Rig with Motif Pulse and MPC

I have been attempting to make a psytrance song lately.  This is a picture of my keyboard rig.  The wood ends on the Pulse make it much more control friendly.

The MIDI connection is as follows:

Motif MIDI In <- MIDI Out of Computer
Motif MIDI Out -> MIDI In of Computer
Motif MIDI Thru -> Pulse MIDI In
Motif Local Control = Off
Reaper is Running on the computer with a track set to:
  I/O = MIDI Out
  Record enabled
  Record input: Audio or MIDI
  Monitor enabled
  Input = MIDI In (All Channels)

That way I can play the arp on the Motif (Note the Motif arp can be set to a different MIDI channel than the regular MIDI channel!) and either record it to Reaper or listen to it on the Pulse.

MPC is not connected in this photo.

Very Bizarre Filter Revisited

A while ago I came up with a design for a very bizarre filter which attempted combine a fuzz distortion with resonant low pass filter.  Unfortunately the prototype did not pan out.  This is a second attempt at a bizarre filter.  The idea is not to create a certain type of filter but to deliberately introduce distortion into a filter. 

This design is based on the new filter Ray Wilson is using on his Noise Toaster.  The Noise Toaster is an excellent sounding box which gives you a lot of options in a small space.  I was looking for a simple filter design so that I could try out some experiments without using a whole pile of chips.  The advantage of this filter is that it uses only one op amp.  I had been experimenting with Ray's Weird Sound Generator filter since it is very simple.  This new filter is an improvement over the WSG filter.

The first modification I decided to try was putting in some diodes.  I found that putting a diode and a potentiometer that could be switched on and off in the resonance section allowed for a lopsided resonance which should give some unique character to the sound.

The second modification I wanted to do was to subtract a low pass signal from the resonant low pass signal. That should result in just the resonance from the signal.  Next I wanted to add some hard edges to the signal so I passed it through the an op amp at high gain.  Finally I added another resonant filter at the end to reintroduce resonance on the newly created peaks.  Leaving in all of the controls gives nine different controls for messing with resonance and distortion.

The left trace shows Ray's original filter, the next trace shows the diode modified filter, the next trace shows the clipped resonance signal and the next image shows the re-filtered signal.

I have not built this device yet, I will have to wait to see if it works out.  If I build it I will post a video.  I am hoping to add a filter to a NAND synth so I may use this one.

Heavily Modified APC

This is a heavily modified Atari Punk Console.  Modifications include pitch and mod Cv inputs, resonant low pass filter from the Ray Wilson's Weird Sound Generator, dual low frequency oscillator with cross feedback, selector knob for up to six different capacitor pairs ranging from control frequencies to high pitched oscillator frequencies.

 The circuit for this is on the bottom right:

Analog Sequencer

I finished an analog 10 step sequencer based on one of Ray Wilson's designs with some modifications.  For one thing I made it based on 9V so I could use my standard power supply.  I used a 555 for the clock instead of Ray's clock.  I ended up leaving most of the gate generating part which I later regretted but I would need to add a daughter board to fix it.  I used ten different colored LEDs on this device.  The 10 knobs control the voltage sent to the left output.  The knob by the left output controls glide, the knob by the right output controls step time.  The right output is supposed to be a gate but it only works if you have every other switch up and down.

Another issue is that it outputs a voltage from 4.5 - 9 V rather than 0 - 9V or -4.5 - + 4.5 etc which is problematic with most other synths.  In the next revision I would try to change that as well as a few other things.

Anyway, not too bad for a first prototype.  The videos demonstrate how it sounds:

And another:

Accompanied by a Yamaha CS01 analog synthesizer using a breath control to modulate filter cut off and processing both through a Lexicon Vortex.  The sequencer is modulating  a modified Atari Punk Console that is part of the Thing 2 device.  That device also has a NAND synth, noise generator and starve features.

I added a resonance knob to the CS01 as can be seen in the video.

Here are some pictures of the sequencer in progress.

Thing 2 vs. Steam Drone

In this video I do an improvisation using my Thing 2 NAND/APC/Noise drone box and Steam Drone box.

The Steam Drone is on the left.  The system combines a NAND synth with a resonant low pass filter based on the LM13700 OTA.  The LEDs use two transistors and capacitors to do flashing lights (yellow and red). The knobs control the frequency of the three NAND oscillators as well as the level of audio sent to the filter.  It turns out the filter performance depends somewhat on the input level.  the next set of knobs include Q, filter cut-off, and output volume.  The knob on the far left is a potentiometer that the input voltage passes through.  When this is all the way to the right it passes the voltage unaltered.  As you move it to the left the input current has to pass through more and more resistance essentially starving the circuit of voltage.  Starve is one of my favorite effects because the circuits get into a mode where they don't behave like they are supposed to, before they shut down completely.  Three of the switches control are used to link the NAND oscillators directly to the output, the other switch turns on the power.

