Four Chords in C Minor. That's pretty much the central idea around which this patch is created.

This time around, I wanted to let the chord and the mood be the main focus point of the patch. Something that just moves into the background when it has been playing for a while. That is why the two voices that can try to steal the attention away from the chord progressions are only triggered every so often.

In the PhraseSeq16 by Impromptu, there are five different four chord progressions (identified by their root notes) in C minor that all start with a C chord. Each time the four chords have played, a Sample and Hold module randomly switches the sequencer to a different progression.

A first voice that uses this progression, an Harmonàig module by Instruo sends the different notes of the current chord into a Saïch module that is mainly focused around the third and fifth notes of the chord. This gets combined with the output of a TsL module that is playing the root note a couple of octaves lower into the Io47 filter. Both the cutoff frequency and the resonance of the filter are modulated at random to bring some movement into the sound, and the result is sent into a SurgeXT Reverb 2 module. This voice provides the main pad sound of the patch.

To complement this pad voice, a CsL module is playing the root of the current chord in a bass register. By applying some modulation on the symmetry bias and wavefolding parameters of this module (courtesy of the Ochd module), the sound of this voice will also move over time. A Mockba Modular Tuube and a SurgeXT Chorus module fatten up this voice a bit before they are sent to the main mixer.

Only playing chords can become boring quite quickly. So although the main focus of this patch is on the chords, a little bit of variation is provided by two other voices. The first of these is a voice that will be triggered every now and then to play a random note within the C minor pentatonic scale. The randomness is provided by an Instruo Tágh module, and quantized by another Harmonàig. A Cruïnn module will play this note, which will already fatten it up a bit since it utilizes multiple slightly detuned sawtooth waves. The output of this oscillator is sent into a delay module which will make it sound for a bit longer and fade out slowly. After passing through the Freak filter and a reverb, this voice is added to the overall mix.

Some additional melodic variation is provided by a voice that is set to a lower volume as to blend in more into the background. The notes that this module plays are provided by a Bogaudio Walk module. After being sent through a Geodesics Fate module to bring some random jumps into that melody line, it is quantized and sent into a Dark Energy oscillator. A Tap Dancer is used to ping this voice between left and right, and only the delay sound is sent to the main mixer so that this voice blends even more into the background.

A final addition to this patch is a pair of FMOP modules that are playing notes in rapid succession into a wetonly reverb. This voice fills in some of the sonic gaps that are left by the other voices, and provides some additional movement to the overall sound since the parameters on the FMOP modules are modulated by a Caudal module (the same module that also provided the modulation input on the filter of the first melodic voice).

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__ Setup __
VCV Rack 2.4.1 on Windows
All audio generated internally within VCV Rack (no external connections)
Video is captured by OBS
RAW FLAC Audio output from VCV Rack
Audio recording synced to OBS, and fade added at the end with Reaper
OBS video and Reaper audio are merged and cut to length using Shutter Encoder.

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