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The Spectrum // Modular Eurorack Ambient



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"The Spectrum" is an homage to both the lonely feelings and the beauty that come with being on the autism spectrum. Pianist Glenn Gould, featured in this video, was a "peculiar" man who was misunderstood by neurotypicals the world over. He was never diagnosed as being on the spectrum, and while there is still debate about this today, I certainly feel he lived with a form of autism, perhaps Asperger's. When I was diagnosed with mild Asperger's finally at age 39, it really helped explain a lot regarding why I felt so different for the entirety of my adult life.

This song was born out of learning how to use Mutable Instruments Marbles, which I would place in the category of a "generative sequencer". I have been wanting to push myself to make more generative music for a while now, and I think Marbles is going to help facilitate that moving forward.

I started getting my hands dirty with Marbles by patching a dual voice that took advantage of both channels on Marbles. I only have one filter right now (Intellijel Polaris) so I decided to send both voices through that (simple saw and square waves from my two Intellijel Dixies), and a lot of interesting, unexpected things started happening. Once I had dialed in something pretty sweet on Marbles, I didn't really need to do much more for the patch to feel like a complete piece of music. In fact, there were times when I had this patch running and I just let it go on its own for 10, 15, 20 minutes at a time while doing things around the house and it never got boring.

I'm also proud to say that the take appearing in this video is complete and unedited, which I think keeps with the spirit of generative music. When I was ready to record I did seven complete takes one afternoon, but felt a little rushed at the time. So that night when I got home, I slowed myself down, and really tried to listen to what was happening as the performance unfolded, and my first take from the evening is what I ended up using for the final version.

Upon performing an early version of the piece for my fiancé, she said it sounded a little 'lonely', and I agreed. (I think the OTO BAM reverb contributes to that feeling.) We also both love Glenn Gould, and the way Marbles changed its improvisation so quickly from whole notes to triplets to sixteenth notes while seemingly changing tempo for added emphasis made me think of Gould dramatically working his way through a piece by Bach or Schoenberg. So this is what put the image of Gould in my mind for the video and the title.

Modules Used:

- Mutable Instruments Marbles
- Intellijel Metropolix, Dixie, Polaris, Quadrax, Quad VCA, Triplatt, Noise Tools, Multi FX, Audio I/O 1U
- ALM Busy Circuits Pamela's New Workout
- OTO BAM

Patch Notes:

- Two Dixies, one saw wave and one square, mixed with Quad VCA
- Each voice has its own envelope via Quadrax
- Marbles triggering envelope for sawtooth wave voice on Quadrax ("t" side) and V/Oct on both Dixies ("X" side)
- Vacillating LFO on Quadrax modulating Marbles Steps knob (attenuated with Triplatt, sent to sample & hold on Noise Tools, which in turn was triggered by output A of Metropolix set to trigger every stage change)
- Pamela sending slow square LFO to modulate Marbles X bias knob
- Metropolix slowly triggering envelope for square wave voice on Quadrax (various ratcheting on each stage), also used as primary clock for Marbles and Pam's
- Saw and square wave envelopes mixed together with Triplatt then sent to Polaris for modulation of the filter cutoff
- Mixed output of Quad VCA going into Polaris filter set to low pass -24db/oct
- Polaris into Multi FX set to chorus (stereo out) into Audio I/O 1U into BAM reverb
Category
Audio
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