I had a burst of inspiration after snagging an Xfade 1U. I was able to realize a few patch ideas and thought it would be fun to share them here. I hope this quick/low-tech video is more interesting than me just typing it all out.
The video description has patch notes but I am happy to discuss it in more detail here on the forum. I will definitely be using the third patch with the Rainmaker a lot more in the near future.
Sorry in advance for any level/noise issues. Getting this far was way more work than I expected. Does making these ever get any easier?
I have really enjoyed making feedback patches with the Bifold and tweaking the giant Fold knob by hand with sine waves… now I can have both patches at the same time and everything in between.
I love how nuanced the position and movement of the Xfade can be in that patch. It is in that nice territory of controlled chaos, where you don’t know exactly what it is going to do but you know when and to what degree, at least in a vague/fuzzy way.
I should also add that I kind of under-sold the Rainmaker patch a bit. Sorry about that.
First, I was a little too conservative with the modulations. The Rainmaker can really annihilate drums in a very intense/musical way, especially when modulated by rhythmic CV like envelopes or a Planar 2 loop.
Secondly, I did not showcase the following: when the loop is engaged (and the fader is on the right) everything we are hearing is the loop in Rainmaker, not the source material. At the end I change the drum loop offscreen to a simple kick pattern before fading back to the left, but that just isn’t a dramatic enough change in material to highlight what is actually going on.
Maybe I can splice/edit in a better performance/patch into the video.
I really do think this patch will be a great performance tool. You can re-patch/edit the original source while simultaneously jamming on the delay buffers in the Rainmaker loop. Switching to the new material is really seamless and you can be creating/sustaining interest the entire time.
