Hands On Experience Part I

A collection of recordings and patch ideas, focussing on manual manipulation and featuring Flight of Harmony's Choices joystick and Make Noise's Pressure Points touch keyboard.



First up, Choices is used to modulate the FM relationship of two VCOs and the time-base, or overall length, of a Plan B Polyphonic Envelope. Choices' manual gate was patched to the M10's cycle input to provide the trills.


trillkillkult

In this patch, Choices was used to manually trigger the envelope. Depending on the modulated envelope length, this sometimes results in trills. The joystick was used to modulate the pitch of the VCOs and provide the CV for an A-134-2 cross-fader.


crossover

A similar patch, minus the cross-fader, of 'chirps and cheeps' generated by a self-oscillating filter, FM'd by the modulated envelope.


bugsnbirds

Using a joystick is very intuitive and a lot of fun: move it, and you have a pretty good idea of what's going to happen. I considered getting Doepfer's A-174 because I like sprung joysticks. As it was out of stock and a new shipment of Choices had just arrived, I bought the f(h) module and have no regrets: unsprung joysticks have their own benefits and the manual gates are very useful. Choices has a hotter output than the A-174 and offers more control over in & ouputs. Match this up with an integrator, quantizer, cross-fader and a re-triggerable AD envelope for a dynamic performance tool.