The Canyon -- a drone synth for dense, distorted atmospheres

Inspired by drone synth makers such as Soma and Resonance Circuits, the Canyon excels at dark, rich atmospheres.  There are four voices, each controlled by a keyboard module; each voice is composed of two triangle wave oscillators (which can be waveshaped) multiplied against a sine oscillator to produce ring modulation (everything from tremolos to metallic timbres to deep harmonics).

The keyboards are tuned to D minor pentatonic, with the bottom two keyboards occupying a bass register, set a fifth apart, and the top two occupy a lead register, once again set an octave apart.  The envelopes for the voices are determined by pitch, so the bass notes have long attacks and releases, while the leads have generally shorter (or no) attacks and releases.

Any of the voices can also be set to drone.

The voices pass through a delay and reverb lite to add to the murky atmospherics.

Although generally designed for dissonance and distortion, there are certain settings that are much more harmonious and pure.

===== The Canyon M patch notes =====

'M' means MIDI and replaces the keyboard module control via the front page with MIDI control.  Additionally, pitchbend has been routed to the ring modulator frequency, and a control to set the range of the pitchbend is available via the front page.  (I thought this was the more beneficial routing, but you can re-route pitchbend as you see fit.)

For the most part, this adaptation preserves the original design.  The combination of free-running and drone voices made possible through individual keyboard module control is not as simple when operating over MIDI.  The most 'accurate' design would have been to employ each voice on an individual MIDI channel and treat the patch as what it sort of really is:  multi-timbral instances of similar voices rather than a polyphonic synth sharing the same means of articulation.

In this case, rather than preserving the individual drone switches, a single drone switch will cause all voices to drone.  That said, if you want to only drone a couple of voices, the solution to do so is simply to use your fingers to sustain those notes while other notes are played around them.

The MIDI channel is set to 1 by default, but this can be changed.  The MIDI note in module and the pitchbend in module are found on the same page.

A brief video on the MIDI version can be found here:  https://youtu.be/5UjQ6CMjJXE

===== Back to original patch notes =====

Controls:

The keyboards occupy most of the control panel.  Beside each keyboard is a white pushbutton, "Drone," which will set that voice to drone.

Across the bottom are the controls for the voices:

Ring mod offset determines the offset of the ring modulating sine wave from the key being played.

Oscillator 2 offset allows the second triangle wave oscillator to be set at an interval from the key being played (one oscillator will always track the keyboard).  There is also a fine tune, so you can detune the second oscillator against the first.

Shape allows you to change the shape (duty cycle) of the triangle waves.  Higher values have more harmonic complexity.

There is also a noise mod that allows you to add harmonics and distortion to the voices.

Delay mod controls the depth of the delay mod.  I designed it to produce pitch changes as well as warbles, so a little goes a long way.

Ambience is a macro that governs the delay feedback, delay and reverb mix, and reverb decay.

The HPF filter allows you to thin out some of the (very deep) bass the patch can produce, if you want.

The left stompswitch changes the time of the delay randomly.