MOOG SUBHARMONICON -- in the house!

[Ben Asaro]

Well, just as I was deciding that I wasn't going to get the Solar 50, Control got in a new order of Subharmonicons.

I have plugged it in and verified that it works. As usual, all of the components have a really nice feel to them. Getting something usable out of this thing is another matter! It's really complex! This is going to take practice to come to grips with. Sounds great, though!

[resistorman]

[Ben Asaro]

The Subharmonicon in its new home:





My first stab at trying to make music with it: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jyPPKb ... sp=sharing

[Arpangel]

The Subharmonicon in its new home:





My first stab at trying to make music with it: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jyPPKb ... sp=sharing

I looked at it Ben, it’s er........a bit confusing!
But as they say, you only get out what you put in, and it sounds like you’re making headway already.



PS, I’ve put my modular on a little shelf behind my Moog Grand Mother, and it’s a revelation, I’ve instantly gained a whole load of amazing modules! plus, I won’t have to waste valuable rack space on utilities!

[Ben Asaro]

Great idea!

I'm in the process of really exploring the unit today. I'm not going to lie, it's got a lot going on.

However, I can see why it's called an inspiration machine; it's constantly generating new avenues of exploration with every tweak of the dials!

Will have a new jam later today, this time using a good chunk of the modular all at once! It's the beginning of new piece of music, perhaps ... though I'm tempted reset the dials and start fresh once it's done, this machine is positively addicting!

[Ian Shaw]

Just added a DFAM to my Subharmonicon, although I haven't linked them up yet. Definitely addictive this modular thing. Easy for me to get lost but always come up with something interesting.

Anyone know why MIDI clock is so hard for most software. Logic can't seem to do it. NI Maschine hardware is miles off. Only Bitwig seems to be able to send my Sub a reliable clock signal.

Have fun with the Sub

Ian

[Ben Asaro]

Ian, I use the Erica Synths MIDI <->CLK for converting MIDI clock to analog, I find it works much better than using MIDI sync for modular.

Here is my first jam using the Subharmonicon. Not amazing, but some fun concepts here that I will continue to explore! I especially like how the delay into the reverb created this phantom melody line behind everything else. Eerie and very cool!

Modules used:

Moog Subharmonicon
Make Noise Dynamix
Make Noise Function
Dins Sync Amnesia
Erica Synths Pico Sequential Switch
Make Noise Rosie
Moog Mother-32
Intellijel Quadra
Expert Sleepers Disting Mk4
ALM Busy Circuits Pamela's Workout
Steady State Fate Modbox
Doepfer A183-3
Tiptop Audio BD808
Tiptop Audio SD808
Erica Synths Pico Drums
Studio Electronics Oscillation
Doepfer A-106-5
Intellijel Quad VCA
WORNG Sound Stage
WORNG LRMSMSLR
strymon AA.1
XOR Electronics NerdSeq
Dreadbox Eudemonia
Studio Electronics Quadnic
BOSS RV-500

https://soundcloud.com/asfollowswriting ... icon-jam-1

The patch looks like this:

[Ben Asaro]

Just added a DFAM to my Subharmonicon, although I haven't linked them up yet. Definitely addictive this modular thing. Easy for me to get lost but always come up with something interesting.

I've not had any interest in the DFAM, though I do love the way it sounds. I may get one yet, but probably not before I get a second Subharmonicon.

Have fun with the Sub

Ian

I shall, thanks!!

[Drew Stephenson]

Would love to see how you create stuff like this, it's really a closed book to me.

[Ben Asaro]

This came together pretty quick, it was mostly a proof of concept for me!

If I had to break it down into it's basic steps it would be:

1. Tuned the oscillators
2. Set the Quadnic so that it made a super saw (all of the oscillators were set for sawtooth waves and doubled, that gave me 8 sawtooth waves) to make the drone. I put that into a low pass filter so I could animate the drone
3. With the Subharmonicon I wrote the first sequencer melody. I then brought up each of the sub oscillators to make chords. Then I brought up the second oscillator and tuned those to the first set going one step at a time, and checking all of the sequencer steps against each other to make sure there weren't any super dissonant chords
4. I wrote the sequences for the Boomstar and Mother-32 to compliment the Subharmonicon
5. I used Euclidean Circles for the percussion sounds

For the sound design aspect, the only really tricky part was getting the drone pad to sound wide and have a stereo spread. I achieved that by multing the output of the drone filter and running one copy through a function generator to delay the signal a touch. That caused enough phase difference between them for the mid-side processor to send both of them to the reverb.

That's basically it, it's not rocket science by any stretch, just painstakingly going over each step and failing often, or at least trying to fail forward!!

