ACL Sinfonion

[loydb]

Lovely set!

[James_Fredrickson]

4 voice improvisation using Sinfonion for end of chain harmonic and melodic cv processing. Recorded directly into Ableton without multi-tracking.

The chords are a vamp of two, 4 note slash chords. I'm feeding attenuated white noise into the Sinfonion in order to control the randomness of the chord inversions over the fixed bass note. I'm using Acid Rain Chainsaw for the triads. The fixed bass note is a sampled sine wave from a Dixie 2 played from an Assimil8or.

The Sinfonion is incredible for live improvisation.

[second_breakfast]

Very cool. Thanks for sharing!

[mvdirty]

I'm feeding attenuated white noise into the Sinfonion in order to control the randomness of the chord inversions over the fixed bass note.

I so often reach for randomness as a tool, but for whatever reason had not thought to direct it toward that specific input.

I’m definitely appropriating this.

[James_Fredrickson]

Thanks Second Breakfast. When are we going to get an another LSD inspired trip through the Double Dragon?

[James_Fredrickson]

I'm feeding attenuated white noise into the Sinfonion in order to control the randomness of the chord inversions over the fixed bass note.

I so often reach for randomness as a tool, but for whatever reason had not thought to direct it toward that specific input.

I’m definitely appropriating this.

I was thinking of crossfading between pink, white, and blue to get more control over the probability of inversion type but I maxed out mixers and VCAs, lul.. I wonder how well this would work, hmm?

[mvdirty]

I was thinking of crossfading between pink, white, and blue to get more control over the probability of inversion type but I maxed out mixers and VCAs, lul.. I wonder how well this would work, hmm?

Hmm, I haven’t looked at what this would do to the various distributions, and I don’t know how you are sampling the value, but... Do you have a spare VCF?

[James_Fredrickson]

I was thinking of crossfading between pink, white, and blue to get more control over the probability of inversion type but I maxed out mixers and VCAs, lul.. I wonder how well this would work, hmm?

Hmm, I haven’t looked at what this would do to the various distributions, and I don’t know how you are sampling the value, but... Do you have a spare VCF?

I wish

[neumedi]

I still wonder which trigger/sequencer I pair with my Sinfonion.
Currently my number one is the Metron (WMD) as I also need a drum sequencer

I have a metron, hermod, metropolis, and recently picked up the Vermona melodicer. Haven't racked the melodicer yet since I'm finishing up a song before rearranging my system. For repetitive sequences the metropolis and metron with voltera are great to pair with Sinfonion. I find myself using hermod (with a midi keyboard) the most though. It's just so fast to audition and record sequences with it that I find I can get the melodies/lines I'm after a lot faster than programing with step sequencers.

Hey s_b, or anyone else who has one - how are you getting along with the melodicer? Seriously thinking of getting one to pair with the sinfonion.

[neumedi]

Instead of Melodicer, I went with Permutation and Variant. Sorry for the sound quality, but here's a quick first patch with the Variant CV out feeding one channel of Sinfonion with Song Mode stepping through a simple A Minor pattern (steps go from 13th to 5th to 11th to 3rd). I just give a quick twist of Permutation's Shift knob (from LIN 100% lock to 50% long enough to grab a new pattern) for each pattern cycle. So fun... could do this all day.

[Hanz]

Unfortunately, I'm starting to have some issues with my Sinfonion - when warmed up suddenly the value and range of some knobs (esp. TRANS and ARPEGGIO RANGE) starts to drift.
For example, upon cold boot TRANS value ranges from -12 to +12 - when warm it ranges from -12 to anywhere from +9 to +11.
Accordingly, the present values change, which means I'm constantly seeing changing values and hearing undesired results - sudden transpositions, arpeggio changes and such. Really irritating!

Of course, I've sent a quick support inquiry to ACL. But wondering if anybody else is noticing this on theirs?

[neumedi]

Unfortunately, I'm starting to have some issues with my Sinfonion - when warmed up suddenly the value and range of some knobs (esp. TRANS and ARPEGGIO RANGE) starts to drift.
For example, upon cold boot TRANS value ranges from -12 to +12 - when warm it ranges from -12 to anywhere from +9 to +11.
Accordingly, the present values change, which means I'm constantly seeing changing values and hearing undesired results - sudden transpositions, arpeggio changes and such. Really irritating!

Of course, I've sent a quick support inquiry to ACL. But wondering if anybody else is noticing this on theirs?

No, haven't seen any drift on mine. I typically leave trans at 0, and it'll stay there from cold boot up through being on for hours. A couple of days ago had trans at -12 for the whole session, and it also stayed at -12 for whole session.

