If you create music, you’ve GOT to try doing it in quad. The experience of sitting in the middle of music you create while your sounds rotate around you is like none other. I’m hooked.
In this video I walk through four potential setups for making quadraphonic music – with a DAW, using Eurorack modules, using VCV Rack, and I also propose a solution for DAWless set ups.
The “secret” to creating quadraphonic music is really just about different ways of moving audio, controlling its level and timbre from one speaker to the next. The effect though is, in my opinion, magical.
All these tips and ideas will be added to my e-book of electronic music ideas, tips and tricks – available here to my Patreon supporters:
The quadraphonic DAWless project for VCV Rack is available on my Patreon as well.
You can download quadraphonic versions of some of the jams in this video here.
A big thanks to Robin Fisher from Scar Polish (https://www.facebook.com/scarpolish/) and VCV Rack guru Omri Cohen (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuWKHSHTHMV_nVSeNH4gYAg/featured) for contributing to this project. You can download Omri’s VCV project featured in this video here: http://www.mediafire.com/file/qqmhdp3thfstfzg/Genesis_by_Omri_Cohen.vcv/file
Check out Scar Polish’s song here – it’s just awesome: https://soundcloud.com/scarpolish/protein-coated-sadness
Part 1 of this series was an interview with Suzanne Ciani – check it out here:
Here’s a list of what was used in each setup:
Setup #1: DAW
Touche by Expressive E
Continuum by Haken
Launchpad from Novation
AudioFuse and Piano V2 from Arturia
Maschine MK3, Bite and Reaktor from Native Instruments
Live 10 from Ableton
The jam is a cover of 09 Ghosts I by Nine Inch Nails
Setup #2: Eurorack
248 VCA and two Mixvert8rs from VoicAs
A-144 from Doepfer
ADDAC803 Quadraphonic Spatializer
PanMix from Happy Nerding
Aither from Instruo (with Parat+ from Incalcando)
Belkin splitter
Bitbox from 1010Music
Maths from Make Noise
ES-8 and Disting MK4 from Expert Sleepers
Rings and Plaits from Mutable Instruments
Z-DSP from Tiptop Audio
H9 and EuroDDL from Eventide
SBG, Beast’s Chalkboard and Pam’s New Workout (with an expander) from ALM
Hermod from Squarp
iPad by Apple
6U and 3U cases from Arturia
The 6U case is sitting on SpikeXL from Cremacaffe (you can’t see it but it’s there…)
Samples from Scar Polish
Not used in this setup but potential alternatives: Poltergeist from KOMA and the 227e by Buchla
Setup #3: VCV Rack
Quad Panner from NYSTHI
Quadraphonic patch from Omri Cohen
Set up #4: DAWless
Arcade Pocket Operator from Teenage Engineering
Digitone from Elektron
MacBook Pro by Apple
VCV Rack, audio, MIDI CC and LFOs from VCV
Quad Panner from NYSTHI
Mix 4 from BogAudio
Raspberry PI?
Timeline:
0:00 Intro
1:30 Hardware
2:30 ABLETON
3:00 Swirling noise
3:45 Surround panner
5:05 Synced random
5:45 Traveling notes
6:45 Manual control
7:15 EURORACK
7:25 Morph+VCA
8:20 Recording motion
9:45 Adding distance
11:25 Distance fx
13:10 Multiple motions
14:55 Mixing quad
18:00 Quad jam
19:25 VCV RACK
20:00 Quad panner
22:00 DAWless quad?
22:30 Proposed solution