This is another analog modular improvisation with added drums (Toontrack EZdrummer) and some Mellotron (GForce M-Tron) choir sounds. Drums and choir chords were prepared in Ableton Live and there’s quite some interaction between the things I do in Live and on the A-100 (thanks to Kenton Pro 2000,  Doepfer A-119 and Steinberg MR816).

The bass line is made of two A-110 VCOs (both with sawtooth waves, same octave) put through an A-108 Ladder Filter (24 dB out), doubled by another two A-110s through another A-108. The two voices are put in opposite stereo positions. Both voices share the same A-140 ADSRs.

Later, there is a high-pitched voice, which is a single A-111 VCO (triangle wave) put into an A-137-2 Wave Multiplier II and into two chained A-106-1 Xtreme Filters: the first one is set up as highpass, the second one as lowpass. Both filters are controlled by the same A-142 VC Decay. The sequences were controlled by (a) the A-148 S&H fed with coloured noise (bass line), put into an A-156 Quantizer and (b) the arpeggiator of Live (high pitched line). The Mellotron midi notes are used for transposing the A-156 via Kenton interface (last note priority) and for the arpeggiator as well.

Triggers for the bass line are derived from Live’s sequencer clock put through A-160 Clock Divider and then into an A-165 Trigger Modifier. Original, inverted and +/- Trigger from the A-165 are switched in an A-151 Sequential Switch (which is controlled by the gate output of the A-142 that controlls the high pitched sequence). Complicated? The drums were fed into an A-119 External Input where we get the trigger signals to control the A-142. No sound processing of the drums in the A-100, that’s just Live’s built-in tools.

Here we go:

Track length is 04:12.

Have fun,

Andreas

Of course you can do drum machine sounds on an analog modular synthesizer. Easy. However, it is somewhat strange to use big parts of a huge machine for some sounds easily available on much cheaper hardware. It is fun, anyway. There are four percussion sounds here:

1. A bass drum, created with a resonating A-106-6 Xpander Filter (12 dB output), sent through an A-137-1 Wave Multiplier I for some nice distortion.
2. A snare drum, created witrh some coloured noise from an A-118 Noise generator, sent through an A-106-5 SEM Filter and then through an A-137-2 Wave Multiplier II for a fat rich tone.
3. A percussive sound, created with an A-117 „808 noise“ sent through an A-124 Wasp Filter and (after the VCA) through an A-188-2 Tapped BBD for more „ringing“ sound.
4. Another percussive sound, created with some A-118 white noise, sent through an A-105 SEM Filter.

All percussive sounds are controlled by four A-140 ADSRs, controlled by two A-155 Sequencers (triggers and filter CV sequences). Everything is synced via Midi from Ableton live. Here I use a simple arpeggio to control the bass voice: three A-110 VCOs sent through an A-108 Ladder Filter (24 dB output). That’s it, recorded live, no overdubs, just a few effects from Ableton and mastering in Cubase.

Here we go:

Track length is 06:59.

Have fun,

Andreas