Patching Make Noise René V1 as Buchla Easel-style Chromatic Keyboard Arpeggiator

Make Noise Rene patched as a chromatic arpeggiator
Make Noise Rene patched as a chromatic arpeggiator

The Make Noise Shared System can be patched as an easel-style keyboard arpeggiator with Pressure Points and Rene V1. The patch works by combining James Cigler’s touch sequencer patch with a little bit of programming and extension with Presure Points to add octave shifts and other performance controls.

Rene Settings

  • Access page: turn all locations off

  • X gate page: turn all gates off

  • X fun page: enable SNAKE

  • X fun page: enable G+MOD

  • Q page: enable all 12 pitches for chromatic control. Program so that each step increases by one semitone. Optionally you may want to program it in a certain key to have 2 octaves range on a single page or whatever other configuration you desire.

The Patch

  • CLOCK → XCLK

  • CLOCK → XMOD

  • QCV → DPO v/Oct.

  • G-X → Optomix STRIKE

  • Pressure points ROW 2 → DPO EXPO input: tune it such that each of the 4 pressure points steps increases by one octave. Combined with the Rene semitone settings, this gives chromatic control over 4 octaves.

Further Explorations

With the basic patch set up, it’s fun to arpeggiate chords, but since so much of Pressure Points remains unused, there are lots of ideas left to explore.

  • Use another row of pressure points to control clock rate.

  • Use pressure output for CV of clock rate or timbral control of DPO.

  • Use common gate output of pressure points to clock Wogglebug.

  • Use common gate to jumble Tempi.