Shruthi-1 Drone Edition
  • xtrmntxtrmnt

    Hi Olivier,
    I have always loved the concept and sound of drone type synths. I was wondering if you have had any requests for this type of thing. Is the Shruthi-1 capable of this? Or am I dreaming.
    Thanks!

  • pichenettespichenettes

    Hold the test note and play with the modulation matrix? Route LFO to noise level, oscillator mixing, sub osc balance, param1 and param2 etc…

  • xtrmntxtrmnt

    Sounds like an option. I was thinking of something like this:

    http://vbrazil.eng.br/MonsterDrone.html

  • pichenettespichenettes

    The Shruthi-1 won’t do as many oscillators for sure…

  • MicMicManMicMicMan

    You could build a sidekick.

    But the shruthi on its own is able to produce lovely drones thanks to its powerful modulation matrix. I found out that when trying to produce drones, the important thing is not the number of oscillators but the quality and amount of modulation. On that point, the shruthi is a killer since you can route any lfo, sequence, s&h, noise or whatsoever to anything.
    Here are two patches (barely the same actually) I made up in like 5 minutes each using one cem3379 shruthi (which is probably not the best possible filter board for this kind of stuff, compared to a polivoks, a 4PM or the oncoming ms-20+delay filter board).
    drone 1
    drone 2
    Raw sound, no reverb, no compression or anything of that sort added. I pick the fundamental note using a keyboard, which is very convenient.

    The approach is pretty different from a fully analog system like the “monsterdrone” or the “dronelab”. You won’t be able to get a perfectly progressive transition between notes because of discretization ; but you actually have more options to get pulsating, random-like, noisy dronish sounds.

  • fcd72fcd72

    @pichenettes
    So xtrmnt has to buy 2 ;-)

  • roschrosch

    absolutely. most of what i’ve used them for have been drone like sounds.

  • pichenettespichenettes

    I did this with the first bit of equipment I could grab. No, not a modular with 2000€ woth of modules, just a Shruthi-1 with the delay board proto :D

    Some notes:

    • xor modulation + square LFO is superb for grungy stuff
    • try all the weird osc mixing modes – xor, fuzz, fold, bits
    • FM is surprisingly good for this

  • xtrmntxtrmnt

    Excellent Olivier! Great example of the new board proto. Thanks everyone for the advice. Shruthi-1 is a mighty beast indeed. :)

  • xtrmntxtrmnt

    I agree, modular synths can cost a fortune (had them before, gave up on them). Though they can produce great sound, a Shruthi-1 kicks modular ass in so many arenas.

  • pichenettespichenettes

    By the way, I got the background hissing to go down by 7dB just by adding cables between arbitrary ground points on the proto, so the noise is definitely a grounding problem that will go away with a proper PCB...

  • pichenettespichenettes

    Going over my soundcloud archive I found this . I think we almost have a portishead track here :)

  • xtrmntxtrmnt

    Nice!!

  • Titus RaindropsTitus Raindrops

    Yeah I’m digging that man…

  • yewtreemagicyewtreemagic

    @pichenettes: “By the way, I got the background hissing to go down by 7dB just by adding cables between arbitrary ground points on the proto, so the noise is definitely a grounding problem that will go away with a proper PCB...”

    That’s great news – always good to find your initial design can sound even better than you expected ;-)

    Martin

  • pichenettespichenettes

    I certainly did not expect to get as much digital noise – it’s part of the problems of working with breadboard protos… While you can measure many parameters of the design ; but noise and stability are not among them.

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