Filter FM Drones

Let's explore some oscillating filter FM drones!

For most of my eurorack "carreer" my setup has consisted of fairly modern, often digital and feature packed modules, but I've secretly also had a fascination with more "classical" setups in the school of early Buchla and Serge systems. So I recently pulled the trigger on a couple of modules to make a sort of easy shortcut conversion of my system into something slightly more in that vein: The idea was to "dumb down" some of the more advanced features, and replace them with more straightforward, bread-and-butter modules.

So (for the time being at least) my Stages, Sample Drum and Wogglebug have been substituted by a Qu-Bit Contour and Tone. Just an array of basic function generators and filters with nice, chunky controls and less frills. I find it lends itself a little more to experimentation and "patching from the hip", so to speak.

Patch notes:

I have the first three Tone filters set to self-oscillate, and FM each other in a circular patch: Using the bandpass output from each filter to modulate the frequency of the next, with the third feeding back into the first (1 into 2 into 3 into 1). What you’re hearing is then the lowpass output from filters 1 and 2, mixed in Optomix with two envelopes from Contour controlling the levels, and finally that mix is sent through the last filter (lowpass) and then through Mimeophon. Yeah, no problem putting four filters to use, even in a small system!

While I wish that each Contour channel was actually an analog Maths-style envelope, it does have some digital advantages: The first of those envelopes, which is looping, is set up to internally trigger the second at the end of the attack stage. You can actually have more than one of the envelopes internally triggering the same envelope, which is a pretty cool way to create rhythms and such.

~~~

Cheers!

As always, if you like the channel and want to support it in some way, please consider buying some of my music via https://comparativeirrelevance.bandca...




ModularGrid: https://www.modulargrid.net/e/racks/v... https://linktr.ee/comparativeirrelevance