Wednesday 30 September 2009

Expert Sleepers Silent Way


Relax, it's in tune ...

I've been using Expert Sleeper's Silent Way to control my modular for the past two weeks. This is a flexible and fast-growing suite of plug-ins which generate control voltages. Like MOTU's Volta, it also features an oscillator calibration routine.

Getting your most troublesome VCOs to track perfectly is just one benefit of DAW-based CV generation. Here are some other ideas:

Gate Delay



Two voice patch, panned left (initial gate) and right (gate echo). Logic's Delay Designer was used to create three clean, tempo-sync'd taps. First you'll hear the four-note sequence 'dry', then with the gate echos triggering voice two. In both these instances, the initial gate steps the analogue sequencer. In the last two measures I used the echos to clock the sequencer.

Envelope Echo




Similar Idea, but using Silent Way to generate an envelope rather than a gate.

LFO Mash




Processed LFO to VCO pitch. First dry, then bit crushed, then quantized using Logic's Grooveshifter, then both.

Pitch Wah



Pitch CV slewed with Logic's Auto Filter. The filter was modulated by its own LFO. First unprocessed, then wah'd with a quarter note triangle, then burbled with a sixteenth note random/ S&H.

Thanks to Expert Sleeper Os for getting me thinking about processing CVs.

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