Short Ver: I wanted to see how the Machinedrum would work with a more chaotic triggering system. This is a simple setup, inspired by the Czochralski Cells drum machine, using an FM kick and physical modeling snare and a little bit of PI-hat as well and then just some LFOs, using only the two external inputs as triggers.
Long Ver:
Before buying a CV to MIDI adapter that can bring more triggers/gates into my Machinedrum, I decided to finally use the external-inputs-as-triggers option that Iāve been meaning to explore for years now. In particular, now that I have a āBasket OāRollzā box that is a build of Ciat Lonbard / Peter Blasser āRollzerā circuits that is most easily described as a bunch of pulse generators. Instead of any kind of knobs, all manipulation of the generated impulses is done by patching. And in the case of this build, from Inverted Circuits on Reverb, patching can also be done by human touch.
I just got this Basket O Rollz a couple of weeks ago and have mostly been using it with its banana siblings of Plumbutter and Double Knot but YouTube started tossing videos of Czochralski cells drum machine in my face - a drum machine that seems like a hybrid of Plumbutter (based on chaotic pulses) but a synth/sound that is a bit more normal. Not quite a Pulsar 23 - the Czochralski is still a more unusual sounding machine.
Anyways, it got me thinking that Iāve already got one of the best drum machines in history, but Iām just bored at present with normal sequencing. What if I hooked Machinedrum up to Rollzer? Could it temper my desires for yet-another-expensive-strange-beautiful-drum box? And so far, the answer seems to be yes!