Powwow 4 - Feedback

Here’s the recording of my live set at the fourth Berlin Powwow session which you can buy from my Bandcamp.



For this performance I wanted to explore feedback and the obstacles and modifiers one can place in the loop. The key players in this were delays, filters, non-linear functions and malfunctioning components.



My main analogue patch featured a Cwejman RES-4 in a loop with a Bananalogue Serge WVX. The combination of four frequency bands of oscillation might have been enough, but placing a Cwejman VCEQ-3 in the chain to dampen or boost the feedback added another level of complexity. A stressed coupling capacitor and scratchy Folds pot on the WVX added to the unpredictability and fun.

Live, I love my Clavia Micro Modular for two main reasons: patch recall, which allows me to set a scene or chop between moods, and polyphony. The virtual feedback patches in this set were simple, but switching them to two or three voices added complexity and interest, for example asynchronous panning or the beating of multiple sine-wave oscillators. You can do it with a ’real’ modular, but at a cost!

This set up is flexible and just about portable. It’s still completely live in that each patch either has to be built or played by hand. But the addition and convenience of the Micro Modular does cause me to question how we approach playing live with a modular. With many musicians turning up to gigs with their rigs pre-patched, is there a difference or even a need for the real deal?

Thanks again to Goldwiener, Hainbach, Paul da Fonk and Mark Berman of Powwow for the opportunity to make some noise.