If any of you checked out my Bandcamp release on March 4th (shameless plug) — Generative Sessions, Volume 1 (Fugue States) https://christopherhmjacques.bandcamp.com/releases — you might have noticed a track from an unpublished patch, “Sirens of Titan (so it goes).” This is that patch!
The basic principle of this patch is the old quadrature LFO — this is when an LFO, or several LFOs, are taken at different phase points, 90 degrees out of line with one another.
The quadrature LFOs here control the VCAs for four duty-modulated sine wave oscillators. The notes for the sines are determined by an eight-note shift register, with each oscillator using a sample and hold output spaced two notes apart (so tapped at sample and holds 1, 3, 5, and 7).
There is also a sort of “mod” LFO that controls the rate of the quadrature LFOs and their intensity; it also triggers a number of random modules throughout the patch each time it reaches 0 (including one governing its own rate and another governing how much it affects the rate of the quadrature LFOs).
The oscillators are spread across the stereo field, then processed through a stereo pair of bandpass filters that are also modulated by LFOs that are 30 degrees out of phase to further complicate the stereo image.
After that, there is a standard mod delay and plate reverb pair to add ambiance.
The output of the VCAs is also fed into a looper, which probabilistically records snippets, then plays them back at either an octave down, a fifth down, a fifth up, or an octave up, fed back into the bandpass filters.
The modulated quadrature arrangement, along with the use of the stereo field, really gives the sound a sinuous character, I think, with notes sort of flowing over one another. The use of the multi-tapped shift register also means the melody seems to both evolve and recur in ways that are not always easy to track, but, I think, very pleasing.
If you want to join me for one of these livestreams, I generally start them around 8:30 AM (US Eastern time) on Saturday mornings. Stop in, say hi, plug your own stuff, offer a hot take, etc. or just lurk and listen.
Also, I restarted my Patreon, since people have asked a lot about that, if you want to support the stuff I do (overly long livestreams, videos of trees, etc.):