The box on the right is the Thing 2 system.  This is a board I made by combining the following circuits: NAND synth, Atari Punk Console, low pass filter, zener diode noise source, blinking light circuit.  I had a bunch of layouts drawn up so I decided to combine all of these on a single board.  The noise part of the circuit was not making any noise so I kept increasing the resistor value over the op amp to increase the gain but it still would not make noise for me.  I noticed however that the whole circuit was producing noise so I settled for that.  This box has additional inputs for the control voltage of the 556 which basically controls mod and pitch.  I also added an input for the filter to process an external signal since the noise wasn't working.

Something interesting occurs on the Thing 2 when you starve the circuit.  The noise starts to become enhanced and the LEDs start having a big impact on the sound.  I was originally disappointed with the flashing light part of the circuit because the flashing of the lights is not related to the sound the device makes.  As you starve the circuit though, each time the lights flash they make a sound.  So I ended up really liking this circuit.  It was sort of a whim to combine all of these circuits on one board but I like the results a lot.  I ended up with two other indicator LEDs, yellow and green, in addition to the flashing ones, blue and red.

I had photo cube from Michael's which was big enough to hold the circuits and the knobs and I had used a photo cube for the Thing 1 device.  I came up with the idea to cut pieces of Fresnel lens and mount them on the inside surface of the photocube.  This gives a really cool effect when the lights are out.

Hadronistics

Hadronistics involves the study and application of Hadristors; gravitational devices which which play an essential role in FTL (Faster Than Light) transportation.

Took this one down.

This piece was done by improvising four different long sounds using home made boxes including the Thing 2 device depicted in the image.  The Thing 2 device combines an Atari Punk Console, a NAND Synth, an Odd Filter and a noise source in a single box with four LEDs, two of which are blinking.  The walls of the box are covered with fresnel lenses to give the impression of something which look larger on the inside than it does on the outside (TARDiS).  Other instruments used are an APC expanded with a capacitor array and odd filter used as input to a Bass++ drum trigger for rhythm patterns.

The Thing 1 noise source, NAND Synth 1 and 2 with VCF LPF 1, some signals were processed through a Motif with chorus, reverb, phasing and delay.  The entire sound was processed in Reaper with Apple reverb and Voxengo Elephant for compression.

Thing 2 and Steam Drone

This video demonstrates my Thing 2 device with a Steam Drone device.

Phaser, echo, reverb, and chorus added with a Motif.

Steam Punk Drone/Noise Box

I found this box at a thrift shop a while ago and was trying to come up with a circuit to put in it.  I finally decided on a circuit made from a NAND synth combined with resonant low pass filter.  The controls are as follows:

Top row (left to right) Power on, NAND Osc 1 to output, NAND Osc 2 to output, NAND Osc 3 to output

Middle row (L to R): Starve (10 kOhm Pot on supply V), Q, Fco, Output volume

Bottom row (L to R): NAND1 Fqc, NAND2 Fqc, NAND3 Fqc, NAND input level to filter.

Back (not shown) Ext. Audio Input, Fco Cv input, Output.

Note: Below the glass plate are a couple of blinking diodes.

The control voltage mix op amp is to the left.  It turns out this section did not function because apparently I forgot to tie some stuff to ground and -V.  The NAND gate chip is on the right.  In the middle is the VCF based on LM13700.  This is the filter schematic.  Note this has an error the transistors on the right need to be grounded.  I think there is another error too.  (The NAND synth section is not shown)  The TL972 I am was using did not seem to work in this application.  I am replacing it with a TL082 in future versions.  Not quite sure why.

Updated circuit diagram and PCB layout.  IC pin spacing should be .1".

Salen-Key VCF

This is a voltage controlled low pass filter with three control voltage inputs and three audio inputs.  Designed for 9V but could be higher.  This design has not been tested so use at your own risk.

Chaotic Circuits

Ian Fritz has a number of chaotic circuits on his page that look really interesting.  I thought I would start with one of the simpler ones.  This is my drawing of the Driven Damped Well chaotic oscillator.  Unfortunately this does not seem to make any sound when I power it on so I need to trouble shoot it.

Update: I did some trouble shooting but it still does not behave as expected. (chaotically) it seems to be passing the original sound to the output.  I am monitoring the NL output so I think I will switch over to the X output.