[mvdirty]

Instead of Melodicer, I went with Permutation and Variant. (...)

I too am really enjoying the Permutation/Variant -> Sinfonion combo. If you’ve not already, be sure you find some time to patch up Permutation’s bit outputs. Especially combined with a bit of logic, but even without, they’re great sources for triggering envelopes in particular but also Sinfonion Ch1 A/B, slew enable, quantization triggering, arp clocking, all sorts.

[stujay18]

Hey team. I'm having trouble with my Sinfonion. Mid-jam with the arpeggiator, the clock stopped advancing the notes and it just spit out a single note in time with the clock. Whether in sequencer mode or otherwise, the clock will no longer advance sinfonion. I have tons of power available in my system, so it shouldn't be a power issue. I'm on v1.1 firmware. The clock LED lights up in time with the clock, but it simply has no function. I reset all defaults in case I bumped something and wasn't aware of it, no dice. Has anyone experienced this before?

[neumedi]

Instead of Melodicer, I went with Permutation and Variant. (...)

I too am really enjoying the Permutation/Variant -> Sinfonion combo. If you’ve not already, be sure you find some time to patch up Permutation’s bit outputs. Especially combined with a bit of logic, but even without, they’re great sources for triggering envelopes in particular but also Sinfonion Ch1 A/B, slew enable, quantization triggering, arp clocking, all sorts.

Great idea - thanks!

[neumedi]

How many folks are using Sinfonion as their only "arrangement" sequencer?

Context to my question: Started with Rene 2. Loved it, but wanted something a bit more purposeful with multipart arranging. Added Vector. Then Sinfonion came around, and seeing others in this thread mentioned how well they worked together, took the plunge to add Sinfonion along with Vector.

I know I can have Sinfonion requantize Vector parts, or even use Vector for other parts altogether, but I'm seriously questioning keeping it around. I'm getting all the cv-sequencing I need from Rene/Permutation and all the other usual suspects (LFO's, complex shapes from Zadar, etc) to feed Sinfonion, and doubt I'll every really want more than 3 parts + arp + chords. Also have gate patterns taken care of with Pam's, Grids, and more.

This is all just a musical playground for me - great way to unwind in the evenings. I still very much appreciate the power and elegance of the Vector (and have no real interest in USTA, Eloquencer, Nerdseq, or others), but am trying to convince myself that a bunch of smaller modules feeding Sinfonion and using song mode is all the sequencing I'll need for the foreseeable future - thus freeing up some funds and a lotta hp.

Thoughts?

[mvdirty]

This is all just a musical playground for me - great way to unwind in the evenings. I still very much appreciate the power and elegance of the Vector (and have no real interest in USTA, Eloquencer, Nerdseq, or others), but am trying to convince myself that a bunch of smaller modules feeding Sinfonion and using song mode is all the sequencing I'll need for the foreseeable future - thus freeing up some funds and a lotta hp.

Sequencers are such personal things, and even then their need is very context-dependent e.g. genre, studio vs live, all sorts of factors.

Even with all my pattern generators, CV manipulation, clocking, trigger sequencing, etc. and the Sinfonion I still felt the need for a power sequencer. Someone might want a power sequencer and none (or few) of the other things I mentioned, maybe not even the Sinfonion. You might be happy with just what you have minus the Vector. Hard to say until you try...

Have you thought about unracking the Vector for a while? No need to sell it, just pack it away and see how it feels to live without it for a while.

[dubonaire]

Instead of Melodicer, I went with Permutation and Variant. Sorry for the sound quality, but here's a quick first patch with the Variant CV out feeding one channel of Sinfonion with Song Mode stepping through a simple A Minor pattern (steps go from 13th to 5th to 11th to 3rd). I just give a quick twist of Permutation's Shift knob (from LIN 100% lock to 50% long enough to grab a new pattern) for each pattern cycle. So fun... could do this all day.

You've just made me want the Sinfonion now. Hehe, getting a Sinfonion to pair with my Permutation and Variant!

[mvdirty]

You've just made me want the Sinfonion now. Hehe, getting a Sinfonion to pair with my Permutation and Variant!

I absolutely adore the Sinfonion, and can fanboy about it all day long, but just to ask in fairness to other options: What do you have for quantizers right now? (Also, any arpeggiators and/or chord cv generators?)

[neumedi]

This is all just a musical playground for me - great way to unwind in the evenings. I still very much appreciate the power and elegance of the Vector (and have no real interest in USTA, Eloquencer, Nerdseq, or others), but am trying to convince myself that a bunch of smaller modules feeding Sinfonion and using song mode is all the sequencing I'll need for the foreseeable future - thus freeing up some funds and a lotta hp.

