Damn Lifeforms

I am talking about Pittsburgh Modular’s Lifeforms modules. I am trying to give them fair change but they keep constantly give disappointments. I am at point where I think I will keep one of them in set up because it fails in a cool way. I started modular journey with Lifeforms SV-1 and later got few other Lifeforms modules. I am slowly starting to think they are not for me. There always seems to be something preventing me from getting functionality I want. Mostly the reason is there is no linear FM.

Double Helix has there oscillators which could be used as LFOs. Two can be frequency modulated. It could create complex modulations. If there only was linear FM. Exponential FM changes speed too much. So much wasted potential. Contour section is nice but you can get other nice things in space Double Helix takes. It is nice module but it doesn’t give me what I want from this case. Case has three other oscillators. Two more plus LFO don’t make sense. It would work better on other case which don’t have other oscillators. And I have SV-1 for Pittsburgh Modular sounds and it has similar limitations.

SV-1 is the module that fails in a cool way. It has problems picking note off messages from midi when note off and note on come too close to each others. You can make cool broken sequencing with that but it is annoying when you have to do some tricks make it play correctly. I made Max for Live device which separates note off and note on times enough for SV-1 to work correctly. But that means only one of SV-1’s six midi modes is usable when sequencing back to back notes. I don’t remember it having this problem before and haven’t heard others having it. The problem is only with sequencing back to back notes. It could be perfect combination of everything. Other synth don’t have this problem when I put them in place of SV-1.

I considered getting something else to replace SV-1 but it is pretty hard to find combination of modules which would do the same things in same space. 2+2 mixer is pretty useful. SV-1 has many things I like. Problem is usable range of controls for things I want to do is pretty limited and it has few design choices I really don’t understand. One of them is putting same LFO out from two different sockets. It would make sense if it was different waveforms but it is same waveform in both sockets. Every time I start to like SV-1 there is something breaking the mood.

New Year 2023

It is that time of the year again. Won’t be making resolutions. I make plans. Plan for 2022 was make home studion which could stay as it is going forward. That almost happened. One midi keyboard and one guitar pedal not being available when I wanted and new eurorack case prevented that to be finished by the end of the year but it will happen early this year. Trigon 6 module might find its way to studio when it is available but everything else should be finished early this year.

New eurorack case has turned out to be quite interesting. Every time I feel I could keep Lifeforms in case I find something weird from them. Midi to CV conversion has weird feature which appeared in current setup. It is really annoying but it can create cool randomness when used correctly. Addition to that I have had really had time calibrating SV-1. I get them working perfectly but next time they are all over the place. It could be temperature and calibrating them when they are cool. Unless I get them to stay in tune without constant calibration there will be major changes in what modules will be in that case.

When I set home studio I got proper workspace for drawing and video editing. Wasn’t planned but it made sense to do that too. After I got work spaces in proper condition 2022 year 2023 will be year to git gud. There are things to get good at. Making music, drawing and 3D animation with Blender. Nothing that I start from zero because year changed. It has been on going process which I try to focus more this year. There is one bigger secret drawing related project I want to do. Publishing it depends how it works out. 3d animation would be for music videos at the moment. I like how Cinematic Laboratories and Make Noise use 3D animation in their videos. I did that few years ago in few videos. Music is just fun and I like to get better at it and produce more of it.

Trying to figure how to schedule this year so I manage to learn everything I want. There is a problem of using it or losing it. I have few online courses to take on each topic. But which order to take them so I don’t take the course and then don’t do anything with it afterwards. I feel I need to learn basics of Blender every time I use it. Goal is to time learning in a way I start to use what I learn. At the moment learning Blender again for fourth or fifth time and music theory seem most optimal route. I haven’t found course which teach one thing I need for that secret art project. I would like to know if there is good online course on how to draw same character again and again and make it look same every time. You can get there by drawing but I like to learn on which things I should concentrate on. I learnt to draw male and female faces after someone pointed good web site teaching the differences. I haven’t found good enough information on drawing the same character again and again.

If you wonder why I am learning Blender for forth or fifth time there is a simple answer. Earlier times rendering time has been huge issue even when using rendering farms. Now it should be better. I have some ideas for 3D animation besides music videos but it has been too time consuming so far. It might still be but I want to try again and there is online course which tells how to make 3D animations fast with Blender.

Plans changed

I learned I would have to wait for the case I was planning to get for few weeks. Desperation made me try if RackBrute would fit into my home studio. It was tight but when I set stand to correct position and everything to correct angle it did fit. Which meant no need for new case and more room for modules. This time picture is from home studio. It is Lifeforms & Make Noise based system. For now. Make Noise will stay there. I give Lifeforms change to show they deserve to be in case.

I started modular journey with Lifeforms modules. Lifeforms modules work in mysterious ways. Designers made them for their own use. At least it feels like it. You can’t trust documentation fully. After calibrating SV-1 and playing the setup with tuner on I have found how it actually work. I think I do. Splitters which we supposed to be passive work with V/Oct signals but multiple which should be buffered doesn’t. SV-1’s filter feels like it has 100% key tracking on. There are many other things which doesn’t work like I expect.

Lifeforms will stay there for now. Mainly because replacing them is quite expensive. In previous system Lifeforms were mainly utilities. In previous plans other modules were there to support Lifeforms. This one is different.

Make Noise part is quite close to my dream Make Noise system. It is smaller system Make Noise have in their latest videos minus Mimeophon and STO replaced by MMG. XOH is on its way. My local store didn’t have it. Had to order it elsewhere. Initial feelings of XPO and QPAS are really good. So far experiences are mono only but both sound really good mono. There was one disappointment with XPO. Sync is not hard sync. I probably shouldn’t expect module to have hard sync if module has sync in. It is not as big disappointment as SV-1’s sync. XPO can do gritty sound I would have used hard sync without hard sync.

