Monday 20 September 2010

Patch Tips #13 - Binary Zone Clone

Imitating John Blacet's complex staircase generator with Eurorack modules.



My first modular sequencer consisted of an A-160/ 1 clocking combo and a mixer. Patching four outputs of the A-161 to an A-138 and then on to a VCO was simple but fun. I don't know why it's taken me so long to realize that I should have tried the clock divider's outputs too!

Here's a short recording to demonstrate the difference between mixing the clock sequencer's outputs and those of the clock divider:

binaryzoneclone1

The principal difference is that, while the A-161 will yield single steps, the A-160's gates will push and pull the sequence higher or lower depending on the mix levels. This results in a variety of the number of steps and the overall sequence length.

binaryzoneclone2

The Binary Zone offers six clock divisions. Using a polarizing mixer like the fonitronik mh-01 will limit you to four, but if you substitute the A-160 with a 4MS Rotating Clock Divider, you can generate some very interesting shifting patterns.

2 comments:

Human Koala said...

once attenuated i'm using often the clock divider as a "transpose my sequence" for example one half normal and one half transposed once quantised by the a156 it gives some nice variation

HK

Navs said...

Nice idea! Sort of like a pendulum, high and low?