Four years ago was my last Krell patch. I think of the Krell as a hierarchical control structure with random control voltages at the top. The top of the hierarchy does not itself get controlled. The following diagram gives the structure I used for this patch. There are two of these, each generating one audio signal.
I show this in the abstract, rather than giving the actual modules used. The heart of the patch is a voltage-controlled cycling envelope generator. I chose to use my Qu-Bit Cascade with its included VCA. But I’ve shown them as separate modules. The key to the Krell is controlling the attack and decay times by randomly generated voltages. Here it is pushed back another layer, so that these parameters on the main envelope generator are taken from two more cycling envelope generators, one producing the CV for attack and the other for the decay. Then the A-D times of those generators are in turn controlled by slowly fluctuating random voltages. What’s cool about this is that the main attack and decay times will change dynamically while their segment is active.
The signal generator used here is composed of two sine wave oscillators. One of them modulates the phase modulation parameter of the other. I could have used some type of frequency modulation, but I chose PM instead. Now, as in the standard Krell patch, the End Of Cycle pulse from the envelope generator triggers two sample and holds, each picking a random voltage from a noise source. Both oscillators are pitch controlled by these random stepped voltages.
Effects Cross-Fading and Panning
I deployed four stereo effects, as shown in the following diagram.
One of the Krell patches is the left channel and the other is the right, patched through Qu-Bit Data Bender and distributed in parallel to the four stereo effects. The effects are used in pairs. The Holocene Non-Linear Memory Machine and the Qu-Bit Aurora make one pair. These are cross-faded with the same channel, Left or Right of the paired effect. Starling Via METAs are set up as self-cycling cross-faders. Their rates and wave shapes were tuned manually. The outputs of the METAs are panned left and right at the output mix.
The second FX pair is the Venus Instruments Veno-Echo and the Stereo Delay from FX-Aid. The ADDAC805.VS2 provides two cross-faders for these signals. Finally, I take the CV output from each META to control the cross fading on the ADDAC805.
The Results!
I made several recordings during the development of this whole patch. Each of them used a different way of doing the final mix. Initially Krell 1 patch was mostly on the left channel and Krell 2 on the right. Then I reversed left and right on Krell 2, so that both Krells would appear strongly in both channels. That is heard in the second recording. For the third one, I again separated the Krells.
