My last Mutable Instruments

The curtain has fallen.  Since December 2022, Mutable Instruments has ceased its activities. It had been a while since Emilie had announced that she was stopping. No one is taken in by surprise.

As stocks are running out, I found this last module second hand.

MI Veils 2020

I enjoyed the previous version of this quadruple VCA.  The 2020 version offers the same features in a smaller footprint and a nice look. I've fallen for it. This will probably be my last Mutable Instruments module. Thanks for everything Emilie.

Facing the Tides

 Tides was the new module I slipped in the new case.

Tides unboxed

Now that I have more space in my case, I reckon I can accommodate another Mutable Instruments module.
Some might argue that this was the main reason to get the new case in the first place.

Cause or effect ?  Whatever.
 

The Mutable Instruments modules in the rack.  Tides on top.

Mutable Instruments Tides checked a lot of boxes.  

I felt I needed more modulations.
Tides is a LFO and an envelope generator at the same time.  Waveform parameters like shape, smoothness and slope are modifiable via control votage.  So there are a lot of waveforms available.  The module accepts an external clock as well.
It has multiple outputs and, depending on the mode, they are either different shapes, different amplitudes, different times or different frequencies.
Frequency range can go up into audio range, making this my third VCO.

In action

 

In the following piece, Tides plays the role of LFO, envelope generator and oscillator.  I have displayed the patches to demonstrate how it is done. 

Jay F. · Facing the Tides

The first part is a four-track drone. Each animated by a dedicated LFO from Tides in « different frequencies » mode.  Lots of effects (from Reason rack) added in the DAW (Reaper) as well.
Then two « bass » tracks played with the Korg SQ-1.  Tides is now the VCO.  Same patch, different settings.  The variations are either the Ripples filter frequency or the shape and smoothness parameters from Tides.  These have a dramatic effect on the sound obviously.
Finally, Tides serve as one of the Attack-Decay envelope from the drum part.

A bit of cut-paste in a sequencer and voilà …

The patches...

The four-part drone waves :

Drone

 The basses :

Bass

The drums : kick, snare, hihat :

Drums

HiHat

 

Emilie's Last Stand

So I got Beads.

Not the decorative string of pearls, the Eurorack Module from Mutable Instruments.

To be more specific, Beads is the last design from Emilie Gillet, founder of Mutable Instruments.

Just unboxed

Powered by ARM

Beads is a revisit of Clouds, maybe the most successful Mutable module.

I always thought I'd get one one day.   Alas Emilie discontinued it more than 3 years ago.  Beads development took more time than expected, which created frustration and anticipation among Eurorack aficionados.

Beads, as Clouds, is dubbed a "granular texture synthesizer".
Basically, Beads samples its input continuously and creates tiny bits of sound or grains.
Up to 30 grains can be created and processed.  

 

From the manual :
One way of picturing how Beads operates is to imagine a tape loop, on which incoming audio is continuously recorded.

Every time you request a grain to be played (in reaction to a trigger, a button press, periodically, or randomly), a new replay head positions itself along the tape.

If this replay head doesn’t move, the audio will be played back at the original pitch and speed, but if it moves closer to, or further away from the record head, the signal will be replayed at a different speed and pitch. This replay head has its own amplitude envelope, and it will leave the tape once the envelope has reached a null amplitude.

Now imagine up to 30 replay heads flying along the tape. Imagine you can stop the incoming audio from being record- ed on the tape so that all these little replay heads can freely move along and gather sounds. And there’s a reverb…

Bob unscrews previous module

The module manipulates the density, size and shape of grains, as well as the time and pitch of the replay.  In certain modes, this is a reverb, or a delay, or both.
Grain density can go up to audio rate, creating new sounds in the process.

I thought it would make a great addition on my most ambient patches.  And with 14HP, it perfectly replaces my home made phaser effect module.

In place

Here is a small example of a drum loop made with the synth going through Beads in the Sunny Tape audio quality.
First you hear the sound unaltered.  Then Beads comes in progressively.   Grain seed is in sync with the drum sequencer.  You first notice the reverb as grain density start from very low. Then the grain density increases.  With small grains and low density, you hear the individual grains.  
I play a little bit with some settings and go up to 100% wet on Beads.
Finally, I select the random mode for grain seeding and I slowly bring back the unaltered sound in the mix.

Jay F. · Testing Mutable Instruments Beads

Here is the full patch :

Ripples

My latest acquisition from Mutable Instruments is the Ripples filter.

Ripples unboxed.

With only one filter in my rack, it was not easy to have more than one interesting voice at a time. 
So I thought I needed another one to extend the capabilities of the synth.

Bob pushes modules around to make some room in the rack

For me Ripples has three main advantages :

• I like the designs from Mutable Instruments;

• it's a 4-pole 24 dB/oct filter and complements the 12dB/oct from the Doepfer DIY;

•  it includes a VCA and it's a precious space saver in a small system like mine.

In the rack

There are 3 CV inputs : one for resonance and two for the frequency.
There are 3 filter outputs : 2-pole band-pass, 2-pole low-pass, and 4-pole low-pass.
The 4-pole low pass through the VCA is the latest output.

