After locating the 7U Adventure case (to the left above) next to the other Eurorack cases, I sat faced with a daunting ten cases ready to be patched. After a day or so inspiration finally hit again. I’ll patch up five Quantussy Cells, each consisting of one LFO and two Sample & Holds. Then I’ll take five audio oscillators and patch them into the Holocene SCANNI-MIX. The mono output of SCANNI-MIX will pass through some effects that will create a stereo field for the final result. The oscillators will have various parameters controlled by the Quantussy five-cell ring. It wasn’t long before I realized that the five oscillators needed each to be gated by an envelope generator plus a VCA, before going to the SCANNI-MIX.
The Quantussy Cells were comprised of three LFOs from the Schlappi Three Body, plus two S&H each, keeping the LFOs separate, not cross-modulating each other internally. One of the Three Body LFOs triggers the A and B S&H in the Steady State Fate URR, while the other two each trigger a Tenderfoot Electronics Dual S&H. The other two Cells were created with a pair of Dannysound/Tobinski EN129 in LFO mode and a pair of Frogleg Synthesis Dual S&H. It’s always a bit of a challenging patching up a Quantussy Cell ring, a great anti-dementia exercise.
The five oscillators chosen were Patching Panda Operat (not pictured above), Forge TME Vhikk X, Magerit LANIAKEA, Hexinverter Mindphaser, and OG Mutable Instruments Braids in VOWL mode. Each of these has one parameter modulated by a S&H from the Quantussy Cell ring.
Each of the oscillator outputs passes through a VCA, with an envelope generator triggered by the same pulse out of the Quantussy Cell LFO that changes the selected parameter for that VCO. These the go to the five scanning inputs. The scan is controlled by the Joranalogue Orbit 3 chaos oscillator in LFO mode. It scans very slowly across the five inputs, so we can listen to each for a bit on each cycle. But the depth and rate of the chaotic LFO reduces predictability.
One patch cord, the purple one above, brings the SCANNI-MIX over to the effect and output case. I had to experiment with various effects to get the sound I liked best. I first tried the Holocene NLMM, which does a great job doing mono in to stereo out, passing its output through Qu-Bit Data Bender. That’s the first recording, below. Not quite right. Then I tried Data Bender alone, but found it wasn’t making a stereo output. That is the second recording. Finally, I added the nice reverb from Error Instruments White Rabbit. There is MidSide processing in there, but it isn’t doing much because the same signal is being sent to both inputs.
