In this tutorial, I’m exploring how to use a quantiser to turn any changing control voltage into a melody using a quantiser. It’s a pretty simple idea but it can produce great results and for me it really encapsulates the power and flexibility of a modular system.

Here I’m using the Contour 1 to produce a cycling attackdecay envelope, then attenuating that 010V output voltage so the range becomes more usable and adding an offset to raise the base pitch. This signal goes into the Disting in ‘A6 Quantizer’ mode, which then outputs a quantised voltage every time it gets a trigger, which in this case is coming from Pamela’s New Workout. Plaits gets the quantised voltage and the same triggers.

By playing around with (or modulating with another CV source!) the rise and fall times of the envelope, the attenuation and offset being applied, the scale/mode/chord in the quantiser and the rhythm of the triggers, you can generate a huge range of melodies, from simple looping arpeggios to evolving semirandom patterns.

You can try the same approach by feeding in LFOs, more complex envelope shapes, or combinations of both. If you have the modules, try a dual or quad quantiser, offset multiple versions of the same source voltage and feed different trigger patterns to each… the sky’s the limit. If you’re new to the world of modular, hopefully this gives you a few ideas!

Comments and feedback are always welcome. If you enjoyed this, please like and subscribe!

Chapters
00:00 Intro and preview
00:58 Theory and module rundown
04:58 Building up a basic pattern
13:10 Using Euclidean triggers
15:50 Adding a kick
16:35 Layering a second sequence

Key modules used:
Joranalogue Contour 1 https://joranalogue.com/products/cont...
Intellijel Quadratt https://intellijel.com/shop/eurorack/...
Expert Sleepers Disting Mk4 https://www.expertsleepers.co.uk/dis...
ALM Busy Circuits Pamela’s New Workout https://busycircuits.com/alm017/
Mutable Instruments Plaits https://mutableinstruments.net/modul...

More stuff from me:
https://tomchurchill.bandcamp.com/
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