Modular Classical Sessions - Excerpts from String Quartet No. 8 by Shostakovich

Excerpts from Dmitri Shostakovich's String Quartet No. 8 in C minor, Op. 110, my second project voicing and interpreting some of my favorite classical pieces in eurorack (See the first, Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 at    • Lockdown Modular Sessions - Brandenburg Co...  ).

00:00 II. Allegro Molto
02:43 III. Allegreto
06:42 IV. Largo
11:18 V. Largo

The focus of this piece was capturing the dynamics as written. I like doing projects like this to push myself beyond typical electronic music sound design, and to learn new patching practices and techniques. Some details on the patch --

Since there are a lot of double stops and velocity variations in this piece, I used the Loom firmware on Yarns in 2P mode. Loom lets you map two sources of modulation to the extra CV outs instead of the bottom row being dedicated to the clock, as is the case in the stock firmware.

The main VCO is Klavis Twin Wave since it's the only somewhat "poly" VCO I have in the rack at the moment. The Klavis' SuperSaw is backed by samples from my Emax collection played via the ER-301. Also, there's a bit of S/H modulation on the SuperSaw spread - a bit too much at times ;(.

Since the Klavis only has an FM input for the first OSC, I "attempted" vibrato using precision adders on two of my Distings, using Maths for the envelope and Blinds to modulate the pitch CV. Even with two levels of attenuation, it was extremely hard not to overdo it.

The main ADSR envelopes and VCAs are the ER-301. It was easy to take the velocity feed from Yarns and map it to parameters on the envelopes like shortening the attack or emphasizing the sustain dip at high-velocity levels. Also, added a touch of a noise envelope on the attack to simulate fingers hitting the fingerboard at high-velocity levels.

Getting the velocity CV dynamic enough was another issue; I used log / exponential converters on both sides of the Disting EX to get a broader range of velocity levels out of the original MIDI sequence.

Since the core VCOs were the same, I tried to differentiate each voice by using a different filter pairing; the First violin and cello are Belgrad at different configurations. The second violin is Evolution, and the viola is Wasp. VCF cutoff was modulated with the converted, exponential velocity CV signal and V/O tracking. The fun thing is all of those filters have clipping inputs or over-drives, so that was also a bit of the sound design.

Overall dynamics were added routing the duophonic mix through a final VCA stage in Veils before hitting the recorder.

Effects are all in the rack as a challenge; the ER-301 for a room convolution reverb (Wendy Carlos' plate setup), delay from Magneto, and additional verb and chorus sends done with FX Aid.
Mutli-tracked in Reaper where I added compression and EQ.

Enjoy ...