Melancholic, ambient and occasionally abrasive generative synth patch. A memoriam to war victims throughout history.

After watching too many war documentaries/films recently, I was dwelling on all these heavyhearted topics, so I started patching to distract my mind with lighter thoughts. Instead, I ended up here: reduced minor scales, string-like sounds with occasional FM to make it abrasive, and some strange, ratchetting karplus-strong plucks. There are Value modules (or CV inputs on ZEBU) to control lowest pitch, pitch spread and reverb amount (great for slow evolving soundscapes). So a little like the war-movies; it’s a fairly grim atmosphere, but in a beautiful sort-of way, too.

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[OVERVIEW]
-Input/Output: Stereo input, Stereo out
-CPU load: Around 100%
-Build: Initial version built with firmware 2.70
-MIDI: Controls are NOT YET set to CCs (I normally use channels 21/36, see CONTROLS section for details).
-CV Inputs:
1) LOW
2) SPREAD
3) RATE
4) VERB
-CV Outputs:
1) PITCH (1V/Oct)
2) ENV
3) LFO1
4) LFO2

[REVISIONS]
1.1: Added external audio input (goes into reverb), added interesting CV ins/outs, normalized levels a bit.
1.0: Initial patch.

[PATCH STRUCTURE]
The sounds are created by 2 sine oscillators with some occasional FM cross-feedback, and a tuned delay line that’s plucked with short bursts of the oscillators. The generative part of the patch consists of 4 or 5 sine LFOs that are multiplied in a bunch of combinations to extract pitch, gate and event trigger signals, and there’s a few LFOs that pretty strongly modulate each other to get the occasional burst of triggers for the Karplus-Strong voice. All pitch info comes from a single quantizer that flips back and forth between a few scales (via a Flip-Flop), which creates a more interesting effect than just setting a minor scale.
Finally, some sounds go through a hard-panned delay line, and everything goes through a Hall reverb that is set fairly wet (and can go full wet as ‘Verb’ is increased).

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[CONTROLS]
There’s not really a need for controls, but I’ve added some macro-controls on PAGE0 (see below for a “Picture Manual” in the comments). The Stereo Output module with gain parameter and the Hall Reverb module are found on PAGE1.

LOW (sets the lowest pitch of the melody; stays within the scale)
SPREAD (sets the spread between lowest and highest notes)
RATE (sets rate of most LFOs, causing ‘events’ to happen a bit quicker or slower)
VERB (sets the reverb decay time and wet mix; goes fully wet)

Additional controls on PAGE1:
LEVEL (sets the level of all voices; also affects intensity cause the FM amount is affected as well)

ZOIA stompswitches = unused
ZEBU buttons = unused

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[TIPS/TRICKS]
>>> Slowly modulate LOW and/or SPREAD for a gently evolving feeling

>>> At the lowest LOWs and little SPREAD it gets very deep and dark.

[THOUGHTS/IDEAS/PLANS]
This patch is done, no future plans.

If there’s any bugs/questions/remarks/requests or suggestions for improvement, please let me know!
Enjoy!

(Image: Chiharu Shiota)