Getting Ripples and the Turing Machine change my initial plans a bit.
But that's the principle of having a modular synthesizer I guess.

It begins to take shape…

In the track below, hihat is white noise from the Random Module into the high-pass Doepfer fllter then on the VCA driven by the channel A of Rampage.
Kick and other percussions are from the same noise source into Ripples and on the VCA driven by channel B of Rampage.
Melodic lines are sine from Doepfer VCO into VCA driven by the envelope from Doepfer DIY, then passed through the phaser.
Sequencing wise, the first channel of the Korg SQ-1 triggers the hihats and serve as clock source for the Turing Machine.  CV out modifies the length of the rampage envelope to get longer hihats at times.
The second channel triggers kicks and other percussions.  Different percussions are obtained by modulating the frequency of Ripples.
Finally, driven by the clock from the first SQ-1 channel, Turing Machine provides gate and random notes CV (tuned by 2hp Tune) for the melodic lines.



DAW: Reaper
This is a single track from the synth plus a bit of chorus, delay and reverb.

You can never have enough VCAs !

According to the popular motto : "You can never have enough VCAs !" 
So I bought four of them in a single module from Mutable Instruments.

Veils, unboxed

VCAs are Voltage Controlled Amplifiers and are essentials to shape the amplitude of sounds and other signals.

Not much to add here other than this excerpt from the MI website :
"Veils provides four VCAs with an adjustable response curve.
Veils’ outputs are daisy-chained, allowing adjacent groups of 2, 3, or all 4 channels to be mixed together."


As its becoming crowded inside the synth case, Bob went down and gave me a hand to plug the module on the bus board.

More to come....

Veils, installed

Put a Rings on it.

If you like it, put a Rings on it, she said.

So I did.

I bought a Mutable Instruments Rings.

The module came this morning in a nice package, with a proper printed manual and a cool spinning top.

Rings arrived

Rings is a resonator : it simulates vibrating structures like strings, tubes or membranes.  It has a kind of polyphonic mode where a note is sustained, while the next is playing.  It can be excited by pretty much anything : envelope clicks, trigger pulses, noise or any other audio source.

My other planned modules are more into the traditional synth voice : VCO, VCA, VCF with some LFO and envelope generators.  So I think it will be a nice addition to the lot, especially as I want to go into some percussive sounds.

Rings installed in my temp rack

Now, I have a proper, thought very limited, synthesizer.

Here is a bit of sounds from the above patch.




The Sample & Hold clock is connected to the strumming input of the Rings, so notes will happen at the rate of the clock.
I choose the 4-voice polyphonic mode and the standard modal resonator.   I don't connect anything to the audio input, so this is the sound of the internal noise burst generator.  This gives a bell-like sound.
The brightness of the sound will be modified by the random voltage output of the random module.  The frequency will be modulated by the sample & hold output.  
First brightness and position are slowly increased.
Then I increase the clock rate while diminishing the damping.  And I finish by decreasing the rate and increasing the damping.

DIY Synth Kit : Mutable Instruments Anushri

Here we are.  At last.  I built my first synthesizer on November 2013 (was it 4 years ago ?).

I chose an Anushri kit from Mutable Instruments.

The first part of the kit.

Hairy !!

The kit was perfect.  Very easy to solder, even with the high number of parts (100 ?  200 ?).
Metallised holes, complete kit, detailed and incremental assembly instructions, even a victory candy.  A very professional product.

As everything went smooth from unpacking to final assembly, I do not have a lot to tell.  The important thing I learned was to pace myself : not planning everything in one sitting, building small portions at a time, being very focused, carefully following the instructions.  It took a bit of time.  I think it was the key to achieve the assembly without an itch.

Resistors went first.

Finally, the only problem I have is that I'm not able to correctly tune it on more than two octaves.  I have to rely on the embedded automatic tuner.  It's fine but it means I can not use the CV in and out to integrate the synth in a modular system.  I have to rely on MIDI then.

The two boards ...  finished

Close-up

The Victory Candy in the last bag of parts.

Anushri ... alive.

 If you want to know how it sounds, here is a short (30 seconds) demo I made :

All sounds from the Anushri (including the drums).

Use of the built-in generative drum machine and arpegiator.

Yes : there are tons of effects on top of the bare sound of the synth.

By building ready to assemble kits, you learn a lot about soldering, about the different parts that compose a synthesizer.  They usually come with full schematics and tips on how to debug.  This is helpful if you want to dig into the details and understand what's inside the hood.

Unfortunately,  Mutable doesn't do DIY kits anymore.  Some of their products (namely the Shruti) can still be found at TubeOhm's, albeit under the name Phoenix due to copyright reasons : http://www.tubeohm.com/TubeOhm/INTRO_HARDWARE.html

There are a lot of other synthesizer kits out there.  For example :

Paia Fatman ( http://www.paia.com/fatman.asp ) is one of the most renown.

PreeFM2 ( http://ixox.fr/preenfm2/ ) is a small DIY FM synthesizer, DX7 compatible.

Bastl instruments ( http://www.bastl-instruments.com/diy/ ), Synthrotek ( http://www.synthrotek.com/) and Erica Synth ( http://ericasynths.lv/en/home/ ) have a nice collection of DIY Eurorack modules kits.