Four Bricks Rook and the ER-301

ER-301
#1

I have to say this thing is pretty darn awesome!!

I know I posted about it in the main interfaces thread, but it’s so good I think it deserves it’s own thread.

I am clocking mine from Pam’s New Workout, one output set to reset when stop is pressed, i.e. Pam sends a single reset trigger from that channel when she quit’s her workout :wink: That’s all that channel does, it may seem extravagant, but it’s really handy. The there’s a standard clock output, 4BR responds very well to weird time divisions and multiplications and can be run at high speeds for noise work.

Anyway, I have the four outputs running into the ER-301 Gx inputs, a couple of them via Branches for a bit of coin tossing action. Then I have the kick on a mono channel and a selection of drum sounds, each in their own mixer on a stereo pair of channels.

Then I have a copy of the clock and reset going to ER-101/2 and a sequence that switches the table via CV. Length is under manual control and Shift is running on a slow LFO from Batumi!

It’s way better than anything I could write on my own, it sounds great!

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#2

I’d love to see/hear a clip!

#3

Hehe, was just working on it, here you go:

I should say that this is barely scratching the surface, it is capable of much much more!

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#4

Great stuff kel!

I’m pretty blown away by this thing overall. A proper interactive gate source with good CV-ability has been probably my biggest struggle with my setup. I’ve tried so many options and this one is just exactly what I’ve been wanting in terms of playability, CV-ability, built-in patterns, possible complexity, and all the length/probability/etc features. The recordable pattern fill mode is insanely cool. Being able to change tables for each pad separately and record various mixtures and mutes of multiple patterns… :kissing_closed_eyes:

Anyway, glad this thing is getting traction! Everyone should have two!

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#5

Oh cool… You’re obviously way ahead of me wrapping your head around this thing @khiner :smiley:

You can assign a different pattern to each pad? :scream_cat:

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#6

Any channel not set to read patterns from a table (those that you haven’t gone to “PTRN” mode and selected) will have any manual changes recorded to the buffer if record is enabled.

So if you go to FILL mode with record enabled and hold a button down, you can record the pattern for that table/channel, and any live table changes, mutes due to releasing the track button, etc. The table knob applies to any channel reading directly off of the table, but also applies to any channel being held down while in FILL mode (!)

So if you want just a static but different table pattern playing out of each track, go to fill mode without any patterns running, turn the table knob for the first channel, hold down the track button for the full record length, let go and change to another table for the next track and repeat :slight_smile:

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#7

Here’s an example I just recorded messing around with a very fast clock and recording FILL holds and mutes with manual length/shift/table wiggling:

Fun for days! :heart_eyes:

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#8

Wow - thanks so much for writing all that out, I really appreciate it :smiley:

And also nice work figuring that out - very impressive!

I must admit this interface is a bit of a leap conceptually for me, getting there though.

This thing is fun!

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#9

Short video clip, not particularly trying to do anything, just letting it play out a little, very similar patch and same ER-301 setup and sounds as the audio clip above. It’s about 23 seconds long and a Dropbox link:

4BR ER-301 Video

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#10

I wanted to ask to see this in action so I’m happy you did it before that.

I noticed you have some All-Flesh plugged in, how are those working with the ER-301? Another thing about the All-Flesh do you find that their orientation when jacked in determine if and how they function?

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#11

I’m not really doing much with it, just modulating it a little hehe :slight_smile:

Here’s the AllFlesh thread

tldr; they work great and orientation is not an issue!

#12

You know how you wrote the other day about finding stuff you wrote that makes you take a full stop and wonder how something with your name ended up somewhere? Well for a second I was wondering why I didn’t know about this All-Flesh/ER-301 thread…until I found that I left a comment. Even more tragic, it was only two months ago :slight_smile:

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#13

Haha yep - it’s a mind melter hey!

I sometimes think failing memories are a good thing though, the ebb and flow of information relevance seems slow, but imagine if you had access to everything all at once :fearful:

#14

Thoughts:

Slightly modulated delay on the trigger inputs results in humanisation of the triggers.

Might want to offset all incoming triggers so everything is a few ms, or more, behind the main clock to allow hits to be before time as well as after.

A delay on the trigger inputs with a synced LFO timed to activate the delay every other step gives nice swing.

Probably loads of additional fun to be had with logic.

#15

Here’s the latest incarnation of the patch, it’s accompanied by the VCF Q from Random Source which opens the recording. This is a stunning filter, the components are amazing quality and this is a simple ‘ping patch’ with it - it’s the band pass feeding back on itself and a trigger and CV sequencing it.

It’s the original wav, so 73Mb

Comfort Food (73Mb)

Oh… The quiet squeal at the end was some weird noise coming from Mysteron, not sure why… will have to investigate that!

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#16

This evening the man behind Shakmat Modular, François, is going to drop by my house with a fresh Four Bricks Rook build, still smelling like solder, delivered like a pizza. So excited, hope I don’t eat it!

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