Update 2: I did more trouble shooting and switched the output to X and now it does indeed behave chaotically although in a not very usable fashion at the moment.  One thing I love about chaotic systems is that they depend on prior initial conditions.  So as you turn the knobs the circuit may not be making any sound, then you pass a point and here a blip, as you tweak around the blip you gradually bring it into oscillation.  Suddenly the oscillation goes away and you get silence again.

I have been feeding the output of an Atari Punk Console in to drive this circuit.  At some settings it has been making some overtones and clicks but they are difficult to find.

Current DIY Projects

 These are some pictures of some current DIY synthesizer projects.  This first one is a 10 step sequencer with a 555 clock.  I used different colored LEDs for each step (not sure if this will mess up functionality yet).

The next one is my DACPOD.  This will be mounted in a case and combines a simple resonant VCF with an Atari Punk Console and my blinking light circuit to give it two flashing LEDs.

 This circuit is supposedly a snare drum but it needs a couple of capacitors and a transistor yet.

This is a Rossler Attractor chaotic oscillator circuit.  Should have put some caps on the outputs for this one.

This circuit combines (left to right) a control voltage mixer, a voltage controlled resonant low pass filter, and a NANDsynth oscillator as well as blinking LEDs along the top.  This circuit ended up as my Steam Drone box.

Atari Punk Console

This is my layout for my Atari Punk Console.  This is about as compact as you can probably make this device without going to surface mount.  The + and - go to a switch to the battery.  The P+ supplies the positive voltage to the two pots (right side), the PP goes to the wiper of the Pitch Pot, the PM goes to the wiper of the Mod Pot, CvR provides a voltage to the two control voltage RTS 1/4 jacks and should connect to the ring of both jacks.  This will allow you to use an expression pedal to sweep pitch or mod.  Note the resistor presents too much current from flowing if you short out the connection.  The CvP goes to the tip of the pitch control voltage quarter inch, and the CvM goes to the tip of the mod control voltage quarter inch jack.  The output goes to the tip of the 1/4 right of an audio pot 10k-100k.  The wiper goes to the tip of quarter inch jack.  The sleeve of the jacks should all be connected together and grounded.

This design makes use of both modulation connections on the 556 chip so you can modulate pitch and wave shape.

This setup has the following additional components:

2 stereo 1/4 inch jacks for control voltage or expression pedal input
1 mono 1/4 inch jack for output
2 500k - 1M linear taper pots (either work) for pitch and wave form modulation
1 10k-100k audio taper pot (either should work) for volume
1 SPST toggle switch for on/off
1 battery clip or 9V supply connecter (or both)
1 case of some type, a lot of options here but I like the "Really Useful Box" series from Office Depot because they are easy to drill holes in.

Here is a video demonstration of this device:

You can use this to make a PCB.  You will have to scale to the correct size.  The spacing between the pins on the chip should be 0.1 inch.  The output will be the contact on the far right.

Inspiration

Sometimes I find myself searching for inspiration when creating music.  I want to make some music but I'm not sure what to do.  I think everyone has this problem from time to time, staring at a blank page.  In this article I'll describe some sources of inspiration that you might want to try.

Patch it

Synthesizer patches or presets can often be a source for inspiration.  I hate to use someone else's patch directly but they can often inspire me in a piece.  Often times a patch can suggest a certain mood or type of piece.  Or it may inspire me to create a similar patch.  One cool source of patch inspiration is the randomize feature.  My Waldorf Pulse analog synth has a random patch generator.  This is a really cool feature for patch inspiration without having to worry about copying someone else's work.  You can keep generating random patches until you find something that sound really cool, then tweak it a little bit to make it more usable.  I notice some software synthesizers have this randomize feature and I wish others would included it.  You can also get some inspiration from a new plug-in.

Got Rhythm

I'm not a drummer and I must confess I don't have great drum intuition which is probably OK for working with ambient sound but hurts quite a bit when I want to make some techno.  One technique I found is to find a piece of music with a similar style to what I want to make, then focus on just the kick.  I try to match the kick pattern, not necessarily the kick sound.  I don't have to match the pattern precisely because I really don't want to match the pattern precisely.  I just want to have a nice sounding unique kick pattern.  Sometimes once I have the kick pattern I can add the rest of the percussion sounds myself.  The second drum I usually add is the snare.  I may also base the snare pattern on another track if I need to.  The next pattern to add is the high hat pattern.  Then add other sounds.  I also like to mix acoustic and electronic drum sounds to provide more depth.

