Inside the machine

Here is the current state of my suitcase modular synthesizer.

With only 2 rows of 84 HP (plus a couple of modules on the side), it does not look very impressive.  Anyway, with two oscillators, two filters, four VCA and the bottom row full of CV modulators, it can still be put into good use.

Here is my first take on what is called a Krell patch.  You'll find the patch detail below.

It is a single mono track, directly recorded into Reaper with some delay and reverb to give a bit more volume.  It's an assembly of two parts of a longer session.

It is self generated.  There is no sequencer, just a bit of manual parameter change here and there.

The sound is reminiscent of the soundtrack from Forbidden Planet.  The Krell are the extinct race of advanced beings of the planet Altair IV.  Hence the name of that style of auto-generated music.




There a two voices.

First a drone voice : saw wave from Mammouth VCO into Ripples, modulated by Rampage envelope and the output of the sample and hold.
Second : square, triangle and sine from Doepfer VCO mixed into Erica Synth VCF; Band Pass output goes the VCA, then Rings; resonance and cut-off frequency of the filter are modulated by a mix of the two Rampage envelope.
Both oscillators receive pitch CV from 2hp tune fed with the output of the Turing Machine.

The two envelope of Rampage are in cycling (i.e. LFO) mode.  First is relatively fast, the second reasonably slow.  The End of Cycle of the first gives the pulse of the system and the clock to the Turing Machine.
The apparent random behavior is provided by the modulation of the Rampage parameters : fall CV of first envelope is the second envelope and rise CV of the second envelope is the noise output of the Turing Machine.

Here is my first approach to document that specific patch.