The chain ideas thread

ER-301
#1

In the old forum i remember a few guys had some cool ideas, vcoadsr created a cloud generator style patch and someone else mentioned about using delays and the period o meter to create karplus strong style sounds.

I thought it might be a nice idea to have a thread where people could share chain ideas and learn more about the units they might not use much or not sure how they work (myself included).

I was trying to use a bunch of delays and a pitch shifting delay to create a crude spring reverb type effect. I found that throwing a quantizer in the middle also creates bit crushed type feedback artefacts which is quite nice. Not really a spring reverb but I thought it was an interesting effect.

https://soundcloud.com/macros/301-spring-effect

I was wondering what other users on here might be interested in sharing ideas about cool effect discovered using the currently available units.

As a side note i would love the 301 to have a aux style send fx bus maybe at the top level of a chain it might help free up some CPU.

3 Likes
#2

Yeah, a thread to share patches is a nice idea - does it make sense to a separate section in the forum?

I’m happy to put my cloud generator patch here in the meantime.

1 Like
#3

A few ideas that I plan on building after I get more comfortable:

-Six partial additive voice. You need 6 sine units and 6 VCAs. Use the 12 inputs on the bottom for 6 1/V Oct and 6 amplitude inputs. It’s both an additive voice (with offsets used for the VCAs) and a plonky sine box (if using AD envelopes). You could also remove the multiple 1v/oct inputs and set the sine base frequencies manually so that they stay at a constant relationship with fewer things to manage.

-Matrix mixer (for audio only, I suppose). Ins are ins, and outs are outs. The 12 inputs on the bottom are then like a VCA matrix for the top three rows (outputs 1-3). I think the four spare gates could be used to trigger envelopes for the last row (output 4).

1 Like
#4

I like both approaches:

  1. as an ideas thread, i.e. you just post the idea, you may or may not have actually tried it :wink:

  2. actual patch sharing - I enabled .zip uploads (please use wisely and respectfully!) for this very purpose.

It’s probably worth writing up how to save out particular parts of a chain, it’s not hard, but there are a few things that should be noted.

3 Likes
#5

I think that probably deserves it’s own thread, maybe see what Brian says about a Patch Sharing section of the site.

2 Likes
#6

Yeah, let’s do that before I post in a new thread.

#7

The nice thing about Discourse (the forum platform we’re using here) is that posts can be categorized (categories are what Discourse calls “sections” of the forum site) and/or tagged (the small gray bubbles under thread titles that say things like “request”) anytime. Things don’t necessarily have to happen in a particular order.

#8

So in principle I could make a post anywhere and it can later be moved to the most appropriate ‘section’ and be tagged more accurately?

#9

Precisely!

:heart_eyes:

3 Likes
#10

I love the idea of having a common repository for patches instead of random distribution across the forum.

#11

I think a patch sharing section on the forum would be great. It definitely makes sense for all of us to follow a kind of standard format for patch sharing, zip files with contained presets/samples, maybe a text file description where to patch cv etc(patch notes).

It could turn out to be a valuable resource for new and seasoned users alike.

3 Likes
#12

I vote for a dedicated section. Threads can get bloated and messy… not only that but I envision a more elegant approach - think Reaktor User Lib. Maybe not quite that large and elaborate, but something more than a forum thread seems necessary.

3 Likes
#13

One feature of Discourse that I have not used yet is subcategories because I opted for tagging instead. However, in this case maybe it makes sense to make a “patch book” subcategory for the ER-301 category. Then you can just start a topic/thread for each “patch idea” in that subcategory.

8 Likes
#14

Sounds good

#15

Any way to allow us to upload chains and share them in this forum? Could be fun.

1 Like
#16

Methinks a wiki would be more suitable, with Discourse threads linking to them?

#17

I’m not sure what you think is stopping you? :slight_smile:

Create a thread - post your patch - tag it with custom-unit - talk about it a bit - job done!

#18

All the other custom units are available by browsing the Tag menu above and choosing custom-unit, here’s the link:

Custom units are much preferable to sharing chains because you can assign parameters to them and turn them into usable instruments. This is not possible with chains.

For a good example of how to create a Custom Unit with it’s own controls check out the Kick Drum patch, it has nice custom controls :wink:

1 Like