[Drew Stephenson]

I understand all the words but...

Seriously though, after several years of reading SOS i do almost understand it.
Still wouldn't have a clue how to do it myself mind.

[Ben Asaro]

I understand all the words but...

Seriously though, after several years of reading SOS i do almost understand it.
Still wouldn't have a clue how to do it myself mind.

LOL

I was the same way a few years ago. I'm very new to this synth lark!

[Ben Asaro]

Now that I've had a full week with the Subharmonicon I thought I would post a quick update.

It's freaking great!

The only thing I wish it had was more output from the VCA when it's mounted in a eurorack case, it's noticeably quieter than a standard eurorack module.

That being said, this machine is incredibly deep. It took a while for me to grok how to get it to play nice with other modules playing at a fixed pitch reference. What I've discovered (it's actually in the manual, but it could be explained better) is that depending on where you have the main oscillator and quantizer set, the sequencers then produce notes in a scale with the oscillator as the root note. So, if you have the quantizer set to 8ET, the pitches available on the oscillator will be the 8 pitches of the C major scale. If you were to choose, say, E as the pitch of the oscillator, now the sequencer will produce pitches in the E Major scale. It's a very easy and handy way to get the Subharmonicon to produce pitches in key with your other modules and modulating is as simple as turning the VCOs to a new pitch. It also makes it possible to set up the VCOs to play complimentary or totally different keys or modes depending on what you are going for.

[Ben Asaro]

UPDATE AND ERRATA: I've learned since my last post that changing the root note of Osc 1 or 2 does not change the relative key. Unfortunately, if you have the quantizer set to 8ET, you will ALWAYS be in the key of C. Bit bummed about that. However, if you use 12ET quantization, you can create whatever key or mode you desire.

This is a quick improv from last night. One of the things I really love about the Subharmonicon is how it can create song sections so easily! I did this by keeping the sequencers the same throughout, just changed their range. Sometimes you come across really beautiful harmonies this way, sometimes not. I lucked out this time!

https://soundcloud.com/asfollowswriting ... con-jam-2a

It's amazing how you can take something so minimal and make it the basis for an entire piece. I also like the ephemery of it. Turn one knob and you will probably lose what you had forever.

[Martin Walker]

Nice!

Love the understated but nevertheless significant progression.

I think you could almost lose the drums, or at the very least drop them right down in volume - the tonal Subharmonicon stuff stands up by itself.

Martin

[Ben Asaro]

100% agreed! The drums are still at the level for a piece with many more voices. I just threw that up to keep the pulse. I will probably be developing this one, interesting to see where this can lead. I also want to experiment with taking the sub osc out and creating a dedicated bass line from it with the Mother-32.

[Ben Asaro]

Finally had the time and desire last night to sit down and suss out how the Subharmonicon actually works from a functional harmony standpoint. I ended up concentrating on the first 8 subdivisions, as I found that after 3 octaves, the notes are too muddy and indistinct for my tastes.

Starting with the subharmonic oscillator fully clockwise, it's in unison with the main oscillator. (Note: this presumes that you have the sequencer assigned to the main oscillator, not the sub oscillators) The first eight subdivisions are:
unison
-12 semitones
-24 semitones
-31 semitones (perfect 4th)
-36 semitones
-39 semitones (augmented 5th)
-42 semitones (perfect 4th)
-45 semitones (major 2nd)
-48 semitones

The most common divisions are perfect fourths and octaves, which can make for very nice perfect fifth and suspended harmonies.

If you were looking to make the Subharmonicon adhere to specific functional harmony, a bit of figuring and maths is required or it can turn into a harmonic mess. The more I use the Subharmonicon, the more convinced I am that this really is a performative instrument and it's not designed to be set it and forget it. Its design encourages you to find places where a quick turn (or applied CV) into the sub oscillators will create new harmonies.

Using both main oscillators tuned to different root notes is where things start to get really interesting because, although the other VCOs adhere to the same maths, you can create some very dense harmonies this way. And once you start making them behaving polyrhythmically [sic, not sure if that's actually a word lol], the chords can stack up in ways that will cause a significant amount of dissonance.

An interesting trick is to tune the main oscillators to notes other than the root note. This allows you do divide down into more complex harmonies.

