Using Buzz to control a modular synth

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fetus ink
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Using Buzz to control a modular synth

Post by fetus ink »

Does anyone do this? I think I might like to try it and see how it works. I just got an Expert Sleepers ES-3 module to connect up with the computer and made me wonder if any Buzzers had messed around with something like this previously.
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nathansnider
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Re: Using Buzz to control a modular synth

Post by nathansnider »

Way back when, Nikmis apparently got buzz to work with the Silent Way VSTs, which is probably the way to go. I don't know of any machines that would produce the signals you'd need natively in Buzz, but I'm sure there's some hack you could do, maybe using peer machines to control a Cheapo DC or the like and send that out through the ES-3.

With Buzz's multi-I/O capability, I'm sort of surprised that no developer has made any machines that act like analogue synth modules within Buzz - like say a voltage-controlled oscillator machine, which could use the value of Input 1 to determine pitch, the value of Input 2 to determine amplitude, etc.. But then I guess you'd probably need to develop a whole suite of modules for this to be really useful, and you'd be duplicating a lot of the stuff that peer machines already do. So yeah, I'm only sort of surprised. It would sure integrate nicely with a modular synth, though.
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nikmis
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Re: Using Buzz to control a modular synth

Post by nikmis »

yep, silent way works perfectly with buzz. that's what I do! I have a big DIY modular. I don't even use midi at all anymore. You can then use the pattern editor or peer control to control the silent way voice generator or the silent way DC. Then, if you have enough ins and out, you can do crazy stuff like run buzz machines as audio generators into analog filters and back in to use buzz effects and back out to use analog VCAs and then back in again. I like using buzz reverbs and delays before an analog filter. mostly I just use buzz as an extremely full-featured sequencer for the modular, though.
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nikmis
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Re: Using Buzz to control a modular synth

Post by nikmis »

Image

Here is what my setup for silent way usually looks like. The machine called MIDI is polac's Internal MIDI vst. That's the machine that you would sequence or play midi into. The effect in the middle is Silent Way's voice controller loaded as a vst effect. Each output is panned hard left or hard right. Output 1 is cv for pitch, output 2 is gate. MS 2 LR2 is kibubus midside to stereo effect, just an easy way to make the signal coming back from the synth centered. The polac asio input has to be connected to the voice controller so that silent way can 'hear' the pitch of the oscillator and calibrate. a plain triangle wave seems to work best.
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