This is about sequencer lines with varying lengths and about drones and how both can interact. No. This is about how trivial and experimental things may meet and live in some kind of unexpected coexistence.

Here we go:

Track length is 24:22.

We start with a bright sequence: two A-111 VCOs (pulse waves) into an A-106-5 SEM VCF, Bandpass out into an A-188-1 BBD and then into an A-131 VCA. Some pingpong delay from Ableton Live. VCF and VCO are controlled by an A-140 ADSR, an A-155/154 Sequencer with controller through an A-156 Quantizer plays the melody (transposed manually by keyboard).

Beginning at 0:39, there’s a bassdrum sound, created with an A-106-6 XP filter through an A-132-3, bopth controlled by A-140 ADSR. The bassdrum is triggered by the same sequencer as the bright sequence voice.

The choir at 0:50 is a GForce M-Tron.

At 1:40, the bass sequence starts:  this is done with three A-110 (modulated pulse waves) going through an A-105 SSM VCF and then into an A-131 VCA. VCA and VCF are controlled by an A-140 ADSR. Another A-155/A-154 Sequencer with controller drives this sequence (same A-156 Quantizer used), the sequencer is used in 16-step mode here (via  A-150 Dual VC Switch). Same manual transposing used as for the bright sequence. The A-154 Sequencer Controller triggers the A-154 of the bright sequence.

A digital voice (NI Massive) is introduced at 3:00.

Around 5:00 sequence lengths of both sequencers are varied (reduced to 7 steps, and 15 steps).

A drone is faded in starting around 9:40. The sound is basically done with two A-143-9 VC Quadrature LFOs, crossmodulating each other with their inverted cosine outputs, both being modulated by slow triangle LFOs from an A-143-3. The two sine outputs of the generators are sent into two audio ins (stage 1-6 in / stage 7-12 in) of an A-101-3 Modular Vactrol Phaser, being modulated by the two cosine outputs of the two A-143-9s. Then we go into two VCAs of an A-132-3. A reverb from NI Reflektor does the rest.

Around 13:40, a noisy soundscape starts which is later transformed into a rhythmic part: coloured noise from an A-118 Noise Generator and digital niose from an A-117 Digital Noise Generator are mixed and sent into an A-127 VC Resonance Filter. The A-117 noise is clocked by the A-154 Sequencer Controller clock (two derived clock signals via A-165 Trigger Modifier and A-160 Clock Divider, manually switched via A-182-1). After the resonance filter, we go into an A-188-2 Tapped BBD (modulated by a random voltage from the A-118 and an A-170 Slew Limiter) and then – with two different tap mixes into two A-108 filters (both use the 48 dB out and are controlled by the cv out of the tapped BBD).

No overdubs, just an A-100, GForce M-Tron and NI Massive, some effects in Ableton Live and mastering in Cubase.

Have Fun!

Andreas