Moog Matriarch

Another example of abracadabra for me :slight_smile:

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Same! :slight_smile:

Would be awesome to hear some of your stuff, though, @blipson!

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There’s plenty of quality microtonal out there, but I’d really like to hear how that sounds with a Moog. Maybe I can get some all-Kyra demos out in the next few weeks with the sequencer I’ve been working on, which is coincidentally named “the blipquencer.”

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On a very basic level I understand the concept of microtonality and I think it’s interesting to think that music can also live between the notes / frequencies we’ve become conditioned to. For me, in orchestral (string) music, some of the most evocative moments are the ones when two or more instruments or players are almost interlocked to an interval but can’t quite reach it - perhaps aren’t even meant to. Kinda makes it sound “perfectly imperfect”.

Don’t know if it’s an example of “quality microtonal” electronic music but I’m just listening to a DnB artist called Sevish (one of the first hits with those keywords on Youtube). The vibe is a bit different due to the concept of “being in tune” being more free. Have to say this still sounds very conservative in almost any other respect. Not bad but a bit meh to my ears. Some nice moments tho, also due to the microtonality. Maybe this is mainstream microtonal. :smiley:

Sorry about being a bit off-topic. (Still love the Matriarch.) :blush:

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The attenuator on the Matriarch is quite simple. All it does is lower or raise the voltage of whatever signal you patch through it.

Matriarch has 3 of them.

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This free microtonal tool was announced on CDM recently. Here is the thread for it.

Yes, I’d have recommended Sevish and maybe Zadarpadov at bandcamp. In a way, as you point out, they’re not terribly unusual aside from the way they work tonality. Depending on what people will accept, maybe that puts them on the more listenable side of microtonality. There’s another idea that the ways we handle beats (binary clock divisions, plus dividing by 3) are themselves “tonal rhythms,” microtonality calling for different conceptions of rhythm. That’s been around a long time, too, but also not much accepted. Maybe a Matriarch’s inherently lovely sound can keep the rest of the weirdness engaging.

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Interesting. The Dave Smith synths don´t have it either?

Actually, the M has not simple attenuator, but attenuverter which can additionally invert the incoming voltage signal.
Nice explanation here:
https://www.muffwiggler.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=128055

Fun fact about the “mults”: they are normalized, means they can be used to mix both, audio and control voltage signals, without destroying any components by summing up too much voltage…

Browsing for MTS i came across this: Micro-pitch Device Tutorial | Bitwig

Yeah, I tried to say that. When I said “lower the voltage” I meant the knob can lower it so much that it goes negative. Conversely if the input signal was already negative you can make it positive. :upside_down_face:

But I’m sure your language is more correct and succinct in this instance.

Wait, let me try something…

image

A picture says more than words…
Copyright to someone on muffwiggler.

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Unfortunately, no. I have that directly from Sequential.

Plus, they have a CV in, allowing them to be wiggled with yet another control voltage. And, if I remember correctly, the two on the left are wired up in a clever way to serve as a little two signal mixer. And they serve as constant voltage sources, if only the output is connected somewhere.

This is a really a theme in the Matriarch: It looks deceptively simple on the surface, but it’s full of interesting little, sometimes mindblowing tricks.

I’m sometimes tempted to publish a list of those I discovered somewhere, but I don’t have the time.

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Yes you can use them e.g. to make the delay time veeeeerrrryyy loooooong

very long

very long

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Oh, nice! I used it to slow down the second LFO – didn’t know that works with the delay as well.

(Actually, I did it to modulate the delay time very very very slowly.)

I have a Korg SQ1 laying around…:grin:
when hooked up to the Matriarch, i should be entering Easel territory. Only a trick for wavefolding is missing…

Wow…the 666 post in this thread…:japanese_ogre:

Some interesting ideas here:

And some VERY dangerous ideas here, leading to GAS: 3 modules to expand my Matriarch - MUFF WIGGLER

On a sidenote, to avoid GAS, using the A4 CV capabilities to expand the Matriarch is definitely something to explore. Eg. using the A4 as a flexible sequencable filterbank with attached multifx unit.

So hey, about that Matriarch midi problem. I updated the firmware (at least I thought I did), but the problem remains.

Case 1: Midi out ch 2 on the Matriarch, OT Auto channel 2. Pressing a certain note on the Matriarch will scroll down the Octatrack tracks. Pressing a different note will mute and unmute the focused track on the OT. (Forget which notes these are but they’re always the same.)

Case 2: Using the Matriarch to control a VST (I have the midi flowing via the OT), it sometimes sends seemingly random midi cc’s which essentially make it an unreliable controller for other synths and VSTs.

Does this sound like the problem that was supposed to go away with the newest firmware?

I have to say I was a bit disappointed by that Loopop video, but it’s really not his fault. The Matriarch is remarkably complete the way it ships. Of course you can always throw in some effects or replace something, but it’s not easy to find something that really extends the synth into completely new territory or fills a huge gap.

As I said above, the only thing I really wish for in my patching is a slow, tempo synced LFO, so Pamela’s New Workout is the thing that makes a lot of sense to add, from my personal patching experience. Of course, reverb, but I wouldn’t go to Eurorack for that.

I also have an SQ-1 lying around, but I was a bit disappointed from my attempts combining it with the Matriarch. For me Matriarch is all about four note chords, so the two channels don’t really cut it, except for modulation. I also found it challenging to start things in sync.

The Matriarch was pretty much the reason why I gave up on heavy duty sequencers (Eurorack and standalone) altogether. I have a bit of a strange journey through synthesis, as I started with grooveboxes and then moved to modular very quickly. It sounds ridiculous, but the Matriarch is literally my first synth with a keyboard, and that was a eye-opening to a degree that I’ll probably never use a sequencer again. I even had an Instruo Harmonaig in the rack, which I combined with my sequencers, and loved to death, and I was so eager to use it with the Matriarch. But compared to the keyboard and the built-in sequencer (and knowing my way around chord inversions and extensions) it just felt limiting.

Speaking of Easel territory – one idea I find tempting is using a 0-Control with the Matriarch. Has around here tried that?

This sounds silly when I just said I’m done with sequencers, but my main reason would be to get a bit off the grid with the arp and the sequencer. Yes, the internal sequencer does rests (but not the arp), and there is swing viciously hidden in the notorious global settings. But neither is an intuitive way of getting more interesting rhythms. However, you can configure the analog clock in of the Matriarch to act as a “next step” input for the sequencer rather than than a clock in, and this opens some opportunities with the 0-Control. CV would be used for modulation, maybe some kind of velocity. And the interactivity is tempting.

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Ha, just yesterday I was checking out 0-coast and 0-ctrl as expansion modules for the Matriarch. They would be perfect fits imho. 0-coast would add half a Maths and a STO/wavefolder. 0-ctrl a Perfect Modulation sequencer with touchplates.
We all have strange synth pathes behind us. I am coming from a 104U only mutable Instruments system via an Iridium (which I still have) to the Matriarch, which totally blew me away how really modular it is and how much fun! They really balanced the Parameters so that you can go way beyond the standard Model D. I love that!

How did you interconnect the SQ1 with the Matriarch?

0ctrl is great. If you’re interested and don’t want to step up to eurorack it’s hard to beat for a standalone touch sequencer w/ 3 lanes of modulation at once. I sold my sq1 immediately (which I had barely used). And there’s no redundancy with the matriarch itself.