Patch 1: Strega on it's own, with no patch leads

This is a bit of an Ecency import test for the times when I write stuff on my personal site or Substack. So parts of this post may or may not work. Thanks to @epodcaster who made me realise that there is https://ecency.com/publish/import

I simply had no idea

The original imported post from Substack

Sadly audio doesn’t work but testing this feature out

Today’s quick experiment here in “Nick's synth sound exploration desktop laboratory”. Don't worry the name isn't going to stick but it was inspired by the way in which Make Noise describe their Strega synth, literally as an" alchemical experiment". What a wonderfully enticing description for this synth, Sound is to be explored, to be understood yet also at the same time, not to be, to get lost along the way, to seek adventure.

I decided to try out some of their patching ideas, to then venture off-piste, record each experiment into Ableton clips one of which I've exported here.

Lets dive straight in with today's patch

I think this really shows off it’s great noise, “broken circuit” sound design capabilities. I used no patch cables here but used the circuit connection “gateways” and “destinations” or the little golden touchpads you see in the picture below and then just tweaked the parameters like crazy to see where it took me. I created some kind of wonderful machine with distortion and rhythmic drone sounds, all a bit Nine Inch Nails but I love this stuff! Alessandro Cortini - Bandcamp - who helped in the design of the Strega, has worked with Trent Reznor of NiN over the years. It’s an extraordinary instrument, quite unlike anything I own.

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I started off with the above patch settings for the simpler tone that we started off with.

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Making connections with my hands, the circles are the source and the squares the destination points, I can also use patch leads for a more solid connection between the points but for performance purposes hands are a great tool of course! I then went for it, adjusting most of the knobs to adjust the Tonic, which is the oscillator, the activation knob the equivalent of a VCO and then used the Time knob to change the delay, filter, resonance plus the blend and absorb controls, which is where the sounds become particularly wild and wonderful.

I would love to know what sounds you heard in my demo performance in the comments below. I could hear boiling water, machine sounds, the Strega unleashed my imagination in the 3 minutes or so of recording this!

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Originally published on open.substack.com