Arkana

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Arkana was created 07/2004-11/2006.
This work is inspired by Tarot cards. However, there’s no esoteric thing you need to know for enjoying the music. Each card represents something called “archetype” according to C. G. Jung’s psychology – an innate universal prototype for ideas, such as the shadow, the wise old man, etc.

Due to download statistics, the “Revolution” and the “Will” are by far the most popular ones, each around 400 complete downloads each month. However, I still insist you should listen more to “Treasure” and “Surrender” which are the most beautiful pieces here for me.

Single parts:

Instruments used for Arkana:

AAS Tassman, Arturia Moog Modular V, AudioNerdz Delay Lama, East West Quantum Leap Symphonic Orchestra Gold, Emu Proteus X, e-phonic RetroDelay, Garritan Personal Orchestra, Gmedia M-Tron, Kjaerhus Classic Effects, Knufinke SIR 1, Korg Legacy Collection MS 20, OdO Rhythms, Siedlaczek String Essentials, Steinberg Cubase SX, Virsyn Cube, Virsyn MicroTera.
Andreas

Staircase

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Staircase war created 06/2009. It is quite an easy listening electronic piece. It consists of two almost identical sections, some old fashioned sequencing and retro soundscapes.

http://www.andreaskrebs.de/assets/media/staircase-014.mp3

Instruments used:

Arturia Jupiter 8-V, Native Instruments Absynth 4, Arturia ARP 2600-V, Toontrack EZdrummer (dfh, nashville, latin percussion), Virsyn Cube, GForce M-Tron, Native Instruments Massive, GForce Minimonsta, Korg Legacy Monopoly.

Doepfer A-127 Triple Resonance Filter example

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This is a very unusual filter. It consists of three separate bandpass filters with resonance control, each having a built-in LFOs for filter frequency modulation. A similar concept had been used in the Korg PS 3100. Details can be found at Doepfer’s Homepage:

http://www.doepfer.de/a127.htm

I’ve put the usual three A-110 VCOs (sawtooth wave) into the A-127 filter, then each of the three individual outputs into an A-138m Matrix mixer. Here I assign the first and second filter to a first VCA (panned left) and the second and third filter to a second VCA (panned right).

The filters were controlled by their internal LFOs at first, later I plug in outputs of an A-143-9 VC Quadrature LFO for audio frequency filter modulation.

http://www.andreaskrebs.de/assets/media/A-127.mp3

Andreas

Improvisation VI – Polyrhythmic Derailings

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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

Improvisation V – A Tiny Drum Machine

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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