chinoiserie – noun; The imitation or evocation of Chinese motifs and techniques in Western art, furniture, and architecture, especially in the 18th century. (From the Oxford dictionary)

So, sounding like maybe some kind of Far Eastern music but not really Chinese in any significant structural sense here, i.e. no special scales or rhythmic modes Oriental or otherwise. The tunings have been done by ear – apologies to more keenly sensitive listeners – and the rhythmic characteristics are all generated by the combination of the Ions sequencer and the random gates generator.

Two VCOs drive two resonators for a total of six input channels. A global reverb is applied along with channel panning and volume level settings. The timbral variety results from selective control of the VCO and resonator parameters via the uMap modules. Those modules map attenuated LFO waveforms over particular parameters for a constantly shifting texture of sounds ranging from percussion to sustained strings.

As heard in the recording, the patch can be used as a simple performance piece by using the Button modules to start/stop/restart the clock and to transpose the scale quantizers and tempo. The uMap and sequential switch modules have been generously deployed to route values received from the fixed voltages module, i.e. the harmony and tempo transposition values. I consider the patch complete for now, but obviously more can be done with harmonization and tempo control, particularly in a third section. The current recorded example simply repeats the texture of the first section, though with a little more work greater variety can be created for any subsequent sections.

And of course, vast thanks to Andrew Belt for the excellent VCV Rack, and cosmic gratitude to the following Rack plugin providers:

Impromptu Modular – Clocked, Tact, Tact-1
SynthKit – Clock Divider
HetrickCV – Random Gates
Geodesics – Ions sequencer
JW-Modules – Quantizer
Vult – Basal VCO
Stoermelder – uMap
RJModules – Button
SubmarineFree – vertical text displays
Bogaudio – ADSR, DGate
VCV – mono mixer, 8vert, Audio-8 interface
Frozen Wasteland – BPM LFO
Autodafe – 8×1 multiplier
ML Modules – 8×1 Sequential Switch
Southpole – Annuli resonator
NYSTHI – Fixed Voltage Source, MVerb
Squinky Labs – Mixer8

Most of these modules are from free and open-source plugin projects. At the time of this recording the v1 version of the Southpole plugin is not yet available on the VCV plugin Library. However, it can be built from the git source repo, and “unofficial” binaries are available for all supported platforms. The NYSTHI and Vult plugins are closed-source but binaries are freely available for Linux, OSX, and Windows. Potential players should note that it is usable only on VCV Rack v1.x and will not run on any earlier version.