Shadow play — generative patch from my Jan. 1st livestream

This patch uses two modal voices, hard panned left and right, to create a bit of call-and-response interplay (hopefully). We’re taking advantage of the new pelog quantizer scale (firmware 2.60) to create a bit of a gamelan feel.

**This patch requires firmware 2.60 to function properly**

The voices both feature a shift register, although the left voice randomly selects from its shift register (four notes), while the right voice moves sequentially through its voice (five notes).

The modal voices are pinged bandpass filters in parallel; by adjusting their frequency relative to the root, you can create different inharmonic (and harmonic) ratios, which evoke different sounds, particularly idiophones/tuned percussion.

Delay and reverb added for ambiance/filling space.

For a similar-ish MIDI playable patch check out Modal Duo: https://patchstorage.com/modal-duo-a-duophonic-modal-synthesizer/

And there’s a CV-controllable version, Modalate This, in the Zebu factory set.

There is a control page for the patch:

You can adjust the ‘resonator decay’ (the resonance of the filters, which functions much as a decay for the voices). You can adjust the partials’ frequencies for each voice (except the root, which is fixed to the output of the respective voice’s shift register). Trigger prob. determines what probability that voice has of triggering on a specific clock beat. Instability controls the likelihood of the shift register selecting a new note rather than recycling the notes in the register — higher instability means more change over time.

There are also controls to determine the range of the randomly produced notes, and an offset for voice 2 (this is unquantized, so I would suggest using it with octaves, i.e. -.1 or .1, although dissonance is certainly an element of the style of music this patch is meant to evoke, so……..).

If you watch the livestream, you can see how different clock settings (the clock is located on page 4), along with different decay and partial tunings can produce very different outcomes.

I do these livestreams at ungodly early hours on Saturdays (usually beginning around 8:30 AM US Eastern), if you ever want to stop in.

I restarted my Patreon, if you want to check that out: https://www.patreon.com/chmjacques

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  • Category: Composition Synthesizer
  • Revision: 1.0
  • License: Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 4.0
  • Modified: 2 years ago
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    Downloads: 631
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