October 2021

2021-10-01, Friday

Busy at work these days. But tonight I had time to play on my synth again. Enjoying the Qu-Bit Surface quite a lot. This time I was pushing it through the ADDAC T-network module – which I usually use as a “drum kit”, but this time did the job of a destructive filter. The result was a very rough guitar sound, which I ran through a delay (Beads in delay mode, actually!) to make the rhythm more interesting.

One thing I struggle with at the moment is finding matching sounds. Before I started twiddling the Surface tonight, I had Plaits making the most wonderful spacy little sounds through a low pass filter delay. But what I ended up with from the Surface did not fit at all together with that. But each thing was awesome separately, so I guess I am happy ☺

2021-10-16, Saturday

Home alone. Kids and wife are visiting my parents in the weekend while I get some extra work done. While working, I listen to music, and took a few breaks on my Eurorack synth.

Explored some more of the Qu-Bit Surface models, and discovered the joy of side-chaining when testing the kick drum model. Side-chaining the kick means that you lower the volume of other components when the kick drum hits. This let the kick cut through the mix, giving it a strong emphasis.

	Side chaining example from Wikipedia: The first 8 bars are without side-chaining applied, the second 8 are with side-chaining. Notice how the beat cuts through much more clearly.
CC AT © Kesean Beat

Side-chaining is often done by a compressor which follows the volume of the side-chained kick and correspondingly lowering the volume of its main input. In my Eurorack system I don’t have an envelope follower (yet? I am out of HPs, send help ☺), but I have the trigger signals for the kick available, so I can just trigger an additional envelope and use that to dampen the volume of the main.

2021-10-17, Sunday

In a spur of the moment I recorded some playing my new patch:

A bit repetitive, but it was fun to play.

2021-10-24, Sunday

Relentless rain this weekend. On Friday morning the rooftops around us were white, but the snow was mixed with rain already in the air and quickly melted. Today, I did not even venture outside. The youngest of our sons has been home with a cold all week, but seems fit for fight again tonight. Our oldest celebrated the UN day by drawing eighteen flags from all over the world.

2021-10-28, Thursday

Held the department seminar today, on the topic “The univalent notion of equality”.