Book update: Generative Harmonic Quantizer and more... (JUN2022)

Dear WaveShapers!

Attached is this month's book update. As usual, search for JUN2022 to skip through the updates.

One of the updates this month is a description of what I call a "Generative Harmonic Quantizer". This is an idea explored briefly in my Mavis video, that I had quite a bit of fun with and can be implemented using any resonant filter, so it's not specific to Mavis.

"Generative" typically refers to a system set up to compose for us based on a set of rules, as opposed to us just punching melodies into a sequencer or playing live. Quantizers are tools of the trade for generative music-making: they take random notes or voltages and force them to a scale.

This patch/concept explores the following idea: what if the notes we were quantizing to weren't in a chosen scale, but rather quantized to something completely different: the harmonic series of the note we were playing!

The "trick" or way this works is to set a filter's resonance just right, not too high so that it doesn't self oscillate, and not too low, but rather in a way where it organically "looks" for harmonics to latch on to. Sometimes this results in a clear harmonic tone, sometimes in silence, and sometimes in an interesting distorted sound as the resonance bounces between two neighboring harmonics.

A VCV rack patch that recreates this effect is attached and there are further instructions in the note in the patch. Note that you need to load the patch from within VCV Rack, for some reason it didn't load for me when I double-clicked the patch. Make sure you're on the latest version, that your modules are updated, you've set the audio device to that one that's relevant for your system, and you'll need the free bogaudio spectrum and valley reverb for those to work, though you can bypass both if you just want to explore the patch quickly.

The "sequencer" in this patch is a simple LFO, but you can swap it out for any voltage source for a different style or harmonic quantization :)

I had quite a bit of fun making music with this and I hope you will too!

Other updates this month:

• Add the $5 DIY hardware “hack” to make any pulse or sawtooth wave foldable in a wavefolder as shown in my Mavis video
• Expanded the patch bay chapter and updated/refined a lot of the Matrix routing chapter based on my completed video and excellent comments from viewers.
• Added a reason to push parameters below their panel values (VCO to LFO trick…)
• Expanded the “Analog vs Digital” section and other parts of my synth buyers’ guide
• Updated appendices to reflect for new downloadable and video content

That's it for now - as always, thanks for making all this possible!

All my best,

Ziv / Loopop