Werkstatt Chaos (Noise Patches & Ultra-Low BPM)

The Moog Werkstatt-01 is a small & fun semi-modular synthesizer - I feel like its functionality is super smooth, stable, and precise - but that's not what we always want. Even a system with nice 'guardrails' can be pushed to generate noise-like waveforms and irregular events. I show some demos and hands-on patching. At the end of the video I discuss a 15 minute gap between sounds that I caught on the recorder - 15 minutes of silence - the Werkstatt busily doing it's thing, quietly, until something "lines up" right, gets perturbed, or such - and a short sound is made. Pretty fascinating.

TIMELINE

00:00 INTRO
Discussion of getting noise and irregularity out of a more-or-less deterministic synthesizer.

note - I wasn't really planning on making this video, so some of my early patch notes for these intro demos are a little hazy. I think all of the early stuff was based on:

patching:
lfo_out--vco_exp_in
eg_out--lfo_in
(at one point I added kb_cv_out--vcf_in for some key tracking)

I also added vco_out--gate_in for continuous sound.

settings:
freq(1:00 or less, higher is ultrasonic?), saw; explore filter; vco_mod(env, explore amount, freq); vcf_mod(none); lfo(12:00-3:00, square); env(sus_off, min, 9:00?).

Let me know if the above don't work.

03:53 NOISE PATCH
vco_out--gate_in, trig_out--vco_exp_in
freq(08:00-11:00), saw; vco and vcf modulation amounts minimized; lfo(not used); env(sus_off, min, 8:00); explore freq, decay, and keyboard; use the filter to explore further.

09:50 NOISE PATCH VARIATION
add eg_out--lfo_in to the above, lfo(8:00-12:00?, square), vco_mod(lfo, 12:00, freq); explore how freq, vco mod amount, lfo rate, and decay all interact; use keys to find distinct "modes"; filter.

14:03 ULTRA-LOW BPM
I tweaked the above patch for a while to really slow it down. I was getting sporadic envelope 'hits' but after one micro-adjustment I just kept waiting, not sure if it would come back or not. The audio trace shows a 15 minute gap, then there are a lot of hits that are 30-90 sec apart. Maybe a temperature change in the room? Experimental music, ambient music, art installation? Let me know if you find a use for this sort of thing (or just like it)!

LINKS
https://www.moogmusic.com