Making melodies from CV with Joranalogue Contour 1
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In this tutorial, I’m exploring how to use a quantiser to turn any changing control voltage into a melody using a quantiser. It’s a pretty simple idea but it can produce great results - and for me it really encapsulates the power and flexibility of a modular system.
Here I’m using the Contour 1 to produce a cycling attack-decay envelope, then attenuating that 0-10V output voltage so the range becomes more usable and adding an offset to raise the base pitch. This signal goes into the Disting in ‘A6 Quantizer’ mode, which then outputs a quantised voltage every time it gets a trigger, which in this case is coming from Pamela’s New Workout. Plaits gets the quantised voltage and the same triggers.
By playing around with (or modulating with another CV source!) the rise and fall times of the envelope, the attenuation and offset being applied, the scale/mode/chord in the quantiser and the rhythm of the triggers, you can generate a huge range of melodies, from simple looping arpeggios to evolving semi-random patterns.
You can try the same approach by feeding in LFOs, more complex envelope shapes, or combinations of both. If you have the modules, try a dual or quad quantiser, offset multiple versions of the same source voltage and feed different trigger patterns to each… the sky’s the limit. If you’re new to the world of modular, hopefully this gives you a few ideas!
Comments and feedback are always welcome. If you enjoyed this, please like and subscribe!
Chapters
00:00 Intro and preview
00:58 Theory and module rundown
04:58 Building up a basic pattern
13:10 Using Euclidean triggers
15:50 Adding a kick
16:35 Layering a second sequence
Key modules used:
Joranalogue Contour 1 - joranalogue.com/products/cont...
Intellijel Quadratt - intellijel.com/shop/eurorack/...
Expert Sleepers Disting Mk4 - www.expert-sleepers.co.uk/dis...
ALM Busy Circuits Pamela’s New Workout - busycircuits.com/alm017/
Mutable Instruments Plaits - mutable-instruments.net/modul...
More stuff from me:
tomchurchill.bandcamp.com/
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Пікірлер: 28
great tips, especially using same CV signal with multiple Quantizer channels with different triggers and offsets.
@TomChurchill
2 жыл бұрын
Glad you enjoyed it - thanks! :)
Thanks for this accessible and well-explained tutorial -- subbed!
I have the Contour 1, Pams, and the Quadrat and never thought to use them together in that way. Brilliant! And the jam you had going by the end also sounded GREAT. Thanks for sharing!
@TomChurchill
2 жыл бұрын
Cheers Jay, glad you enjoyed it and got something out of it! 😀
I love the Contour 1 but never thought to use it in this way. I also have Pam’s, Plaits, Disting, and other versions of the modules you’re using here so definitely going to be recreating this patch tonight. Great video and I can’t believe I’m just finding your channel. Subscribed!
@TomChurchill
Жыл бұрын
Cheers, glad it was useful and thanks for the sub! :)
Hey Tom, thanks for yet another excellent, informative video. Keep it up!
Love your video, this and Batumi one was really useful to me !!
Excellent video! Thank you.
Very useful and well explained, thanks!
this is seriously great
Beautifully walked through and explained. I’ve not got the Contour module, but I do have the excellent Thorn VC LFO, which can both attenuate and sample-and-hold itself, which is cool. I’ve not explored the Disting’s quantiser functions though, so thanks for the suggestion! Subbed too. Good advice is hard to find…
@TomChurchill
2 жыл бұрын
Thank you! Appreciate the kind feedback. That Thorn VC LFO is on my wish list too - looks great!
Really nice breakdown, very clearly explained. I've got Contour 1 and Pam's myself so will give this a go. Cheers
@TomChurchill
2 жыл бұрын
Glad it was helpful and thanks for watching :)
Lovely! Cheers!
@TomChurchill
2 жыл бұрын
Thanks for watching :)
You’re good at this. Subbed
@TomChurchill
2 жыл бұрын
Thank you! More coming soon :)
MOAR please!
@TomChurchill
2 жыл бұрын
Thanks! I'm working on the next one today :)
joy orbison - fuerza.
Amazing demonstration! I'm currently just starting out in modular having recently bought a case with a couple of cheap modules and a semi modular synth (as well as some other hardware synths/sequencers). This type of thing is EXACTLY what I want to achieve with modular. Controlled randomness. PNW in the coming months and have a question for you. With the quantise functionality in Pam's, could you use that to send out a synced, quantised, offset LFO to Plaits and achieve the same thing? Potentially cutting out the disting, sample and hold and the envelope generator? Or am I overestimating the functionality of PNW?
@TomChurchill
Жыл бұрын
Hey! Thanks for the feedback and glad you enjoyed it. To answer your question - I think you could get pretty close with PNW alone, but I think the main difference would be controlling the rhythm of the notes. If you had a tempo-synced LFO in Pam's with the output quantised, it would just change note values as the LFO's level reached each threshold, which probably wouldn't correspond to the rhythm you want (although it might sound cool!) - if that makes sense? The advantage of a dedicated quantiser is you can use a separate trigger pattern to choose exactly when it will grab a note value and how long it will hold it. Plus with an external envelope/function generator it's probably easier to modulate the rise/fall time and their curves (although you can definitely do some of this in PNW if you assign the CV inputs). There might be a way to do it that I haven't thought of using multiple channels on Pam's though - I'll have a play around and let you know if I come up with anything!
@freddiefranklin1
Жыл бұрын
@@TomChurchill thanks for getting back to me. So I know on PNW you can do things like euclydian sequencing so perhaps I haven't quite got my head around how this works vs how the LFO's work. I don't have have PNW yet anyway so for now I've just picked up a cheap quantiser and a cheap S&H so will give this all a go! I've just built out something similar in VCV Rack and it sounds so complex and lush so really looking forward to trying it out with hardware! Getting so much from your videos. Thanks a lot!
:)
i watched this on mute. the hands are mad active.