Again, this is quite a long piece. Thanks for your patience during listening!

As always, there are no overdubs, just an A-100, some effects in Ableton Live and Mastering in Steinberg Cubase. Everything was played in one take. We have two „percussion“ voices and two melodic/sequended ones.

A fast percussion starts the piece: the 6 oscilators out of an A-117 Digital Noise Generator is put into an A-105 SSM Lowpass Filter, then into an A-134-1 Panner and into two VCAs of an A-132-3. The VCAs are controlled by an A-140 ADSR which is triggered by some A-165, A-186-1, A160/161 combination (itself triggered by an A-154 Sequencer Controller). The panner is modulated either by an A-146 Variable Waveform LFO or (via A-182-1 Switched Multiples) by the A-155 Sequencer which controls the next percussive voice.

The second percussive voice (the slowe one) is digital noise from an A-117 Digital Noise Generator put into an A-136 Distortion/Waveshaper (this is quite some „heavy metal“, yes?) and then into an A-106-5 SEM Filter (which produces quite a beautiful sound). Both bandpass and lowpass/highpass outputs are then sent into the inputs of an A-101-3 Modular Vactrol Phaser. The two phaser parts are controlled by two independent LFOs (from an A-143-3). The two mix outputs of the phaser are sent into two VCAs of an A-132-3, which are controlled by the same A-140 ADSR. The A-140 is triggered by an A-142 VC Decay Generator which is triggered and controlled (decay time) by an A-155 Sequencer. The A-142 also controls the SEM Filter (so we have longer and shorter notes here).

Then we have a sequenced (tonal) voice: two A-111 VCOs are put into an A-114 Ring Modulator (VCO1: saw and VCO2:sine wave). The first VCO’s pitch is controlled by an A-198 Ribbon Controller (sent through an A-156 Quantizer), the second VCO’s pitch is controlled by a second A-155 Sequencer (using 16 steps via A-154 Sequencer Controller and A-150 VC Switch). The output of the ring modulator is sent into an A-137-2 Wave Multiplier (modulated by the four outputs of an A-143-9 Quadrature LFO) and then into an A-106-6 Xpander Filter (I’m using the 12 dB LP out here). After this, we go into an A-131 VCA. Both VCA and VCF are controled by an A-140 ADSR (triggered by the A-154 Sequencer mentioned above).

Now there’s the „solo“ voice: three A-110 VCOs (sine wave 1 oct down, two sawtooth waves) are sent into an A-138 Mixer and then into two A-106-1 Xtreme Filters (serial connection; one in highpass mode, the second one in lowpass mode). Then we go into an A-127 VC Resonance Filter and an A-131 VCA (controlled by an A-198 Ribbon Controller). The VCA output is split up (A-180 Multiples): partly sent directly into an A-138 Mixer, partly sent into an A-188-2 Tapped BBD. BBD Output is sent into an A-108 Ladder Filter (48 dB mode to cut the BBD oscilator noise) and then into the same A-138 Mixer. Frequency of the three VCOs as well as frequency of the BBD are controlled by the A-198 Ribbon Controller (put through an A-156 Quantizer and an A-170 Slew Limiter). The VCOs are also modulated by an A-143-1 Complex Envelope Generator (for some „human“ vibrato, where necessary). The two A-106-1 VCFs are modulated by an A-147 VC LFO or by the A-155 Sequencer (which controls the slow percussive voice) via A-182-1 Switched Multiples.

Here we go:

Track length is 21:27.

A-100 patch for „Metal Mantra“ (detail)

A-100 patch for „Metal Mantra“ (total view)

Have fun,

Andreas