Sacred Chord

Stealing a kick pattern from another song is OK for inspiration, why not some chords.  Of course you probably wouldn't want to steal all of the chords for a song, then you would just have someone else's song, but there are some other ways to do this.  I have a large number of music books.  Sometimes times I like to browse through them and play certain chord progressions, ignoring the rest of the music, just jamming on the chord progressions to see if I can find a groove I like.  So even if the progression was originally from a country ballad or a classical piece it may end up in a bit of my electronic music.  Beethoven and Mozart were great at putting together chords.

Another variation on this is to take a certain artist and try to integrate their overall sound.  I'm a big fan of Pink Floyd and I like to make music with a bit of a Floyd vibe but I wouldn't want to copy their music directly.  So I studied how they bring their chords together, the types of chords they use.  Then use similar chord structures to make original songs.

Limit Your Palette

I have a lot of equipment but sometimes have too many options works against you.  I sometimes like to stick with just one instrument or a pair of instruments.  Once I tried to do a whole piece with just software synthesizers.  After you get a good sound going you can always fill it out with other sounds.

Beauty

A beautiful landscape, a beautiful person or feeling can also be the source of inspiration.  Don't forget those.

Hopefully you may find this information helpful when you are seeking to stimulate your muse.

Remixing Part 2

I was working on a remix of my friend Brian Bethke's song Red Window.  This song works really well for a remix because it does not have a complex bass part, so I could just low shelf filter the bass out of the song and work from there.  Here is my original remix:

Red Window (Plasma Remix 1)

At this point I like to take a little time and listen to the song.  I usually burn it to disk and listen to it in my car to make sure everything sounds balanced etc.  I wanted to make the break a little more interesting too.  I worked some more on it and added some new parts.  I think I increased the length of the breaks a bit.  After that this is the version I came up with:

Red Window (Plasma Remix 2)

I then posted both copies for Brian to review.  I also asked a DJ friend of mine, Alex, to review the songs.  Alex had some great suggestions on how to build energy and I did a third version of the song based on those suggestions.

Red Window (Plasma Remix 3)

At this point I am planning on giving this project a rest for a while and work on some other projects.  I may come back to it later but the remix is pretty good as it is.

Blog out,
Plasma Portal

Remixing

I decided that a good way to get into music production would be to do a remix.  I contacted a friend who had written a song with a bit of an electronica vibe to it about doing a remix of the song and he was happy to agree to it.  He even volunteered to send me some files. To get started I ripped a copy of his song from a CD and loaded it into Audacity.  The next thing I needed to do was to figure out the tempo of the song.  Let's say a four beat measure is 1.845 seconds.

BPM = 4 beats /1.845 s x 60 s/min = 130 bpm.

The other way to do this is to load the sample into Reaper and modify the tempo until the song matches up with the measure lines in Reaper.  This is probably the best time to do any time stretching to the entire file if you intend to change the original tempo of the song since the next step is to chop up individual pieces of the song to prepare for remixing.  Changing the time often results in artifacts so its best not to do it if you don't have to.  In this case I did not want to change the time.  Both Audacity and Reaper have time stretch/pitch shift capabilities if you want to change the key or tempo of the song.  I suggest auditioning them all to see which one sounds the best.

I did not need to make any real modifications in Audacity except to save it as a wav to a new directory that would hold all of the remix files for this song.  I then went through the song and isolated different song sections.  There was an intro with some reversed instrument sounds that lasted about a measure, the outro was nearly identical.  There were a couple of two measure sections of groove.  There were longer sections of verse and chorus.  There was a short two measure instrument break with just the basic groove.  There was a bridge for a few measures.  There was an electric guitar solo at the end of the song for a few measures.  I used Audacity to create a separate sample for each of these sections and saved them in the remix directory.  In some cases I broke the section down to a single measure and in other cases I saved several measures.  You can do some of this inside of Reaper but I wanted to have easy access to these files.  When I get a little further I may ask my friend for a separate track with just the vocals, just non-percussion instruments, bass & kick and other percussion as separate tracks.  Actually as long as I have vocals on a separate track compared to the other instruments I would be in pretty good shape.

I then opened up Reaper added a new track and loaded this song as a media file into the first track. The first thing I wanted to do with this track was to add a 808/909 kick to it.  It had an acoustic sounding kick that was set far in the background so I wanted to spice up the kick for a dance groove.  The first think I did was to apply an FFT based low shelf filter to filter the lows rolling off around 150 Hz down to zero.  This took much of the bass from the keyboards and drums.  This opened up some space for me to add the drum machine kick and the synth bass.

