#and there is an arm linux version of renoise

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On the one hand, I am once again wide awake at 1am because my belly hurts, the latest in a long line of unrelated ailments that seemingly insist on forming an orderly queue and playing out one after the other over years, instead of being mostly well with the occasional bout of sickness here and there like a normal person.

On the other hand, I just scored a barely used second-hand Keystep Pro, and a massively discounted B-stock DSM-03, a module I didn't even know existed until I stumbled across the listing. (In fact, I never even knew Dave Smith Instruments made modules, however briefly.)

The basic concept is Karplus-Strong in a box, but because it's Eurorack, all the building blocks have their own inputs and outputs. Karplus-Strong is a "plucked string" synthesis technique that works by feeding a short noise pulse into a feedback loop consisting of a low-pass filter and precisely timed delay, so you end up with a repeating wave with frequency based on the delay time, and decay as each repeat goes through the filter. Breaking that into its component parts, this module lets you feed in any audio, not just its internal noise pulse; the attack & decay of the noise pulse can be tweaked; and the filter cutoff & resonance, feedback loop gain, and delay length are CV-controlled. I particularly like how, with a smeared long attack noise pulse, it starts to sound panpipe-y.

The Erica Synths Pico Voice has a Karplus-Strong mode, which I used for the "guitar" on this track - along with overdrive for grit, a dash of volt/octave tuned squeal from a self-oscillating filter, a touch of reverb, then feeding the whole post-oscillator signal chain back on itself and blending back in with the dry stopping *just* before the point where notes would devolve into feedback whine rather than fade away, because why use real hardware if you aren't going to abuse feedback loops in ways DAWs can't do?

But I kind of like having the "real thing" in a module. Plus the thrill of having scored something slightly rare for a bargain price. The Pico Voice, being a fully digital, 3HP module, is awesome at doing exactly what it is advertised as doing, but has no patching potential beyond being an oscillator.

(video not mine)

However, it's 10HP I hadn't planned to fill this way; I had a plan for the remaining space in my case and this wasn't part of it. Oh well. A problem for future self. 🙃

The Keystep Pro I had planned to get for a while, because up until now I've only had a cheap keyboard with USB MIDI out, and only a single channel 16 step hardware sequencer, so I've had to have my PC on & DAW running, relying on MIDI-to-CV to actually pay my modular rig. Which kind of sucks for experimenting/meditating, and rules out live jamming, when you only have two CV outs and no expression or pitch bend. So I might start streaming at some point, just casually on twitch maybe.