Inspired by the BBC Documentary Tone, Drones and Arpeggios about the birth of minimal music in California in the 60s and its expansion in the early 70s in New York, I tried out a concept called phasing that was originally pursued with tape recorders. The principle is to record a (shortish) piece of music simultaneously on two different tape records and subsequently play back the recordings repeatedly on both tape machines at the same time. Because of small differences in tape speed / material / loop length / electronics, the piece goes in-and-out of phase with itself. As it is a repeated section, ultimately it will catch up with itself again.
SSP’s step sequencer has a unique parameter call Division Factor (DivF on the screen). In the Patch I use two step sequencers, set at the same tempo, but one has a DivF setting of 5.00 and the other a DivF setting of 4.95. In practice this means that one tape recorder deviates 1% from the other during playback. As on is consistently 1% slower than the other it takes 100 cycles to get back in sync gain (and that only for 1 cycle). The magic happens between the first and 100th cycle. Effects range from phasing - flanging -slap back repeats - echo-like repeats - swing rhythm and multiple harmonies while the sequences run.
As you’ll see, the sequence itself is really simple, but IMHO creates a fascinating result. Have the courage to focus on it for a few minutes and you’ll get a drug-free auditory mind-expansion. I think of it as instant Steve Reich.
Anyway, sound generation is by @thetechnobear’s wonderful Plaits VST, so make sure you have that loaded in your SSP. The Patch loads in location 083. Just change the number in the file name if you want it to load somewhere else.
Enjoy!
083.Phasing2020.zip (56.1 KB)
