Inspired by Christopher Nolan’s 2017 film “Dunkirk”. There are three narrative timelines in the film – 1 week (The Mole), 1 day (The Sea) and 1 hour (The Air) – that are woven together over the length of the film. (PS – fantastic score and sound editing. It’s absolutely worth repeat viewing, and really focusing on the soundscape). This patch aims to encourage you to try some timeline intermingling of your own.
The amplitudes of each timeline, as well as the dry input signal, can be adjusted independently.
Buffers for the Mole and the Sea can be frozen or not, and all input goes to all three sub-patches regardless of the dry output level. Each timeline has its own effect – digital dirt on the Mole, chorus on the Sea, flanging on the Air… perhaps a bit on the nose, but it amuses me.
The real magic happens in the ability to feed each of those three timelines into the other timelines.
Mole fed into Sea and/or Air, Sea into Mole and/or Air, Air into Mole and/or Sea.
Now is a good place to mention the **FEEDBACK LOOPS ALERT**. When the 2 longer buffers are frozen, input signal will duck the existing material and gradually replace it over time. But still… walking away from it while it’s doing it’s magic is not advised. And if you decide to tinker with what’s under the hood I suggest avoiding “performance mode” as you are going to want the bypass button as a panic button. Trust me. Feeding the Mole (lol) is not as big a concern, as the longer buffer provides more room for signal energy to spread out, ie less time to ramp up and run away from you. But feeding into the shorter lines – especially if those lines are being fed into the longer lines – can get out of hand.
Have fun!!
All controls on page 1.
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Top Row: Output level control for dry signal and each of the 3 sub-patches. Beneath the top row, controls for each of the three sub-patches are organized in columns. Left-hand columns for The Mole, mid columns for The Sea, right-hand columns for The Air, far right column for dry signal level and frozen buffer indicators.
Left stomp = Freezes the two longer buffers. RED indicators ON.
Right stomp = pedal bypass = panic button.
Columns 1-2, The Mole. 56 second buffer/loop, “digital dirt” on the output:
– Clean/dirt balance & dirt (aliaser) frequency
– HP filter
– Mole -> Air routing
– Mole -> Sea routing
Columns 4-5, The Sea. 8 second buffer/loop, chorus on the output:
– Chorus rate & width
– LP filter & chorus dry/wet balance
– Sea -> Air
– Sea -> Mole
Columns 5-6, The Air. 1 second max delay line , flanging on the output:
– Flange rate & regen
– HP filter, flange width & flange mix (column 7)
– Air -> sea, and delay tempo, max 1sec. (min 60 bpm)
– Air -> Mole, and delay feedback amount… again, stay vigilant.
