#1

I just finally picked up one of these after lusting after it for quite a long time. I’m pretty blown away by the sound, and all of the potential things to do with this module. Its exciting as I feel like this could be a bit of a paradigm shift for me. Typically I have about 4-5 voices of different things going on from different sources, but the Harmonic Oscillator can be thought of as 8 (or more) voices that are related by a common pitch. I’ve been looking for ways to approach the modular as a single instrument instead of a collection of voices and I feel like this is really going to help change my mindset. Having a pretty robust modulation source like Stages is great because I can send cv to any of the 8 cv in’s for the harmonics create these evolving patterns. Because its coming out of of one mix out, it feels really glued together.

Not really a question, but just wanted to see how everyone is using their’s and discuss. I didn’t find any other specific threads on it.

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Eurorack: discussion, advice, learning, questions (archive)
#2

ive been wanting to dive in to both the verbos harmonic oscillator and stages separately but pairing them together sounds like a great idea. they are both available in vcv rack so il explore. thanks for the idea. you have any patch ideas you’d like to share? it would be helpful for me to understand these modules

#3

I’ve got the 262V, the Buchla version. It differs a bit in that it has 10 harmonic sliders, a pulse wave output, and is supposedly built from some better quality parts (Mark’s words).

I only picked it up recently and am using it to mimic a monophonic singer’s voice and the using CV to push up the harmonics as a form of faux choir.
My next project will be to construct a track based upon the harmonic series and see how it goes.
It is a bit difficult to control and benefits from having a compressor after it.
I’m still learning it though. Early days and all that.

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#4

I didn’t have a chance to play it myself but my friend is using it and it has really great organic feel to it.
Also from the description it looks like this album https://caterinabarbieri.bandcamp.com/album/patterns-of-consciousness was composed with Verbos and ER-101 and it sounds great so it might also be a nice source of inspiration for Verbos users.

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#5

Here’s a video I made, doing a quick piece with the Harmonic Oscillator. I documented some of my patching in the details. Enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7W3icqkoXE

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#6

I always find myself sending a little white noise to the FM to add some hair to the Sines. I’m also always impressed by how alive the non-sine waves sound!

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#7

Yeah they sound great, makes me want to get a Complex Oscillator as well. :wink:

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#8

i recently picked one up. seems like it runs a little hot, but it sounds incredible. i find it hard to break out of simple drones where i push the harmonics around because it sounds that good out of the box. you could make your modular fortune pairing this with a just friends and a bam oto.

#9

It does run hot, yeah. I think its the mixer that distorts, because when you take the individual outs they are def not clipping. Or actually its not even the mixer per se, its the fact that when you use the scan controls they automatically send each harmonic into full volume.

I’m liking that tone though, it makes it sounds gnarlier. Yeah I can see so much potential with this module, sending envelopes to each harmonic, you essentially have an 8 vco’s with its own vca.

Also, I’m really liking the way the FM sounds too.

I feel like you could really just play this alone, with some modulation, and delay/verb and you’d be set.

#10

yes. i’m not a fan of this. i keep the harmonic scan between harmonics to nullify it just to get a clean sound out of the module’s summed out. that seems like a problem, not a feature.

#11

Yeah I’m still in the discovery phase of this module, but I have a feeling I’ll end up doing the same thing.

#12

I’ve been using the phased output feature in Zadar to control the harmonics for either even or odd intervals. Then I set the remaining intervals manually to have a modulating sound with a consistent root.

I also love using stages to control it via the individual LFOs, but it really made me just want to get the Voltage Multistage to have the most control. It was really made to work together, so that will be exciting once I make the upgrade.

There’s also a wave folder when you cycle the harmonics fast enough. I used a PH-8 for that test initially, but I’ve been having a lot of fun with the ES-8 and Ableton’s new CV features to make that modulation more animated.

Any interesting experiments with the FM section? I need to play with that some more, but I’m always happy with the raw output.

#13

You can use the width control as ‘filter’ cutoff. I guess this bit is fairly obvious, but…

You can also get quite a nice ‘woody’ LPG effect going on with the sliders all the way down, the centre and width knobs fully CCW and an envelope into the width CV. It doesn’t need a VCA, but if you do add a VCA then you get to have fun adding extra (modulatable) harmonics in.

If you mult. the width and the centre CV inputs, it’s fairly easy to get the width control to only go in one direction only too.

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#14

Has a tough decision today picking between this and Cs-L. The tone of harmonic oscillator is amazing with minimal tweaking, unlike Cs-L.
I picked Cs-L thinking it’s going to give me more variety but I think my next major purchase is going to be harmonic oscillator:)

#15

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Took me way too long to figure this out but I’m finding self FMing with one of the individual harmonic outs can help blur the harmonics. Instead of the organ-like harmonics, you get this beautiful fuzzy thing that really come to life when modulating “low-high” and “center.”

First 10 seconds are without FM

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#16

Do you have examples of this sound?

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#17

I’ll add something to my post!

#18

Sounds great! I’ve been enjoying self-patching fm as you have here at very low frequencies. Odd, rubbery sounds. HO was one of my first modules and I continue to discover new things to love about it.

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#19

I just got one of these in the mail yesterday.

I was on the fence about this vs Just Friends, as I saw in the JF technical maps that you can work with the first six harmonics, and particularly as I’ve already got a Crow there was an appeal in expanding my ii ecosystem.

But right now I’ve ended up with this strange case with tons of modulators and my only sound source being the ER-301. And so I thought something both analog and extremely hands-on might be a good complement to that.

Maybe it will just be a matter of time until I pick up the JF as well, and then it won’t be forced into purely working as a sound source?

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#20

Really cool use and I don’t know why I haven’t played with that myself yet (FMing the individual harmonic outputs back into the oscillator)! BTW, where did you get the black pot covers? Thinking about making the rest of my system match the Verbos look.