Sequencers are such personal things, and even then their need is very context-dependent e.g. genre, studio vs live, all sorts of factors.

Even with all my pattern generators, CV manipulation, clocking, trigger sequencing, etc. and the Sinfonion I still felt the need for a power sequencer. Someone might want a power sequencer and none (or few) of the other things I mentioned, maybe not even the Sinfonion. You might be happy with just what you have minus the Vector. Hard to say until you try...

Have you thought about unracking the Vector for a while? No need to sell it, just pack it away and see how it feels to live without it for a while.

Good suggestion. That's probably what I'll do. But to be honest, if I unrack it, I'm fairly confident it'll never go back. I guess I've pretty much made my decision - was really just looking for that extra Internet-forum-confirmation-bias-nudge to assure me I'm not doing something too stupid.

[neumedi]

Instead of Melodicer, I went with Permutation and Variant. Sorry for the sound quality, but here's a quick first patch with the Variant CV out feeding one channel of Sinfonion with Song Mode stepping through a simple A Minor pattern (steps go from 13th to 5th to 11th to 3rd). I just give a quick twist of Permutation's Shift knob (from LIN 100% lock to 50% long enough to grab a new pattern) for each pattern cycle. So fun... could do this all day.

You've just made me want the Sinfonion now. Hehe, getting a Sinfonion to pair with my Permutation and Variant!

[dubonaire]

You've just made me want the Sinfonion now. Hehe, getting a Sinfonion to pair with my Permutation and Variant!

I absolutely adore the Sinfonion, and can fanboy about it all day long, but just to ask in fairness to other options: What do you have for quantizers right now? (Also, any arpeggiators and/or chord cv generators?)

Well I can get quantized voltages out of a Cirklon and I have a uScale. No chord generators as such but the E370 can work that way. In euro I normally use the Shapeshifter for chords although more often than not I turn to my polysynths. I've been eyeing the Sinfonion for some time and underusing the Permutation. I have a relatively large modular with plenty of room to spare.

[James_Fredrickson]

I was deeply unhappy with how I was using the Sinfonion to 'set and forget' the chords so I changed up how I'm approaching harmony with the Sinfonion. The chords now have their own playable rhythm from Tetrapad and Tete in overdub recording mode. They also have their own envelope from Maths which has subtle, random modulation of rise time with every trig. A passive Doepfer mini-switch is controlling when/if the chord sequencer in Sinfonion progresses: switch up = chord progresses every 4 bars, switch down = chord progresses every bar. I can also change root note of Sinfonion by hand using Vpme's 4HP precision adder. Getting lost in musical phrasing is easy and super fun because the Metron I'm using for sequencing resets the counter every 64 bars. If I want to line up a particular chord change I simply time it with my Doepfer switch and the live counter on Metron in a multiple of 16 or whatever phrasing I'm using. However, for this track I'm only using various inversions of a single chord

[mvdirty]

Well I can get quantized voltages out of a Cirklon and I have a uScale. No chord generators as such but the E370 can work that way. In euro I normally use the Shapeshifter for chords although more often than not I turn to my polysynths. I've been eyeing the Sinfonion for some time and underusing the Permutation. I have a relatively large modular with plenty of room to spare.

Quantization aspects of sequencers and Sinfonions do end up being a bit redundant to one another but one of the options I prefer is to select a single scale in your sequencer, sequence as if always in that scale, and then determine everything else in the Sinfonion.

The upside here is that it puts you in the best position to bring in pretty much any CV, random or otherwise, from anywhere in the system and turn it into contextually-appropriate quantized CV.

The downside here is that all such CV needs to run through the Sinfonion yet it only has three quantization channels (ignoring for the moment the ways to bend the chord channel and/or arp channel into more traditional quantization territory.) So if you grow your setup past a certain size, you might find yourself wanting a second Sinfonion (which can sync with the first one via a patch cable.)

You can instead, of course, run some things direct from your Cirklon, some things through your uScale, and others through the Sinfonion, though you’d have to jump through more hoops to have them all modulate to a new key, for example. If your genre work rarely has you doing that, or perhaps just adding some movement through transposition, then that’ll surely be easy enough to manage. All said, there are plenty of Sinfonion owners working this way, and I even get the impression that I might very well be in the minority of owners working the way I described up above.

re: Sinfonion and polysynths for chords - That requires some CV to MIDI conversion, but is certainly doable.

[dubonaire]

I wasn't thinking of sequencing the polysynths with it. Cirklon is fine for that.