Noise and the Beauty
Last weekend I travelled the 5 hours up north to Wollongong for the Synth Meet at ELK ELEKTRONIK to perform and present the AE Modular system.
There were only 10 people due to the COVID restrictions, but it was fun and totally worth it.
Thanks a lot to Jono who let me stay at his place and to Ed and Hannah from ELK who organised the event.
Jono has so much gear and his blog is a treasure trove of knowledge on how to use and repair it.
Today we released the second volume of AEther Waves, a collaborative album, made by 26 members of the AE Modular Forum. It features almost 2 hours of a wide variety of sounds which are all 100% made with the AE Modular synthesizer from tangible waves.
All proceeds are donated to support Musicians Without Borders who use the power of music to bridge divides, connect communities, and heal the wounds of war. Their vision is to inspire people worldwide to engage as peacemakers and use music to transform lives. You can find more info on their website: www.musicianswithoutborders.org
Today I was on a Zoom call with Robert which was streamed live to the tangible waves YouTube channel. Robert talked about how the AE Modular system came about and we gave a quick overview of the various modules that are available from the tangible waves website. I then showed a performance that showcased most of those modules.
I’ve received the Korg Volca Modular today and it’s so much fun to play with, I had to do a jam with the other gear. I also want to play more with the Volca FM and the Deluge … so that’s what I’m using in this video.
This is just a quick jam with the Volca FM, Deluge and Wavestate just to do something different for a change!
After a few weeks wait for the package to arrive from the UK I finally had the very first third party module for the AE Modular system in my hand! Now I just had to build it as I was a cheapskate and got the DIY version. Good time for making a how to video though …
I wanted to shake things up a bit and not do another ambient or spacey track. So this is almost dance-able …
Join me for a day out on Mars as we will follow those smart little robots Spirit Rover and Curiosity as they discover the Red Planet. This Saturday Jam starts with an ambient wave sequence from the Korg Wavestate followed by a thumping beat from the AE Modular. The final part of the journey is supported by a song composed and performed on the Synthstrom Deluge.
I’m so happy that I again found the inspiration to combine these three amazing instruments into one coherent performance. It took a whole day to experiment, patch, tweak, practice, perform and finally mix and master the video. Even though I had to do it from good old Earth, it was a day well spent!
This track is now also on Bandcamp!
Jamming with all the new modules. I really love the SPRING REVERB for the atmosphere it can create when coupled with a DELAY … it’s a great ambient backdrop. The SEQ16 is vastly improved when followed by the QUANTIZER. Finally real notes that sound good together! There is a lot of modulation in this piece, things fade in and out and filter cutoff frequencies are controlled by LFOs and ENVs. It just shows that it’s incredibly useful to have a bunch of the those and VCAs to be able to do that.
In this video I’m explaining in detail how I made the patch for the “Don’t go in there!” video which had a bit of a creepy vibe.
The modules featured are POLAMIX, 3VCSWITCH, SPRING REVERB, DELAY, FMOS, SAWVOX and many more.