Is it possible to have the a4 play a self generating or random or evolving sound?
hi … good question … .I bet there will be a shit load of awesome answer coming in in the next few hours … from more advanced users than me … anyways … the arp plus the fx section with overdrive and feedback on the delay will probably get you a step closer … cant wait for the oootheeer answers! good question!
absolutely. the analog four can do this type of thing in many different ways. i consider the analog four a kind of software-based semi-modular. typically, using the vast amount of options with the lfos, filter feedback oscillator, neighbor oscillators, effects, and the various polyphony settings, you can very easily get evolving type sounds very easily.
in fact, just this morning i had a happy accident. i had track one playing a polyphonic pattern with two to three notes. the polyphony settings were set to enable all four tracks of polyphony. then i set track four to use the feedback oscillator on oscillator one and the neighbor setting on oscillator 2. building a basic pattern with that gave some interesting results as the pattern on track one went through its note and sound changes.
then i later modified the polyphony settings to use the track sounds. then i actually placed sounds and patterns on tracks two and three, which essentially steal from the polyphony pattern on track one. these sounds happened to be naturally organic using filter envelopes and lfos to evolve the sound in interesting ways. meanwhile, track four is still set to get neighbor and use the feedback oscillator. now the entire pattern is evolving rather nicely in timbre and rhythm, with a sort of base pattern going on track one. i can now take it even further by setting the polyphony settings to rotate and others and play around with the effects and lfos. i don’t have a recording yet, but the analog four is very much an evolving machine.
also, here’s a nice video of just the filter feedback doing its thing.
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Perfect, thanks for your answer. I’m gonna try it out! The video sounded exactly like the stuff I’m after.
More tips to do the trick is appreciated.
Perhaps not strictly in the realm of self-generating, but setting each track to a different length and the master length to infinite can get you some pretty Eno-esque generations. If you use prime numbers the pattern won’t repeat until the product of those numbers.
I have a project with the four tracks set to 61, 59, 53 and 47 steps, each playing a single note so they form a chord. I have the performance controls set to alter all four tracks’ Amp and Filter ADSRs. By my math, it repeats every just under 9 million steps, which at 60 bpm would give me around 26 days before it repeats.
And that’s before bringing in an external voice. There’s a reason the A4 has been called Berlin School in a Box.
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individual track lengths, random lfos and the voice stealing methods mentioned above really do wonders.
Using the random LFO on note slide time can do some very interesting stuff. Make sure you have the ties inserted between notes
Interesting approach to different track lengths. If you have any more tips and tricks or could tell more about how you approach making these types of soundscapes, it would be much appreciated.
Anyway - cool advice
I’m getting some good results with random lfo and different step lengths but can’t really figure out the voice stealing method or the filter feedback method. Is there a more specific tutorial or would anyone care to write up a step by step instruction?