This patch started out with an idea for a tutorial. The idea revolves around the generation of a randomized melodic voice, based on two different note sequencing ideas. The tutorial can be found at • Two Ideas for Generati... Once I had the patch that was going to be used for the tutorial, I wanted to try and further evolve it to see where it would lead me. So that is where the melodic voice in this patch originated from. Compared to the tutorial version, I changed the parameters for the sound on the oscillators around a bit (for one thing, the Neóni module wasn't intended to sound that harsh in the tutorial end result, I opened up the wavefold attenuator knob more then intended while recording), I added a way to fade the voice in and out of the mix using an additional filter and by opening and closing the reverb, and I used a Fence module on the chord notes to keep them grouped together more as the chords change. But in the end, the majority of this voice still works the same way as it does in the tutorial. It just blends in with the other voices a bit better.
Just a melodic voice doesn't make for an interesting patch however. So that's where the other voices come in. A first one is the bass layer. A Dark Energy module (into a Surge XT Chorus) and a pair of FM-OP modules play the root notes of the chord sequences that live beneath this patch. Both the Dark Energy and the FM-OPs have modulation applied to them to bring some movement into the bass sound.
There are two sequences of eight chords in play here, both coming from the Geodesics Ions module. When one sequence finishes, the Ions module chooses at random whether it switches to the other sequence, or if it repeats the current one.
With the melodic voice and the bass register taken care of, it's time to look at adding something to fill up the middle range of the sonic spectrum. Based on the notes of the current chord, two separate paths will play notes that get sent into a reverb to generate a combined pad sound. The first path is roughly based on the "Slowly evolving ambient background Voice" tutorial I made earlier ( • Creating a slowly evol... ), where the chord notes are played by the Prodigal Son through a filter. In the second path, an Instruo Saïch is playing several slightly detuned versions of the root of the current chord into another filter. Both these paths have modulation applied to their parameters by a Vult Caudal module, and get blended together in varying amounts into a wet-only reverb, resulting in some additional movement in this voice.
Above this all, a voice using another FM-OP module is playing long notes (either the root, thrid or fifth of the curren tchord) every now and again into a Tap Dancer delay module to draw them out a bit more. The feedback on the FM-OP module is changed randomly by one of the outputs of a Vult Caudal module during the playback of each note to make it move between a more rounded and a harsher sound. This makes the notes either blend in with the rest of the sound, or separate themselves from it.
A final addition to the mix is some noise that moves in and out at a low volume. A Macro Oscillator (i.e. Mutable Instruments Plaits) set to the Particle Noise model gets both its volume, panning and noise intensity modulated by an Instruo Ochd module, resulting in some crackeling that can be heard in the background when some room opens up between the other voices. Sometimes it sounds a bit like raindrops, other times it's as if there is some static on the line.
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__ Setup __
- VCV Rack 2.4.1 Pro on Windows
- All audio generated internally within VCV Rack (no external connections)
- Video is captured by OBS
- RAW FLAC Audio output from VCV Rack
- Audio recording synced to OBS, and fade added at the end with Reaper
- OBS video and Reaper audio are merged and cut to length using Shutter Encoder.
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