The Creature is *alive* ! ;)
2008-02-25 by Carbon111
Greetings All,
On Friday afternoon, I recieved a prototype Creature and was able to spend all weekend working with it.
First, let me say it is *not* a "mini-Animal" - its featureset and usability are quite different to the Animal but no less useful or fun. In fact I had an absolute blast with this little guy!
It was easy to get self-generating rhythms and tonal landscapes going as well as total chaos. More "traditional" music is possible but probably not the Creature's forte - The Animal might be a better choice if you want to play equal-tempered music on the Serge. That said, I was still able to get some *very* nice lead sounds and basses that tracked properly for more than three octaves. The TGO is an _extremely_ flexible function block but it is not a one-to-one replacement for a PCO. It does, however, track quite a bit better than a DSG used as an audio oscillator.
The TGO was a joy to work with. The left side as an audio oscillator provided a warm melange for the filter to chew on and the right side, while more suited to LFO and enveloping, was no slouch in the audio realm either and could be locked to the pitch of the left side while having its timbre modulated from another source, say the top half of the SSG patched to act as a triangle wave LFO. Its easy to see why Rex Probe characterized the left and right function cells of the TGO as female and male voices...very poetic but very appropriate! :D
The updates to the circuitry of the filter were subtle but *very* noticeable...it was much easier to get tube-type harmonic warmth just by nudging the gain control. The feedback and overdrive characteristics have been tweaked to be more "musical" in my opinion. The filter itself is a wonderful source of percussion via the trig input.
At one point I had a self generating percussion patch that had for major components to the sound, including "bass" and "snare" though it was based on feedback and modulation...I could set a monsterous rhythmic pulse train but it wasn't something that "wanted" to be controlled! ;) This is a _good_ thing BTW! While capable of being "tamed", the Creature would be a natural for Glitch and Noise...or just as a component of something larger, paired with a Gator or sequencer in an M-boat. The mind boggles!
The thing that floored me was the sheer *amount* and *diversity* of _sound_ I got out of this thing. To say the Creature has a large palette would be selling it short - its flexibility of timbre is shocking. It fits in well here at Rusty Insects and will get used quite a lot I think. Look for it as a major component in some new songs in the upcoming weeks.
I'm going to spend more time with the unit itself and re-think the webpage a bit until I "know" it a little better. Spending time with this "Creature" has been such an unmitigated joy! ^_^
I'll keep you all in the loop.
Very Best regards, James
--
http://www.carbon111.com
On Friday afternoon, I recieved a prototype Creature and was able to spend all weekend working with it.
First, let me say it is *not* a "mini-Animal" - its featureset and usability are quite different to the Animal but no less useful or fun. In fact I had an absolute blast with this little guy!
It was easy to get self-generating rhythms and tonal landscapes going as well as total chaos. More "traditional" music is possible but probably not the Creature's forte - The Animal might be a better choice if you want to play equal-tempered music on the Serge. That said, I was still able to get some *very* nice lead sounds and basses that tracked properly for more than three octaves. The TGO is an _extremely_ flexible function block but it is not a one-to-one replacement for a PCO. It does, however, track quite a bit better than a DSG used as an audio oscillator.
The TGO was a joy to work with. The left side as an audio oscillator provided a warm melange for the filter to chew on and the right side, while more suited to LFO and enveloping, was no slouch in the audio realm either and could be locked to the pitch of the left side while having its timbre modulated from another source, say the top half of the SSG patched to act as a triangle wave LFO. Its easy to see why Rex Probe characterized the left and right function cells of the TGO as female and male voices...very poetic but very appropriate! :D
The updates to the circuitry of the filter were subtle but *very* noticeable...it was much easier to get tube-type harmonic warmth just by nudging the gain control. The feedback and overdrive characteristics have been tweaked to be more "musical" in my opinion. The filter itself is a wonderful source of percussion via the trig input.
At one point I had a self generating percussion patch that had for major components to the sound, including "bass" and "snare" though it was based on feedback and modulation...I could set a monsterous rhythmic pulse train but it wasn't something that "wanted" to be controlled! ;) This is a _good_ thing BTW! While capable of being "tamed", the Creature would be a natural for Glitch and Noise...or just as a component of something larger, paired with a Gator or sequencer in an M-boat. The mind boggles!
The thing that floored me was the sheer *amount* and *diversity* of _sound_ I got out of this thing. To say the Creature has a large palette would be selling it short - its flexibility of timbre is shocking. It fits in well here at Rusty Insects and will get used quite a lot I think. Look for it as a major component in some new songs in the upcoming weeks.
I'm going to spend more time with the unit itself and re-think the webpage a bit until I "know" it a little better. Spending time with this "Creature" has been such an unmitigated joy! ^_^
I'll keep you all in the loop.
Very Best regards, James
--
http://www.carbon111.com