next "suitcase setup" track:
completely generated by 5 axoloti's. Just uses a single "core" drum sequence (variations are made on the fly using some algorithms), all other patterns and changes are created at function-controlled-random, no manual control here! Everytime I restart the axoloti's, it will sound different, even scale&chord progressions are randomised. Before this recording, I quickly recorded 16 samples of me saying some short nasty stuff with a nasty voice.
switch(axoloti_board_number)
{
case 1:
-midi control board generating a clock that randomly chooses between seconds and thirds and sends a message to all boards which it has chosen, so everything follows in the timing. Next to this, also the current play position is send, so everything is always locked to the same count. To make the timing of all modules really precise, I send out the current main k-rate tempo using 4 midi-CC, so all modules in other boards match the current tempo precisely.
-main "key" (rootnote of scale, tonnetz movement), scale (which note-spacings are used for the 7 notes of the scale) and a chord sequencer (which of the 7 notes may actually be used). Loosely based on the eurorack sinfonion and a bit further extended. Making sure all the voices keep in tune with each other no matter what.
-drum pattern midi generators: 16 step, 4 level sequencers with random flam and roll. One dedicated to kick and one for hihats (functioning as the legs). Then two others for the "arms" of the drummer, which will use patterns to select the different drums while taking into account how far the arm could have maximally moved based on the speed of the incoming triggers. Then one last one to force one of these sequencers to play the snare when needed.
-several of the same sequencers to trigger the bass, drone and "guitar" and voice-samples.
-16-sample 1.5sec/sample recorder and granular playback.
;break;
case 1:
-drum patch with the pattern-generator/"arm-allocator" featuring basskick, snare, 3 toms, 1 multi-function percussion, hihat, cymbal, fm-bell and 2 random percussion generators (all different kinds of synthesis). Kick goes out left channel, voice from board 1 gets mixed with the other percussion and being send out on right channel.
;break;
case 2:
-bass generator, started out as a vowel-oscillator, but proved to be awesome for a kind of "slap"-bass.
-percussion/voice/bass (no kick) stereo glitch fx with around 20 simultanuous fx (with a controllable "chance" randomly selected with a "max" amount of effects that can be simultanuously active). Bass goes through left channel, percussion&voice through right channel of glitch fx. Kick bypasses the glitch and is then mixed with the percussion output and going through a soft-drive. Drums are then output to the left channel, bass to the right channel.
;break;
case 3:
-mono voice/drone generator. Ifft-based oscillator that morphes through a bank of 2048 preset fft-spectra to set amplitudes of root and overtones of the waveform (throat), then windows/multiplies it by an 8-preset fft-window spectrum (serves as a fixed filter that doesn't follow the pitch, like the mouth changing the spectrum of the throat sound).
Also has a strummed semi-random overtone "plucker" to trigger individual overtones which can then damp and spread out their energy to neightbouring harmonics. Some extra functions serve to relocate/morph the amplitudes of the harmonics to other harmonics to continuously change the spectrum. Also the phase-values of the ifft are being slowely modulated independently to create an always evolving waveform. When the waveform-sample is generated, 4 sample-oscillators use this waveform, but can have different (random&fixed) pitch-offsets to create a kind of chorusing effect.
Percussion is send forward to the left channel output, bass is mixed with the drone voice and goes out right.
;break;
case 4:
"guitar" generator. Also a kind of vowel oscillator, but instead of having 3 seperate sine oscillators being synced and amplitude modulated by the main oscillator, this one just consists of 1 oscillator that morphs through sines, driven by the same phase, but having this phase multiplied at different amounts to create different harmonic overtones (up to 32 different rates still only takes 7%, as basically at every moment, it's just one phase and 3x a sine calculation instead of 32 different sines). This is followed by a set of distortions with biquad band-pass filters to set the distortion's character.
Actually, the amount of filters in all the patches is quite low, as the synthesis-modes used already limit the amount of harmonics being generated for most of the voices.
At the end of the chain, all channels are finally being mixed together and send out in stereo (yes, I do still need one more fx to create a nice stereo image)
;break;
}
) . Also some extra goodies for melodies/modulations