LIVE Modular Synth Techno Performance with DRUMOPERATOR / DTUBE ORIGINAL MUSIC EXCLUSIVE

Party people of 2018, Drumoperator is here from the future to satiate your need for 136 bpm bangers, ethereal bell leads and big, properly tuned kicks. Dice with just a pinch of chaotic modular scribblin. Be advised that this type of thing remains extremely popular in 2028. Click the image above to check it out on DTube which I am glad to patronize once again!

For this patch I entirely abandoned the computer, Ableton, the Push 2. All of it. Get this 2017 tech out of my begoggled robotic face. Everything you are hearing is sequenced, muted, etc. via the Maleko Voltage Block, Tiptop Trigger Riot (whose weird generative syncopations are indispensable in patches like this) and the Makenoise Rene. And my gloved cybernetic fingers. Having a few sequencers operating at different clock intervals really opens up compositional/improvisational options, especially considering the Voltage Block's ability to send it's own modulations controlling the direction of the Rene’s sequence…a sequence within a sequence if you will. Just a touch of cross talking and strange new melodies based loosely around what you sequenced start percolating out of nowhere.

That being said, we are in banger world. Nothing super fancy going on in this patch, just some interesting waveforms being distributed to a variety of modulation points throughout the patch. I am a huge sucker for modulating the filter at the same time as the wet/dry on the verb. Sounds modern, glitchy and a little ridiculous. I like a little ridiculous. Modular synth gets better the more dissimilar modules you have responding to the same interesting rhythmic voltages. It creates a strange sense of continuity amidst what can often sound like total chaos when the filter, wavefolder, bitcrusher, reverb time and release time on your wobbly base all go off at once in identical ways from an offkilter stream of consciousness modulation you didn’t plan for. It is what keeps you coming back to eurorack land.

I kept this patch up for a second night before hitting the road and have another appreciably weirder piece using this same patch. Was fun to explore both sides of the brain with the same expressive configuration. More of this in the future. The immediate future, not the distant future from which I originate. Clearly.

In the end, nothing beats ditching the computer, embracing the compositional limits and just letting loose with the hardware. Please enjoy, play at appropriately loud volumes, and stay tuned for increasingly weird eurorack content as sleep and sanity disappear into the modular black hole.