Below are my live eurorack explorations for the week of November 2nd, 2020.

I took my start from Todd Barton’s Buchla Bongo video. In this eurorack modular synth jam, I started with a Eurorack version of the Buchla bongos using an Instruo CS-L and a Serge NTO going through an Optomix. Both oscillators have their timbre and pitch sequenced from the Stillson Hammer and Make Noise 0-ctrl. I’m using two palindrome rhythms, one in 14 and one in 16 to bring out different accents. I’m using the delay on the Echophon to give some ambience, but also using the feedback output into the Erbeverb to create a frame drum sound. Tilt, Decay, and Depth are being randomized by a Frap Tools Sapèl and a Wogglebug to create variances in the reverb, which makes the frame drum sound more like it exists acoustically and is being hit by a hand. About halfway through, I drop the bongos and just have the sound of the frame drum.

In this live eurorack modular synth exploration, I’m using Maths as a subharmonic generator in conjunction with the Random Source Serge New Timbral Oscillator. I’m using the Sine wave out into Maths running at audio rate and then sequencing both pitches from the Make Noise 0-ctrl. The square wave out is going to the QPAS filter, which is being sequenced from a Stillson Hammer sequencer and then on to an Echophon and an Erbeverb being randomized by Wogglebug and Sapèl. The Variable output is running directly to an Optomix, as is the subharmonic content. All gates are being controlled by the Stillson Hammer, and I make some metric modulation happen by moving the clock division inside the sequencer. Experimental electronic music is so beautiful to me, because it gives me the opportunity to make so many things happen at once.

This is a live Eurorack modular synth jam using only 3 modules for this month’s New York Modular Society Patchable challenge. I’m using only the Make Noise Maths, Erbeverb as an “oscillator”, and an Intellijel Quadrax. All functions are set to various shapes of LFOs. The primary rhythms are coming from the different in speeds between the two Maths cycles, one assigned to input and one assigned to predelay. Quadrax is controlling size, decay time, tilt, and depth parameters. This is very experimental and avant-garde.

This is a live eurorack modular synth jam for the second challenge of this month’s New York Modular Society Patchables. The first voice stream is two channels of an Instruo CS-L into an Optomix, with the strike controlled by two channels of Make Noise Maths in Cycle mode. The second stream is an Erbeverb feeding back on itself, and later I use an Intellijel Quadrax in burst mode to gate each channel. The third stream is a Serge NTO being controlled by a Stillson Hammer sequencer into a Serge VQVCF and into an Echophon. I’m controlling the tempo of this stream from a Make Noise Tempi. Headphones are highly recommended. The purpose of this challenge was to create music that answers “What if humans had evolved under water?” This piece is titled “Life of Coral.” I’m using the Erbeverb to evoke waves that can be heard both above and below water. Later the Erbeverb stream becomes the chatter of dolphins. The Instruo stream is the deep bumps of sounds that carry underwater, and the NTO stream is meant to evoke schools of fish flitting through the coral.