The Sunken World — a soundscape and chaos patch

Combining ring mod, delay, and reverb into one patch, with the option to place the ring mod following the delay or in its feedback path, the Sunken World creates rich, modulated soundscapes.

With some fairly unconventional modulation approaches, the delay can produce everything from static comb filtering and random flanging to scattershot, unpredictable bendings of time and pitch. The ring mod (technically, audio multiply modules, because I prefer their output), meanwhile, features a robust modulation section, with barberpole options that provide the sensation of continuously rising and falling pitch to random ring modulation, for the classic sci-fi feel. All of these are fed into a reverb lite module, which, when fully wet, can smear and transform the input into dense, noisy soundfields, rife with unexpected pitch stabs and rolling modulation. I picked a dystopia-inspired patch title for a reason.

It is a difficult patch to describe, and it would suggest listening to the sound clip. Although the sound clip only covers a fraction of the things this patch can produce (some of which are actually fairly pleasant, although it does tend toward the… not unpleasant, but definitely not ‘pastoral’ sounds). I discover something new each time I play through it.

The signal is stereo throughout.

A special thanks to my patrons on Patreon for their support: Rob Flax, Stepan Grammatik, brockstar, Mats Unnerholm, D Sing, Will Scott, drew batchelor, Miguel, Steve Bragg, Joab Eastley, Tomi Kokki, Mitch Lantz, Ben Norland, and Daniel Morris!

If you would like to support my work on ZOIA, please visit patreon.com/chmjacques

Controls:

Stompswitches:

Left, latching — This changes the order of the ring mod. When the button at the center of the front page is dim, the ring mod follows the delay. When it is lighted up, the ring mod is in the feedback path of the delay.

Middle, latching — Turns the delay modulation off and on. When on, there is a light in the delay modulation section which lights up.

Right, latching — Turns the reverb on and off. This is connected to a slew limiter, which allows the reverb to swell in and wash out the cacophony. If you want to change the rate with which this occurs, the slew limiter is on the bottom of the second page (page 1) and has also been starred. When the reverb is activated, a light next to the reverb controls lights up.

Front page:

At the top are controls for the mix of the patch and the reverb:

Mix — wet/dry mix

Pre-verb mix — this controls a mix between the ring and delay-modulated signal and your dry signal before it reaches the reverb; you can think of this as a sort of “intensity” control, but it also allows you to choose whether the modulation dominates the reverb’s output or complements your playing as a backdrop

Reverb mix — mix for the reverb; I tend to prefer very high mixes, to “wash” the sound, but you can extract other sounds with other ratios

Reverb decay — reverb decay; again, I prefer very long decays.

On the left-hand side are controls for the delay:

Delay time & delay feedback — the delay can go up to 16s, but because of the peculiar scaling of delay lines, values below ~.550-.600 are thoroughly in comb filter/flange territory; combine with high feedback and modulation with very shallow depths to create interesting flange tones

Delay mod rate & depth — the modulation is uni-directional; the max depth is always related to the longest delay time; as depth is increased, all hell breaks loose (in a good way)

“Random or square” — this button switches between random modulation and square-wave modulation; there is no “chorus-like” sine/triangle wave modulation to be found here, but the square can produce somewhat more conventional modulation effects, with very low depth

On the right side are controls for the ring mod:

Ring mod freq and ring mod duty — You will note that the frequency is set to note intervals. This is help for creating barberpole sounds, but I also think, in general, with a ring mod, it makes it easier to dial in sounds. Regarding the duty cycle: as you deviate from the 0 position (a 50% duty cycle) more distortion is introduced into the ring mod’s output.

Ring mod rate and depth — for barberpole effects, slow is good; values of ~.050 or lower will produce the best results. Unfortunately, this is too slow for much of any result from the square or random modulations, so as you change waveforms, you may have to adjust the rate. The depth control is also set to note intervals to make dialing in interesting, pitch-based effects easier (this is true for the barberpole settings, but it also applies to the square wave–try setting the depth to A1, i.e. plus one octave).

Waveform select — a series of UI buttons, labeled with the corresponding modulation shapes for the ring mod frequency. When a given wave is selected, the UI button in the bottom right corner will reflect its color.

A couple tips:

If you want to “disable” the delay, set its time and feedback to 0. When the ring mod is set to follow the delay, this will make it as though the delay isn’t even there. Additionally, you can also disable the ring mod at this point, by placing it in the delay’s feedback loop, but then you have a very elaborate reverb lite patch.

The ring mod can’t be disabled, but when its depth is set to 0 (A0), it becomes static, which can allow for some neat ring modded delay sounds.

Sound clip:

0:00-0:34 — Welcome to the Sunken World. Here, we are listening to a short, fixed delay, acting as a comb filter, being fed into a static ring mod to produce resonant swells. Following it all up is a reverb lite, set to about a 66% wet mix.

0:35-1:07 — Let’s listen to a sound as a whole, then break it into its components. First, I remove the reverb to reveal the glitchy, delay and ring mod cacophony beneath. Then, I disable the delay modulation, revealing a fairly conventional ring mod sound.

1:08-1:44 — A review of the ring mod’s modulation options: barberpole up, barberpole down, square (too slow here), and random (which after hearing the square I sped up).

1:45-2:17 — Let’s make a new soundscape. First, a barberpole up ring mod. Then reverb. Finally, I begin modulating the delay. Sorry for the clipping; this patch can get a little… unruly.

2:18 — Another soundscape. Here, we have another barberpole ring mod. First, it follows the delay, causing the repeats to sound as though they continually rise. Then the ring mod is placed in the feedback loop of the delay.

2:52 — Let’s add some random delay modulation. Like pixies in a blender.

3:10 — Now, washed out in reverb, it sounds a bit like a busy subway station, with random noises and screeching trains filling out the space.

One comments on “The Sunken World — a soundscape and chaos patch
  • tomikoo on said:

    What can I say… Wow, you are just an artist with these patches. So inspiring. Really loving the Youtube video breakdowns as well.

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