Sunday Synth Jam: This video, via synthesist davidryle, captures an ambient modular synth performance of Pacific, featuring a massive 5U modular synthesizer, Dreadbox Erebus, DSI OB6, Roland System 8 and Behringer Deepmind 12.

Here’s what he has to say about the technical details:

The opening arpeggio is the System 8 Juno 106 mode. The played line is a Novation ReMOTE 37 controller to a desktop OB6. The Deepmind is the sketchy pads.

All timings to the modular and keyboard sync are derived from a master midi clock from Cubase in 100 BPM through a Mode Machines Nano Sync to generate 24 ppq dinsync. The modular clock divisions are from a Pamela’s Workout and the STG Soundlabs Time Divider.

The drone chords are two rows of the Q119 step sequencer to two Q106 vco’s through a Q150 transistor ladder filter in -24dB. They are further treated through a Strymon Blue Sky in plate shimmer mode.

The fluttering trills are made with a pair of Pressure Points in step sequence mode to a Q171 quantizer then on to Rings in string (orange), 4 poly mode. The voltage from the Pressure Points is right on the edge between notes and the quantizer is totally working overtime creating the half step trill.

The plucked string sound is the Mysteron. It is also randomly modulated by a pair of Turing Machines. It’s pitch data (quantized) is frm a second row of the Pressure Points. Some times the wave shape results in a crunchy noise which may sound like harmonic distortion but is actually just the compound waveform itself from the Mysteron. Excitation of the wave front is from two Turing Machine step triggers, one is #2 and the other #1+2 & 4+7.

The “piano” sound is a group of four Q106 vco’s, two of them through a Q107 band pass filter and two of them through a Moogah (Synthcube) SEM filter in bandpass. Their pitch cv is from a pair of Q960 step sequencers. One is in 24 note step pattern and the other is eight step. Division is eighth note.

A faster 32nd note “ratchetting” pattern is from two Q106’s through EG’s controlled by the STG SWITCH module. Using both the Voltage Select block and the Sequential Out block to generate these shifting patterns. One vco is tuned a fourth above the other. All clock timings are from an STG Time Divider and the voltage block is controlled by a VMS step sequencer.

Another slower pattern in quarter notes is a Metropolis sequencer pattern in 12 steps to a pair of Mos Lab 901 vco’s through the Z-DSP in Halls of Valhalla mode.

A winding electronic pattern is the Erebus in paraphonic mode. The vco’s are cv’d from an STG VMS sequencer and a row of a Q960 sequencer. The note triggers are broken up by a Turing Machine random timing.

All the patterns from the modular are amplitude modulated slowly to come and go by using various vca’s and LFO’s. The drone is slightly modulated this way but never dies off completely.

Out board effects are TC Electronic D-Two delay and a pair of Lexicon MX200’s.