Looking out over a rainy city at night. That's the idea I had in mind while working on this patch. And while the visualisation of such an idea and its interpretation into audio are very subjective, I'm not mad at the end result.
Even though I've used it a number of times before, it still amazes me what you can end up with when you take the effects-only output of a reverb module and compare it with what went into the module. That is how the first voice of this patch was created. It starts with a simple root note and its fifth playing sequentially as sixteenth notes at sixty bmp. These notes are given to two chained FM-OP modules and to a Flag Prodigal Son module (i.e. a super-saw) that's sent into a Surge XT filter. All of these modules have slow modulations applied to them to bring some movement into the tones they generate and the result is mixed together and sent into a Surge XT reverb module. While the input into that module may be sequential notes, the effects-only output becomes an ambient modulating wash. And just to bring some additional variation into it, the root note on the input side is sometimes switched an octave, making the overall tone move a little higher or a little lower.
The next task was to try and bring some of the "rainy city" aspect into the mix. A rain/wind effect is constantly faded in and out by sending some (red) noise through a filter and a VCA and modulating both the filter cut-off frequency and the output volume. Some additional raindrops are added to this using the Macro Oscillator, but this is kept very low in the mix since this turned out to be too distracting at a higher volume.
One additional aspect I wanted to try to add to the patch was the sound of passing cars in the rain. Sending some (white) noise through a filter and opening and closing that filter every now and again for a short time tries to mimic that sound.
At this point I got stuck. Anything I tried to add was either too disruptive, or got completely absorbed by the background voices. In the end, it was the good old FM-OP module that saved one of the attempts I couldn't get to fit in. After trying a couple of different oscillators, using the FM-OP made it all fall into place. This voice picks two of the chord notes of the active root note (chord notes provided by the dIKTaT module, and note picking done by the 4rounds module), puts them in a variable octave to bring some variation and sends them through the two chained FM-OP modules that are modulated by the 4FO LFO and have a long volume envelop set. Their output is sent into the Chronoblob delay, which is set to a ping-pong delay. Because only the right channel of the delay receives an input signal, the Chronoblob will make this voice move from left to right and back, giving it some more stereo depth.
The last missing foreground part was something with some more tonal movement. So I turned to one of my favourites: a Dark Energy oscillator into the FLAG Tap Dancer delay. The notes are generated by a Geodesics Branes (for the random input) into a Pulsars (for making it a note sequence), combined with a 4FO LFO through a Torus mixer to make the notes slowly move up and down the range. These notes are fed into a sample and hold module that is triggered by a Bernoulli Gate at 1.5 and 2 times clock speed. Both melody lines are then quantized to the current minor pentatonic scale before being sent into the Dark Energy module which has its internal VCA enabled. Since the attack of the Dark Energy module sounded a bit too abrupt in the mix for my liking, this voice is sent through a separate reverb module before it goes to the main mixer (instead of the other way around). This managed to make the note attacks less pronounced and made the voice sound a bit more distant in the mix.
A final addition to the patch was a set of Basal and Bleak modules that play the root as bass notes. This is usually something that gets added to the patch early on, but in this case I only noticed near the end that the low register could use that little something more.
__Support__
Want to support me? Perhaps buy me a coffee? Check out my Ko-fi page:
ko-fi.com/not_...
__ Setup __
- VCV Rack 2.3.0 on Windows
- All audio generated internally within VCV Rack (no external connections)
- Video is captured by OBS
- Audio output is sent through a VB-Audio Virtual Cable to Ableton Live
- 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.
__ Copyright __
All rights reserved