Right Ruckus - Bit Rate Reduction Custom Unit

I had a moment of inspiration after reading about a new module that’s just been announced and Right Ruckus is the end result!

It’s a weird Bit Rate Reduction FX unit based on the idea that you can feed audio into a Sample and Hold Unit and trigger it at audio rates and below to get a variety of bit reduction effects.

Initial experiments with the Sine Osc to drive the S&H were really nice, but I ended up using the Sample Player with the perfect sine wave from AKWF.

In reality you could use literally any sample in here so long as there is some dynamics in it, hint: the more complex it is generally the better the results will be. Or just replace the sample with noise perhaps? Experiment for different flavours :slight_smile:

I also implemented an idea I’ve been wanting to try for a while now, and if you look at how the two mixers are patched through their accompanying VCAs you can find a nice cross fader setup :wink:

This is a stereo unit that can be used for internal or external audio signals, however the default settings are IN1 for mono audio in → Out 1 & 2.

D1 and D2 are custom unit cv inputs:

D1 maps to dry/wet mix - patch any attenuverter that behaves as an offset when there’s nothing plugged into it - I used Maths 2&3

D2 is Bit Rate Reduction - again patch an attenuverter into it -ve being light crush, +ve being total destruction!

I think it sounds really sweet and musical, I like it a lot!!!

Please share any creations you make with Right Ruckus here!!

To install, make sure you have the AKWF folder in your samples folder and copy right-ruckus.lua to your custom-unit folder.

Enjoy :smiley:

Right Ruckus.zip (4.0 KB)

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By the way, if you’re external audio source is an oscillator you can get a kind of hard sync by patching the v/oct CV from your sequencer to the v/oct input on the sample and hold trigger sample player via one of the ABCD inputs!!

:cat:

I have to correct myself a little; it also helps a lot if you send your note trigger/gate to the trig input on the sample and hold trigger sample player. Well, I say helps, it’s just another flavour really but it keeps things in phase if you want that!

When synced like this it’s absolutely destroying The Bateleur.

This is just the sine wave and Right Ruckus, first you hear the sine, then I start fading in the crushed channel until the sine is completely gone, then it goes back a little:

https://soundcloud.com/kel/rightruckus-vs-sine-demo

Edit, this is with the D2 input set so that it’s in time, if you mess about with it you get all kinds of dissonant effects, it’s very strange!

With other waveforms it gets even more crazy - can’t quite believe my ears :smiley:

Let me guess… Its inspired by the t-wrex from alright devices? :slight_smile:

Thanks for sharing i look forward to trying it out.

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:see_no_evil: :hear_no_evil: :speak_no_evil:

Well, yeah… it just seemed like a really simple idea to try out and it definitely works along those kinda lines!!

…but hey, it’s never going to be the same!

Having said that, it’s really quite good when you get it dialled in, some nice phase effects coming from somewhere on occasion, there’s been some weird ‘hoovers’ here n there, and I really like the pulsing effect. And just a touch can add a little spice to an otherwise standard sound!

Here’s something a litre bit more coherent, it’s just one channel on the ER-101, The Bateleur, the Right Ruckus, a delay and a spot of reverb! The only change throughout is the wet/dry mix of the RR, so all the timbre changes are the Bit Rate Reduction effect. Weird huh!

https://soundcloud.com/kel/in-drunken-accord

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That module looks pretty cool actually so i can see how it inspired you. Isn’t it just awesome you can do this with the 301 though. Piece together completely new functions out of exciting units. I love it! :smiley:

A nice additional modulation point would be the pitch of the sine wave driving the sampling frequency of the s&h. All in all, very cool!!

Edit: oops, that’s probably the D2 input in your unit. Nevermind :smiley:

@gareth.lyons agreed, it literally took me about ten minutes :smiley:

The best part about it is that it’s not fixed, you can add whatever you want in there at any point in the signal chain, it is amazing!

@josker no, you were right first time, that and sending your note trigger to get it in phase works really well!

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I’ve just realised why I kept thinking this was a weird form of bit rate reduction, this is more sample rate reduction rather than bit rate reduction!!

:joy:

whoa wow waweewaa

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Yep! The closest thing to a bit rate reducer on the ER-301 currently is the Quantize unit.

Excellent demo, BTW

Yeah, you just reminded me of that use of the Quantizer - it might be nice to put together a general destruction custom unit with a three way mix of clean, SRR and QRR!

In fact, I might just call it General Destruction hehe!

…and thanks!!

This was the first time I’ve really explored the use of the mod inputs for the envelope, I must admit they are very inspiring. One of my favourite modules of all time is the Double Andore mk][ from the Harvestman and it’s great to think the potential here; actually, you just reminded me of a question I was going to ask about generating exponential and logarithmic curves for these! I’ll do that in another post though!

Cheers :smiley:

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A post was merged into an existing topic: Exponential and Logarithmic Curves

Was gonna say a little bit of a green T-Rex a source of inspiration? :slight_smile:

Nice trick with audio rate sample and hold (like you mention the hard sync type tones) is to use a second oscillator as your square wave clock and get some nice downsampling stuff happening. Then take the 1v/oct sequence going to your audible oscillator so the downsampling tracks the pitch. It makes it sound like you’ve sampled the note where crude re-pitching in a sampler lifts the noise, downsampling overtones and everything all relative to the pitch.

A nice trick is to then use a second sequence to your clocking oscillator so you hear the overtones change and then move over to that sequence going to pitch too. Adds a nice transition step between two sequences where you transition the overtones before the main pitch.

I imagine you can do some similar and equally cool stuff with this.

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Nice - thanks Ben - I totally agree, the tuning of the triggering oscillator yields all kinds of insanity and fun and i’ve tracked it with the main sequence CV but not thought to try a completely different sequence with it, that’s a great idea!!!

Odd I didn’t think of it yet as that’s one of my favourite ways to work :smiley:

Cheers!!

@anon83620728 liking this patch! Am I right in thinking this custom unit can’t be added after say a sample player due to the way the dry/wet works I.e. I can’t define the output of the sample player as the input source for both mixers?

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There’s a couple of options, you could set your sample player to be on a different channel and use the internal output routing, but perhaps easier is to just double up your sample player?

It’s a good question, I’ll think on it some more :slight_smile:

hey! just wanted to give this a try.

I seem to have trouble locating samples and custom-unit folders both.

I just upgraded to 2.2.

perhaps these folders create themselves under certain circumstances I haven’t had yet?

Yeah I made those up right at the beginning with the ER-301 and then forgot - sorry for the confusion! :blush:

This problem will be resolved in a firmware update at some point, but in the mean time you can either look in the 'lua file for the location paths and create them, or edit the .lua file to suit your own file organisation practices.