Working with some tips from the book Patch & Tweak, some helpful information about the “hidden” Chords mode of Elements, and the latest update to the Squinky Labs Seq++ sequencer.

This patch is a very simple construction. A long monodic melody in Seq++ drives the Elements modal synthesizer (in Chords mode) and the Clouds texture synth (in Spectral Madness mode). Clouds has been tuned and left unmodulated, Elements is definitely more thoroughly modulated by the BPM LFOs. A little attenuverted random gating completes the signal processing suite. An integral reverb is part of the Clouds and Elements modules.

You set the master level where you like, click on the big button, enjoy the performance, then click on the button again after the sequence ends. The sequence can be looped, but I prefer to play it only once through.

And that’s about it. Stuff can be added to the patch, but I like it well enough as-is. Fellow Rack patchers are encouraged to make of it what they will.

Recorded with the NYSTHI recorder module, edited with mhwaveedit.

The brief list of modules used in this patch:

Impromptu Modular – Clocked, Tact-1
wiqid anomalies – dual attenuverter
SynthKit – Clock Divider
RJModules – Button
HetrickCV – Random Gates
Southpole – Smoke (aka Clouds)
Audible Instruments – Modal Synthesizer (aka Elements)
Autodafe – 1×8 Multi
Frozen Wasteland – BPM LFO
VCV – 8vert, Audio-8
Squinky Labs – Seq++, Form, ExFor
Stoermelder – uMap
NYSTHI – 4DCB, Master Recorder

The excellent NYSTHI plugin is a closed-source project with freely available binaries. The Southpole plugin can be built for VCV Rack v1.n, binaries can be found listed on the VCV Rack Official Users Group page on Facebook. All other modules used in this patch are free and open-source software.

As always, deep appreciation to these and all developers for VCV Rack and its plugin armory. Appreciation as deep also to my friends and colleagues in the VCV Rack user community. My humble thanks to you all.