Plan was to have homestudio setup complete by the end of the year but latest change of plan changed that. It almost is. Midi keyboard might change. The one I want wasn’t available. It lead to this eurorack case thing. There is one pedal I want. It wasn’t available when I build the pedal board. Now this. Swapping modules left empty spots to utility case. Knowing myself those empty spaces will disappear.

Should I get new eurorack case?

Have been tempted to get Cre8audio’s West Pest lately. I have room for one relatively small synth and I’d like to have something more west coast oriented. Other option is Endorphin.es Shuttle System which costs ten times more. West Pest isn’t versatile enough and Shuttle System is quite expensive. Then I remembered I have Pittsburgh Modular’s Lifeforms SV-1 and Double Helix. My first eurorack modules. Both are on Rack Brute which doesn’t fit to current setup but I can still play with them. I could get versatile system if I build it around them without cost going too high.

SV-1 was my gateway to eurorack. It was good starting point. It was full voice. Back then only such options were Moog Mother 32 and SV-1. Now there are other options and SV-1 is discontinued. SV-1 has couple design choice which prevent it to be really good. First is sync. There is not hard sync. I have no idea what sync does but it is not hard sync. Manual doesn’t tell what it actually does and walk through video didn’t either. It just doesn’t give hard sync. I don’t know how you should use it. I honestly had forgotten it had sync option when I saw walk through video mention it. When I tested it I understood why I had forgotten it. It is useless. Which makes oscillator FM useless too. At least in way I use FM. FM knob has really small usable range if you want synth to stay in tune.

Another weird choice is to have passive splitter. V/Oct signal needs buffer. Oscillator 1 is hard wires to midi but oscillator 2 is not. This means you have to connect V/Oct output to oscillator 2 or you can it only with one oscillator in case you have Double Helix too. Double Helix has two oscillators both having own V/Oct inputs. SV-1 can’t control both oscillators alone if you want oscillators to stay in tune. All this trouble because SV-1 has passive splitter and oscillators don’t share pitch information. I understand second oscillators can be used as LFOs when you don’t connect anything to V/Oct. For this reason SV-1’s splitters should be buffered. It would allow you to share V/Oct with other modules without need of separate buffered multiple.

Double Helix is (or was because it is discontinued) Pittsburgh Modular’s west coast voice. It has two oscillators and contour section which has wave shaper and low pass gate. It doesn’t have oscillator sync. Maybe they didn’t know how to do hard sync and heard too many times how SV-1’s sync didn’t work like users expected.

If you can overcome these problems modules sound pretty good. If you build system around them you first need buffered multiple and secondly oscillator which can do hard sync. You shouldn’t need fifth oscillator but this time there is no other option. After those system needs more envelope generators. One ADSR is not enough. After ADSR was VCA. Last 6 hp was filled what I thought made most sense. Another wave shaper can do more than Double Helix’s wave shaper. This setup should be able to give what I want from west coast oriented system. It would be cheaper than Shuttle System. Haven’t decided if I would get this yet. Picture is from Modular Grid. I won’t link to rack because I might delete it later. You can find it from my profile when this is published.

Feeding feedback

This experiment was inspired by Hainbach's Destruction Loops. I don't have tape machines or tapes to destroy. I used delayed feedback loop and cassette emulation to degrade the loop. Loop is created by playing notes one by one into feedback loop. Audio is heavily mastered to make it sound not as terrible as it sounded originally.

I got back to Ableton Live to make this experiment. Cubase don't let you make feedback loops. Most cases that is good thing but sometimes you might want to do it and you know what you are doing.

Trying to schedule this post to be published almost same time as the video is published. This thing doesn’t allow to add videos if they are not publicly available. When you schedule your videos they are not available when you write post to be published around same time. I wish there was a way to by pass that check. I think it didn’t check availability earlier. I put embedded version of video for now. I will change it to normal video later if I remember to do it.

I survived Black Friday sales without buying anything physical

I survived Black Friday sales without buying anything physical. Nothing I planned to buy anyway was in sale. It was different story on software side. Ableton Live upgrade was from Black Friday sale. Kind of lost my sense with software sales. Probably should have taken trial version of everything I bought before buying. Would have saved some money that way. After few purchases I started to do it. I had plan to minimize my setups. Black Friday sales didn’t help with it.

Starting to think getting back to Ableton Live was correct move. Only things I miss from Cubase are Chord Track, Chord Assistant functions and ability get sections easily to full screen. Probably will miss video and Expression Maps when I need them. Cubase does some other things better but I don’t miss them. Ableton Live is just faster and better at what I want to do. Cubase needs lot of tweaking until you get everything easily available. You need templates because sometimes you need overly complicated routings to get what you want. Google Cubase and Elektron Overbridge for examples.

Roland SE-02 found its way to my setup. Max For Live controller made it usable. My setup would look different if I used Live when I selected synths for setup. Had to select ones with VST controllers because Cubase doesn’t have usable way to control external synths. You can do it but it is not usable. Wrote about device panels and how they don’t work earlier. You can find free or paid Max For Live controllers for synths and tweak them to your liking. If you don’t find one you can make one yourself. You don’t need someone else to make one and hope they upgrade controllers when synth get upgrades. If Cubase had something like this I would be still using it.

Then there is functionality you can’t get from Cubase. More about that in next post. It needs some video editing. Video is already shot and music for it is ready. I made song based on idea I couldn’t do in Cubase. But that will be in next post. You won’t have to wait it as long as this post.