.

#1662

Do you want to process the DK (in which case I’d recommend the coco) or accompany it (one of the others)?

Scratch that. Just get a coco.

4 Likes
#1663

Yes - I would agree that the double knot and cocoquantus are a good pair. There are a lot of explorations that can happen between the two. Cocoquantus has a ton of modulation sources, and the double-knot has a lot of inputs to accept those. They play well together.

3 Likes
#1664

Definitely Cocoquantus to pair with DK. I love using the DK with a delay in general, and as mentioned above Coco has ample modulation to feed into DK.

2 Likes
#1665

Thanks for the replies everyone. What are the differences between the Cocoquantus 1 and 2? Are all Cocos with banana jacks v2?

#1666

Co2 has an envelope follower on the inputs I believe?

1 Like
#1667

Does anyone have any samples of the paper circuit swoop? Does it do audio rate? @crucFX looking hard at that slopes stand-alone you have

1 Like
#1668

Finished up a Paper Circuit for the 2-Rollz

1
13264×2448 722 KB
2
23264×2448 665 KB
2-roll paper circuit
2-roll paper circuit4250×5500 3.18 MB

PDF for anyone who wants it :slight_smile:

6 Likes
#1669

Why does the 2 roll have 2 nodes and an out but the other rolls have the same number of jacks as their roll number, I.e., 3 roll has jacks, 5 roll has 5, etc

2 Likes
#1670

Because I designed them that way :slight_smile:
They would be pretty boring with only one sandrode each. :smiley:

2 Likes
#1671

does anyone have any wisdom/tips/etc regarding playing these instruments live?

i really like building patches in real-time and making choices in the moment, i love the improvisational power of my plumbutter. however i’m only nearing the end of day ten with mine, there’s so much to learn!

so far, every time i sit down to try to “perform” with it, i do a brief bit of (i guess) sound design to make sure i’m at least starting with sounds i like, then i just kinda have-at… does anyone use these things live without that kind of short early control stage?

i’m trying to think of how i would do this stuff live. is the sound shaping just “part” of the set for people? is setting up stuff first normal? i’m coming from a primarily free jazz background so i’m quite spoiled when it comes to expectations of pre-show prep.

3 Likes
#1672

@reallyok – this is a big area of interest for me too, so thanks for sparking discussion. I’ve gravitated – like you and many others – towards the Ciat instruments for their potential in terms of improv.

My approach with coco + pb typically involves moving between various performative gestures and techniques. These are focused not so much on developing a single, evolving patch but rather on interacting with specific “blocks” or a combination of them: rollz + dust, electro-magnetic pickup + single coco channel + dust, microphone + coco channel + ultrasound, etc. I really love the textures of Miki Yui and Sachiko M, for instance, so I prefer an approach where I can develop small, localized sounds and then destroy/re-build them as a I go.

Admittedly, I’ve struggled (and continue to struggle) with integrating the Plumbutter fully with this approach. I’ve owned it twice, ha. I don’t love the sound of the deerhorn or the av dogs, but the rollz, gongues and ultrasound are integral to my sound at this point. I really do need to explore the Plumbutter as a processor, and using certain “blocks” more as modulators than sound sources.

Would love to hear more from you as your approach evolves.

7 Likes
#1673

can you elaborate on this? patching techniques or favorite things to do with this combo? two of my favorite aspects of the pb, curious how other use them in conjunction:)

3 Likes
#1674

Oh, let me show you – it’s just about my favorite thing :slight_smile:

Screen Shot 2020-10-15 at 5.12.48 PM
Screen Shot 2020-10-15 at 5.12.48 PM3012×1440 577 KB

Simple, but an amazing source of noisy/gritty textures, especially when other rollz are thrown into the mix. If sending the resulting signal to the coco, try sending another roll to a skip or quantussy input, and then take various signals out from coco back to pb, modulating stuff like snare decay, ultrasound fm, etc.

