https://diode.zone/videos/watch/e591185a-8fe1-43ff-b449-02d3a24d2ff4 Here's a patch that includes some sounds you might find in techno, especially techno made with hardware, but none of the harmony or rhythm you might expect. I've been listening to a lot of new-to-me music lately, especially "classical" composers like Pauline Oliveros, Edgard Varese, and Xennakis, as well as a variety of electronic music from Elaine Radigue, Tod Dockstader, Suzanne Ciani, Jorge Antunes, and Josef Anton Riedl, among others. (Side note: There are so many trailblazers in electronic music who happen to be female! Historically we seem to forget them, but hearing some of the amazing things they made, we should strive to remember them. Let's also support those currently making exceptional music with electronics, like the amazing Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith and Paula Temple. If you haven't heard them, please don't listen to my stuff, go listen to them! They're great.) But I digress. I'm really interested in making music that is totally different from music I've made in the past; Music that isn't dependent on traditional harmony and regular, repeating rhythms. I'm trying to find some new sounds and new approaches. I suppose that means this is "experimental music." This patch uses Pure Data, a free and open source graphical programming environment (like Max/MSP, but free- as in beer and freedom- and fully cross-platform), to generate MIDI, which is then sent to software, digital, and analog sound-makers. For the most part it plays itself, but occasionally I jump in to steer it in one direction or another. Patch notes: The PD patch generates semi-random MIDI notes on five channels. The level of activity can be either automatically altered or manually changed (I did a bit of both). It's not completely random though; sometimes PD will "save" notes to a 31 step array (a sequencer, basically) and sometimes it will play notes from the array instead of randomness. In other words, the patch sometimes repeats things, which I think makes everything sound a bit more musical... (but only a little bit more musical!). Five channels of random MIDI are routed into Bitwig Studio. Three of the channels go into Bitwig synths (2 Polysynths and 1 FM synth). One channel gets routed back out into a Korg Volca Keys (not pictured). The final channel goes into the newest module on my modular, an Arduino-based digital oscillator. One of the channels (I forget which one) is copied and sent into a Bitwig drum machine rack, which is half-filled with various bass drum, hihat/cymbal, and other drum sounds. Because the MIDI it receives is fairly random (and only half the slots have sounds in them) we only hear these sounds some of the time. I think that's pretty cool. On the modular, the MIDI note messages change the pitch of the Arduino oscillator and also generate gate messages. Those gate messages go into a gate-to-trigger converter, which triggers an A/D envelope, which in turn modulates a low pass gate (using it like a VCA). The Arduino oscillator wave is modulated by an analog LFO (and knobs!) and then routed into the audio input of the LPG. I coded the Arduino using the fantastic Mozzi library, and packed the code with about 8 different wavetables, all lofi, crunchy, and modulatable from the front panel. The Arduino gate also runs the 10 step sequencer, which is modulating the pitch of an analog square oscillator. That oscillator is going into another VCA which is being modulated by the output of a n AND gate. The Arduino gate and a random square LFO are going into the AND gate, which has the effect of randomly letting us hear the square wave, but only when the Arduino is also spitting out a gate signal. Finally, the output of the LPG is going into a PT2399-based delay module, which is then going into a 3 input mixer with everything else. All that comes out of the modular, goes into an $8 USB audio interface and pops back up in Bitwig. If anybody is interested in downloading the PD patch, let me know and I'll post it somewhere! Tue, 20 Oct 2026 17:13:46 GMT https://validator.w3.org/feed/docs/rss2.html PeerTube - https://diode.zone https://diode.zone/lazy-static/avatars/61b689b7-84d5-43c7-9fa8-e63a7fd1d952.png https://diode.zone/videos/watch/e591185a-8fe1-43ff-b449-02d3a24d2ff4 All rights reserved, unless otherwise specified in the terms specified at https://diode.zone/about and potential licenses granted by each content's rightholder.