Patch of the Day - Analog Heart, Digital Mind

Using Silent Way's CV Input & Osculator to control your DAW.

Ok, so you've managed to recover CVs from you modular. Now what?

Rather than just process and/ or replay those recorded CVs, how about using Logic's Transformer to convert and redirect the MIDI CCs generated by the pairing of SW's CV to OSC component and Osculator?

In today's patch I've siphoned Osculator's output and used a handful of Transformers to generate pitch & pan information for an electric piano virtual instrument and bypass & downsample parameter data for Logic's Bit Crusher plug-in.

PotD - Analog Heart, Digital Mind by navs

In the first section you can hear me manually adjusting a positive offset voltage from a Doepfer A-138 mixer, followed by a sequence from an A-Sol. SQ-8 plus manual offset and, finally, the stepped output of a Make Noise/ Wiard Wogglebug. In the latter example, I used automation to gradually increase in the bitcrusher's mix level to about 50%.

This is a lot of fun and yields unusual and sometimes unpredictable results. For example in the sequence excerpt, the CC to note conversion isn't always 'clean'. However, I'm sure it's nothing a little additional MIDI processing couldn't solve.

The biggest problem I encountered was the lack of 'note off' data and hanging notes when converting CCs to pitch. There are other ways of generating clean note information, for example using a Novation Bassstation Rack's built-in CV-MIDI converter or the Moon Modular 552, but If anyone has a Logic-based solution, I'd love to hear it!

Here are some screen-grabs of the Environment I used.

For those of you daunted by Logic's Environment, and in particular its Transformer modules, check out this great tutorial by Toby Pitman at audiotuts+.

Thanks to Scaff for providing the inspiration for this patch with his Moon Modular 552 demos!

Silent Way CV Input - Digital Ghost Tracks

Ever wanted to record CVs to your DAW? Expert Sleeper's latest 'Silent Way' plug-in makes this possible.

'CV Input' brings Buchla and Subotnick's Ghost Tracks method into the digital age. The plug-in can handle bipolar CVs (LFOs etc.) and the 'recovered' CV can be output live or recorded for rearrangement or further processing.

To get the most out of 'CV Input' you'll need a DC-coupled Ring Modulator although for unipolar CVs (envelopes etc.) a standard linear VCA will do.

In beta testing, I tried a Doepfer A-133 VC Polarizer, Cwejman VCA-2P and the DC-coupled ring modulator in my VCO-2RM. The latter gave me the best, most accurate results. The A-133 is a good, cheap option but the lack of centre-indent on the manual offset pot made it tricky to zero the output precisely and meant the returned CV was asymmetrical. The VCA-2P was not as accurate because its 'linear' mode is in fact semi-logarithmic. Os at Expert Sleepers suggested that a calibration function to address these issues might be a possible future update.

So, does it work? The short answer is a resounding yes!

The caveat is that you might need to spend a few minutes setting up the plug-in for your system, but this is swift and painless. For example, you want to find the 'hottest' carrier level your audio interface can handle and balance that against the strength of the modulating CV to avoid clipping your VCA or RM. Then you will need to use the 'scale' knob to get a 1:1 match between 'original' and 'recovered' CV. Bear in mind that you might need a negative scale to counteract any anomalies in your system.

Here's a short clip featuring three tracks of one VCO following the same bipolar random CV. For each successive 'harmony' track I adjusted the decoder's scale.



Nice one Os - now all we need is a pitch to CV converter!

For more Silent Way tips and tricks read this post.

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.