13 Likes
#1675

Wow! I use the dust output all the time for FM & modulating things but I’d never thought to patch it into the Rollz :thinking:

I can’t wait to sit down at the Plumbutter again :grimacing:

Thank you :black_heart:

3 Likes
#1676

that’s so interesting - i’m having quite the similar response to the av dogs and deerhorn, i much prefer the ultrasound, snare, and gongues - as well as the fantastic rhythmic possibilities of the rollz. i haven’t run much audio into pb yet but that’s next on the list, that could be the key for me to reckon with the avd+dh harmonic stasis.

that’s the biggest thing i feel like i’m missing so far - there’s no real “stepped” pitch content, and most of what i’ve done with cv so far has led to swooping, sweeping tones - super cool, but i feel like i’d like some “pitch content” in the mix. i also totally get and appreciate that these instruments are designed to subvert your habits or conceptions of music making, but still!

i feel like i’d be way more into avd+dh if they could go way lower. later today i’m gonna try to get my trusty vss-30+pedals into the mix and see what i can do.

since you seem to know your way around the pb (and of course i’m open to other responses!) do you have any tips for getting really slow fluctuations in tempo from the rollz? i got way into the relabi concept (and feel like it’s a part of how i play drums), and want to get more gently fluctuating rhythms happening. pb is designed for chaos and i get to the capital-c “Chaos” usually pretty quickly!

1 Like
#1677

What kind of improvisation are you aiming for, solo or group settings? The plumbutter sounds have a very distinct character. I think it would be possible to tune the gongues by ear as you go along, av dogs too. Deerhorn might be more of a challenge, but it depends on how tonal you want to get. I have sometimes just used it for modulation - gate and continuous voltage.

Staying within the plumbutter, feeding the rollz into the deerhorn fm inputs yields some steppy patterns. You can also send the red gate outs from deerhorn into purple inputs and tune these to your liking since those act as an arp/serge knob where the middle is the base frequency and the knob can add or subtract the voltage you’re modulating with. This would give you 1 more pitch beyond the base pitch, but you can mult other gates/rolz and see what happens. :thinking:

If you wanted specific pitches or sequencing on the fly, something like an sq-1/keystep/0-ctrl/voltage memory paired up with a format jumbler would be a fast way to get there.

1 Like
#1678

What kind of improvisation are you aiming for, solo or group settings?

really either one, but i guess i’m more focused on “my solo set,” whatever that means. probably easier to build things on the fly in a group setting - i had already thought about getting sounds through headphones dj-style before adding it to the collective improvisation.

Staying within the plumbutter, feeding the rollz into the deerhorn fm inputs yields some steppy patterns. You can also send the red gate outs from deerhorn into purple inputs[…]

i’ve never tried any of those things! gonna give it a shot tonight. still very new to pb, so there’s a lot of mystery to this instrument for me. not sure why it never occurred to me to send rollz signals into deerhorn fm.

would a sequencer like that also go into the fm inputs of avd/dh? i could get a jumbler and send some information from crow, but i think i’m getting out of eurorack soon. i don’t even want a ton of pitches or anything - even the music i write for ensembles tends to be pretty droney and harmonically static, the two-note structure of the dh just doesn’t always do it for me.

thanks for the ideas! i can’t wait to try them out. in the interest of getting more adventurous with signal, are there any things i should definitely not patch on pb? i’ve been strictly patching outs to ins, not sure how “protected” these circuits are.

2 Likes
#1679

AFAIK, the only thing to avoid is sending the yellow ultrasound outputs to any brown jacks on the rollz. Besides that, go wild. I vaguely remember a truly weird trick where connecting a deerhorn’s white output to another output (forgot which one) would cause that deerhorn voice to drone.

#1680

now that’s interesting because i read somewhere (maybe mw?) that patching an ultrasound out to a rollz 3 can get really slow chaotic clocks. hadn’t tried it yet myself.

can anyone else confirm?

1 Like