The simplest chord that I've found is the Maj6/Min7 chord:
VCO 1 = Diatonic 5th (e.g., G)
SUB 1.1 = Perfect 4th (e.g., C)

VCO 2 = Diatonic 3rd (e.g., E)
SUB 2.1 = Perfect 4th (e.g., A)

This uses just 4 of the 6 oscillators. If you then wrote a very simple ascending pattern of I-ii-iii-IV, you would have:

VCO 1= G-A-B-C
SUB 1.1 = C-D-E-F

VCO 2 = E-F-G-A
SUB 2.1 = A-Bb-C-D

Notice, how the sub oscillator plays a Bb when the main VCO plays F. This could imply several options depending on what else you have going on, but there is also the possibility that you will have B and Bb playing at the same time. Depending on how you have the sub oscillators tuned it can either be a minor 7 interval for a minor 2 ... two very different sounds! There is another instance where you can have G and F with the same relationship.

I hope that this information is useful to anyone looking into getting a Subharmonicon. It's one of those instruments that is utterly confounding at first, then it gets very intuitive to use if you are going purely by ear, and then it gets confounding again once you start bringing in other pitched elements.

[MOF]

Turn one knob and you will probably lose what you had forever.

And that’s why I won’t be buying one and why I love soft synths and ITB mixing. I want repeatability and consistency.

[Ben Asaro]

Turn one knob and you will probably lose what you had forever.

And that’s why I won’t be buying one and why I love soft synths and ITB mixing.

Oh yeah, I totally get it ... instruments like this are almost a lifestyle choice lol.

[MOF]

MOF wrote:
Turn one knob and you will probably lose what you had forever.
And that’s why I won’t be buying one and why I love soft synths and ITB mixing.
Oh yeah, I totally get it ... instruments like this are almost a lifestyle choice lol.

It seems that way to me.
I used to spend hours doing my own B&W film developing and printing and for many years promised myself that I would one day get all the necessary equipment for colour, but once digital cameras achieved technical parity with film I just used Photoshop to do in seconds what it would have taken hours to do in a darkroom.
I bought a Nord Modular with every intention of making my own sounds and that didn’t happen.
I guess I prefer to concentrate on song writing/recording and tweak existing synth sounds (so many presets available these days) if they’re not quite right.

[Ben Asaro]

I really like that analogy to film, I feel that synthesis and photography are very much on the same trajectory. I totally agree with you, at the end of the day the choice is whether you feel the results justify the means and how you want to get there. Like the meme says, hardware synths are essentially fancy furniture when it comes down to it.

[Ben Asaro]

Went on a bit of a deep dive today with the SH, slowed the tempo to 50bpm and tried to see if I could coax some decent ambient sounds out of this thing. The answer, of course, is YES -- in fact, right now I much prefer it in this mode of operation! Of course, the prog side of me won't allow just the one instrument to play but as a starting point, it's crazy inspiring. This is the Subharmonicon and RV-500. I am adding PWM to OCS 1+2 via the Modbox, each one being different phases.

https://soundcloud.com/asfollowswriting ... icon-jam-3

[Ben Asaro]

Still discovering new tricks hidden up the Subharmonicon's sleeve ... I've found that you have much more control over the SH if you feed a clock pulse into the Play input instead of the Clock input. This allows for very fine control over when the sequencer advances.

The sequencer interprets every X amount of pulse triggers [pretty sure it's 24 but I will verify later] as the tempo, enabling VERY long evolving chains that are still in sync with my master clock. Brilliant!

It is now possible within the NerdSeq to create patterns that can reliably sync the SH and altogether stop and reset it as needed.

[The Elf]

Turn one knob and you will probably lose what you had forever.

And that’s why I won’t be buying one and why I love soft synths and ITB mixing.

Oh yeah, I totally get it ... instruments like this are almost a lifestyle choice lol.

I find room for both in my life. Just take the best of what each can give!

[Hugh Robjohns]

Finally had the time and desire last night to sit down and suss out how the Subharmonicon actually works from a functional harmony standpoint. I ended up concentrating on the first 8 subdivisions...

Interesting... if it's of interest, here's how those harmonics relate to the harmonic drawbars of a Hammond (and with the equivalent pipe organ stop names):

Base semitone – subfundamental (16ft) drawbar
12 semitones – Fundamental (8ft) Drawbar
19 semitones – Sub-Third (5 1/3ft) Drawbar – 5th ‘Quint’
24 semitones – 2nd Harmonic (4ft) – 8th
31 semitones (perfect 4th) – 3rd harmonic (2 2/3ft) – 12th ‘Nazard’
36 semitones – 4th harmonic (2ft) – 15th
- 39 semitones (augmented 5th)
40 Semitones – 5th harmonic (1 3/5ft) – 17th ‘Tierce’
- 42 semitones (perfect 4th)
43 semitones – 6th Harmonic (1 1/3ft) – 19th ‘Larigot’
- 45 semitones (major 2nd)
48 semitones – 8th Harmonic (1ft) – 22nd ‘Sifflote’