A collection of atmospheric generative patches based on a fantastic science fiction series.

I love Terry Pratchett books but for some reason I overlooked his collaboration with Stephen Baxter, a sci-fi series about parallel worlds called The Long Earth. Man, these are great… very well thought out and immersive! Anyway, I made a bunch of generative patches inspired by the books. I think they capture the atmosphere of the books quite well, reflecting the strangeness and solitude of the stepwise worlds. I’m at the 4th book now, so I might make more of these in the future.

So far, they are all based on pinged bandpass filters and rely on shift register sequencers for their melodies, and they all play sparse melodies and have a massive ambient reverb. But each one is morphed and evolved further from the original one:

=====

[THE LONG EARTH]
This is the first one I made; each voice consists of a simple pinged bandpass filter. There is 2-voice polyphony for the main melody, and a third voice an octave lower that occasionally triggers. The exciter is noise but filtered and heavily aliased, providing some nice variation of each hit. The most distinct thing about this one sound-wise is a pitch detuning option, two randomly looping loopers with some tremolo, and the liquid phaser and plate reverb at the end.

The notes are generated by a simple 5-step shift register sequence, a nice benefit being that you can tap into several of the S&H modules to get multiple related CV sequences at once (e.g. to modulate note velocity). Instead of a regular LFO clock I’m using an LFO that’s modulated by one of the shift register outputs (so it’s almost a Krell-patch!), which produces rhythmic patterns that are still very much unpredictable but more repetitive/musical than just ‘random’ triggers. Another side effect is that when the patch is loaded and the shift register sequence is still empty, there are very few notes, but as it runs for a while it ‘fills up’ and things get livelier. The two ZEBU buttons can give a momentary boost of brightness or momentary increase the note occurrence. This one uses the Major scale (although without a fixed anchoring note it can be anything really).

[THE LONG CALL]
This one is less ambient and more ‘musical’ than previous one. I wanted to imitate the ‘Long Call’ concept from the books where familiar songs are sung in an otherworldly canon, chopped up and cycling through new and old bits, so it uses not one but TWO shift register sequencers simultaneously; one for the low notes, one for the high notes, and high/low notes are alternated. Flip Chance can be set individually for Highs or Lows, which offers some nice options (e.g. low flip chance for the bass paddle, higher chance for the lead melody playing on top).

It doesn’t use the modulated LFO from before, but a steady LFO clock (again to make things more melodic and coherent). However, it’s semi-randomly stopping for longer stretches and then starting again. It uses the same sound engine but with a Chorus instead of a Phaser, and the exciter is a bit different, and the Loopers removed. There are a few long delay lines and really long, wet reverb that keep things going even when the clock is paused, which gives a nice ebb-and-flow to this patch. Here, the two ZEBU buttons can give a momentary full wet reverb or interrupt the melody (it will automatically resume after a while). This one uses a Promethium scale, for a strange, otherworldly mood.

[THE LONG MARS]
This one is a continuation of the first one, but uses two BP filters per voice, for more harmonic content, like glassy plucks. The Long Mars is even more desolate than the Long Earth, so I’ve added some noise washes, fast random pitch modulation to the voices, and instead of the loopers there’s a Granular delay to add background layers. The ZEBU buttons are similar as in the first patch. It uses an Insen scale (never heard of it before, but it sounds very mysterious).

[CONTROLS]
There’s no real need for controls, but you can set a few main ‘rules’ and settings for these patches.
All of these are on PAGE0 and are labeled and starred (see below for a “Picture Manual” in the comments). The Stereo Output module with gain parameter is on PAGE1.

For THE LONG EARTH:
SPREAD (sets the maximum pitch of notes)
OCCURENCE (sets the density at which notes are triggered)
FLIP CHANCE (sets the chance that new notes are injected)
REZ (sets the resonance/decay of all voices)
VEL (sets the velocity of notes)
DETUNE (slow random detune of pitch)

For THE LONG MARS:
FREQ OFFSET (sets the timbre of the sound; replaces DETUNE)

For THE LONG CALL:
FLIP CHANCE HIGHS / FLIP CHANCE LOWS (individual controls for higher and lower shift registers)
(OCCURENCE and DETUNE are removed, there’s a master clock LFO on second page)

=====

[THOUGHTS/IDEAS/PLANS]
Since I have 2 more books to read there’s still plenty of inspiration to draw from, so there I might make more of these in the future.

If there’s any bugs/questions/remarks/requests or suggestions for improvement, please let me know!
Enjoy!

(Image: Ben Simon Rehn)