modular etc etc

[oblioblioblio]

you are a more tolerant man than I !

I've nothing but respect for Doepfer sequencing modules though and what you've done with them.

I get interesting results from interpatching envelopes and stuff but I don't have anything like the full on blossoming structures that you can pull.

[steevio]

haha, maybe, but i do get fukked off when i cant patch certain things.

one thing i'm learning with sequencing is that often the simplest approach at the core yields the most interesting and complex results further down the line. a bit like the way the universe works really.

[oblioblioblio]

I'm finding that my sequencing can be limited by my drive for harmonic complexity. I absolutely refuse to use just a single oscillator (apart from for sub bass), so all my other voices are made up of FM pairs making really dense harmonics, and heavy sequencing of pitch doesn't really work.

But I'm slowly finding ways to sequence. Last month or so I had some amazing 303 style slide / octave sequencing on the modulation oscillator, with a bit of the modulation oscillator being fed onto the output as well.

[p_ACHE]

Hi steevio,

Thanks a lot for this explanation. Sure it helps. And hearing what you can do with it makes no doubt that it is possible!
Now I have to figure out if this would suit me. I'm still a beginner when it comes to produce music, but somehow, I don't think I will ever have fun making music with my computer (nothing against computer! I love them, but I struggle to control them).

[p_ACHE]

I there anybody here in Berlin who would bother to show me his sequencing setup ?

[oblioblioblio]

Schneidersladen are good people.

also worth going to one of these events

http://basicelectricityberlin.blogspot.co.uk/

[p_ACHE]

Thanks!

I have now the orthogonal question about sequencing. In my previous experiments with contained sequencer, I really struggled to get stuff at different pace/length working together. I not talking about polyrhythms, but really drastically different pace/length. The typical example would be a slow evolving pad, or a chord sequence of few bars running against some drums.
I was actually forced to copy the drum-sequence and switch/chain patterns very quickly, but most of the time I was just lazy and ended-up with something too "loopy" for my ear.
My approach is maybe wrong, and I think that I tend to compose in a traditional way (song), which can give headache when trying to make techno.

Would a modular sequencing environment help me on this thing ?
(I understand that sequencing is a way to help when performing and that I have to do stuff manually.)

[oblioblioblio]

Sounds like modular is for you, I have to say.

Modular is the best tool for me. It has the perfect balance between being restricted in that you only have a set number of little machines to do what you ask, but they are more or less completely open ended in what you can get them to do.

For example, in Ableton or other complex sequencers, I always found that I composed in a very 'overhead' method, where you are trying to predict the structure of the track in advance. And so the structure of the track is not at all spontaneous or alive, and the loops are there to support the overhead structure the sequencer has pushed you towards, and not the track being built out of dynamic alive evolutions.

Hard to explain. But if I were you I would go for it.