Syntakt Science Lab #16: BD Plastic

Elektronauts Science Lab
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New Year, new lab!

This time we’re investigating a machine that probably passes below the radar quite often.
BD Plastic has frequency modulation and ring modulation up its sleeve, and is capable of some surprises. We’re back to analog and three tracks only, so it might be be wise to employ those sound locks again :slight_smile:

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The usual:
Post your contributions in this thread, including…

  • Audio file
  • Project file
  • Some words on your inspiration, techniques used, and other aspects explaining how you ended up where you did.

And most importantly, have fun :smiley:

General Science Lab rules, discussions on upcoming Labs etc:

…and the following post highlights the state of the Syntakt Science Lab:

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Plastic Fantastic! My first entry ain’t pretty. Not in the least because I’m doing some audiorate filter & pan mod on the FX track :stuck_out_tongue: I think there’s plenty of scope though, will explore some more :+1: 3x Plastic, 3 Patterns

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Nice and gritty :slight_smile: Some almost vocal-like textures here and there. Wonder if that’s an area to explore more…

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Probably! It’s similar to BD FM where you can FM the FM with an LFO and have these vowely sweet spots.

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You can do some pretty brutal proto techno as well :face_with_hand_over_mouth:

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May i ask how you did the hihats? Fast random LFO(s) on tune or something? Iam away from the ST and can not test it.

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Yep, fast LFO to tune. Just a sine wave though because BD Plastic’s internal modulator does quite a bit of FM as well.

2nd LFO modulates PAN. Also fast :slight_smile:

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@Oxenholme Nice drive!

@zirkuskind It’s possible to «cheat» with the analog machines: set the filter to self-oscillation (max resonance) in band pass mode and the synth engine to minimum decay. You will hardly hear the synth engine, only the filter sine wave. This can make it easier to achieve thinner sounds with less body, which in some cases are more suitable for hihats.

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Thx! Will test this. Cause for hihats i find myself to often (stupidly) thinking „just let make it to noise and then tame it“ , instead of like your tip for example to reach out for a filterping like thing, got some clean thing going on and go from there.

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Bit of a Ctrl-All freak-out here, lots of lock trigs and FX Block for the three BD Plastics and Reverb/Delay, velocity mod for Syn Mod and Filter Decay on one of the three, plus lock trigs for LFO params.

It’s good to be back.

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Hi) It’s my first step.

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@verdurin These are some superb crackly, organic and squeaking textures. Almost like animal noises.

@Wiq Welcome to the forum and the Science Lab! Nice groove :slight_smile:

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My first experiments. BD Plastic has a fairly characteristic sound, all of its own. I think it has its place in the Syntakt universe.

Some melodic stuff, with sawtooth LFO to volume.

Shuffly in-your-face squeaky techno

BD Plastic does choirs, what else? :upside_down_face:

And finally, apologies to our Swedish friends for this Christmas carol massacre :rofl:

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:rofl: Christmas carol is both impressive and funny.

Great stuff with the melodic bit and squeaky techno.

BD plastic has some nice bounce to it. I think it also does a great 303, although I’m not very knowledgeable about acid, so I’ll say it can do acid like sounds, with short portamento, legato enabled in sound menu and an adjustment to the key filter setting.

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Ha, you got the voices :smiley: Cool!

I think the first melodic one turned out really nice! Very evocative.

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Thanks both of you :slight_smile:

@elxsound I haven’t tried making acid sounds with it, but I feel it has a lot of acid «quacks» in it :smile:

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Techstyle

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A couple of new ones.

Trying to build a kind of beat around a minor chord, dub-style.
Hmm, seems to have lost some bass in the mp3 compression… :thinking:

A low-down groove with some silly melodies.

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Hi there,
Missed a couple rounds again, but thanks for organizing these Nils, it’s been a real pleasure to explore new stuff every time :slight_smile:
Small contribution to this one, thought i’d give it a try as I don’t think i’ve ever used BD Plastic for anything. I kind of like the result, although I think I could have achieved the result with a lot of the other machines for this one!

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I’ve been so into trying to learn the Tonverk, the ST hasn’t gotten much love lately. This is pretty simple, 3 tracks of BD Plastic and 3 patterns. Not terribly exciting, but I’m trying to be a team player and participate here!

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