I really like the Dune software synthesizer plug-in.  I have tried a few others but this one seems to have the best sound.  For this type of work it is probably good to start with MIDI and a software synth.  I can always go to MIDI analog synth later or record digital audio on an acoustic or analog electronic instrument later.

I first added a basic kick drum sound, with the intention of modifying it later to make it more complex (or simpler).  I used Dune and MIDI to create the kick sound.  I then copied the MIDI file to an identical file.  I modifed the copied file to actually remove some of the drum beats.  I used this as a small intro for the kick drum.  I repeated copying and modifying the kick MIDI part to create some more drum variation through out the song.

I next added a bass part.  I auditioned a variety of synth basses until I found one in Dune that I liked and worked with the song.  I created a simple bass part to underscore the melody.  I had to figure out what chords were in the song at this point.  It turned out to be basically a Bb minor song.  I added the bass notes using an Akai mpk mini.  I then went into the MIDI file and quantized the notes manually.  I then added some envelopes and applied one to the amplitude and the other to the filter cut-off so I could fade in the bass and sweep the filter during the part.

I thought the song could use a clap and I added this with Dune as well.  I added an amplitude envelope to fade in the claps over time.

After the first chorus there was a single measure of groove before the next verse so I split the song sample at that point and added a few extra measures from the sample sections I had saved earlier.

In this part I added some strings.  I auditioned a few different strings and although Dune has nice strings I went with Komplete elements strings that I had just bought and added the Guitar Rig Phasor from NI to achieve a phased string effect.  I then played in a string part starting with a lower line then adding a second line about one octave higher.  I copied the string phrase to a few different places throughout the song once I had a part that I liked.  To get a good part I played back the song main line and improvised string harmonies along with it  until I ended up with a nice sounding part.  I added volume envelopes to the sound arranged the fading.

I had learned from reading some articles to always mix at a low volume.  I find this technique works really well.  You know you can almost always hear a part with the volume cranked but can you hear it at low volumes?  When I do a mix I always turn the volume down to a low level and bring each instrument down until you can't really hear it then gradually bring it up until it sounds balanced.  I do this with each different part one at a time.  After I think I have a good mix I turn up the volume and verify that no parts need to be adjusted.

After this I saved a mix to disk brought it into Audacity and used Voxengo Elephant for compression (Master's punch) finally saving to MP3.  I burned the original song and the new mix to CD so I could listen in my car.  I have quite a bit of car time so I like to listen to mixes in the car.  It also helps me understand if it is a good mix if it sounds good in a car with all of the traffic noise.

That's about as far as I have gotten in the remix process so far.  Some of the next steps are to expand some of the other non vocal parts and add some solo synth instruments.  I'm thinking of adding a more complex sound to the intro or possibly the outro.  I may want to capture some of the original kick rhythm, use some extreme filtering or effects on some of the original tracks.  I have to add some sweeps, ramps, splashes and rolls to improve the transitions.

The second aspect of remixing was to review some remixes that I liked.  I read the Wikipedia entry on remixing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remix and then found several of the suggested remixes on Youtube and listened to them so I could get a feel for the history of the remix.  I also found a number of remixes in my song collection and listened to them to see how they handled it.  I also listened to some of my favorite electronic artists to study how they put their songs together so I could use similar techniques.

Blog out,
Plasma Portal

Welcome to the Portal Blog

Welcome to the Plasma Portal blog.  I decided to start this blog to discuss my musical creation efforts and other related interests.  Plasma Portal is the name of my band consisting of one member (myself) but occasionally I have had guest musicians join me.  I am planning to move some of my other music related blogging activities here from my MySpace site: http://www.myspace.com/hans_mikelson/blog.  My main music distribution site is through reverbnation: http://www.reverbnation.com/plasmaportal.  On that site you can check out some of my latest music.  I previously used MySpace for Plasma Portal: http://www.myspace.com/plasmaportal .

I'll provide a bit of background to get you started.  I had been fascinated with electronic music since the 1970s or earlier with musicians such as Tomita and ELP.  I started getting into synthesizers in the 1980s with a Yamaha CS01, DX100 and Casio SK1.  This began my synthesizer collection which has grown to include many more synths over the years.  I became involved with Csound in the mid 1990s and produced a large collection of software Csound effects and instruments many are still available from Rick Boulanger's site: http://www.csounds.com/.  I also became involved on mp3.com during this time and published most of my songs to mp3.com on the album Teknology World.  Mp3.com used to be a site where anyone could join and post music similar to what Reverbnation does now.  You can find out about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP3.com.

A few years ago I started going to open mics and jams and started getting back into music again.  I usually play harmonica with Phil Circle when he appears in Eau Claire http://www.philcirclemusic.com/.