Introduction to the Phrase Sequencers form Impromptu Modular

Want to learn Modular Synthesis? have a look here - bit.ly/learnmodular
In this video, I go through all the features of both Phrase Sequencers from Impromptu Modular. I start with the 16 step one, showing also how to use it in a live situation, and then I compare between the two.
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Big thanks to Carbonic Acid for helping me out with creating my own blank modules! - bit.ly/2y2amXe
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[@markus_knoedel]

Whenever I don't know something about modular there always is an Omri Cohen tutorial. Thank you so much.

[@OmriCohen-Music]

Happy to hear that! Thanks!

[@johnnybigpotato2404]

YUP! :) I come here every time I think I am starting to figure it out.. and don't. Thanks a bunch OmrI! Happy Holidays!

[@kerwinfernandes]

Thank you for this detailed tutorial, Omri! God bless you!

[@OmriCohen-Music]

Glad it was helpful!

[@SimonEkendahl]

Omri! Your synth magic is strong! You possess the gift of inspire others! And you are learned in the craft of tweaking synth, indeed. All the best to you!

[@OmriCohen-Music]

Hey, Simon! Thanks 🙂

[@Kid_Placo]

Super leçon ! Vos cours sont toujours très intéressants. Thanks Omri Cohen 🎹 😊

[@OmriCohen-Music]

Thanks so much!

[@Synthikat]

Thanks Omri! I learned some features i missed by myself. Great tutorial like always.

[@OmriCohen-Music]

Thank you, Lukas!

[@adiquinn1]

Wow so packed with features, and now maybe I will not be so confused when I try and use these. Top notch tutorial Omri and really cool live performance example:)

[@OmriCohen-Music]

Thanks, Adi! Yeah, it's really fun to play with it live, it's so powerful and yet simple to use. It's all there, no hidden stuff. Cheers!

[@wimwijn1]

I knew the possibilities of midi cc in combination with my Nektar P6, but this tutorial kicked it to the next level in combination with the phrase sequencer and live playing, thanks Omri

[@OmriCohen-Music]

Hey great Wim! I'm happy it gave you some ideas :) cheers!

[@LarsBjerregaard]

Excellent tutorial Omri, thanks!

[@OmriCohen-Music]

Thank you so much, Lars! I'm happy you liked it :)

[@mihajlosinka277]

That was very well explained. Thank you!

[@OmriCohen-Music]

I'm glad you found it useful ☺ Thanks!

[@StuartElliott73]

Thank you once again, I have learnt so much from your wonderful tutorials

[@OmriCohen-Music]

Thanks so much!

[@rwbmusic]

I wonder how you prepare your tutorials. I am sure that you must prepare, however your presentations are so well ordered, clearly described with the the right touch of humor. Few could do such a great job even if they scripted every word, yet your presentation seems so unscripted, and I am speaking as an educator who has taught music technology in universities. Every time you say, “Very nice.” I have to smile. All, in all, Very, very nice work Omri!

[@OmriCohen-Music]

Thank you so much :) This specific video is from 4 years ago, so I don't quite remember how I worked on it. But now, in most cases, I will prepare an overall idea for the video, and leave some elements unscripted, so I can have spontaneous 'very nice' moments :)

[@rwbmusic]

@@OmriCohen-Music Thanks Omri, that makes total sense. On another note, I have noticed that Impromptu has redesigned the module, so today I will wing it as I continue to explore the features. It seems to me that the majority of modular music examples tend to stick to one tonality and have very little variation in compositional form. This module, and Foundry, are interesting to me as a means to have a series of sequences, in diverse tonalities and rhythmic textures, which I could trigger during performance. The goal would then be to dramatically transform the music as it flows in a preconceived form. I am familiar with such music with Isao Tomita, Wendy Carlos, etc, but those artists tended to use audio tape as their medium whereas I am using a hybrid setup that employs a DAW. Do you have any music examples, or tutorials, or know of other artists that have gone in this direction?

[@stephenaskew4346]

Great video and two of my favourite modules. feeling inspired by your live use ideas. On the PS 32 you can also set length by clicking on the Length button then on the lights at the top. Very cool for length changes on the fly.

[@OmriCohen-Music]

Thanks, Stephen! They are so powerful and full of really nice features. Thanks for the tip! :)

[@Fedor_Tkachev_Music]

Top stuff, so clear and to the point

[@OmriCohen-Music]

Thanks, Fedor!

[@chrisgartenmann4513]

I would love to see a new tutorial with all the new features it has

[@OmriCohen-Music]

Great idea!

[@AndreaArturoGiuseppeGrossi]

Thanks for this very useful tutorial about the Phrase sequencer!! :-)

[@OmriCohen-Music]

I'm glad you liked it! Cheers :)

[@YAYAtheReal]

Thanks Omri.... ...and congrats, very informative and clear video, as always! ;-)

[@OmriCohen-Music]

Thank you, Xavier! And thanks for helping me with the graphics! They really help me to focus on different parts of the video. Cheers!

[@MikeUIibarri]

Thank you!

[@OmriCohen-Music]

Cheers!

[@BenGaudi]

Great tutorial Omri, thanks a lot. :) Now let's got for the advanced video ;)

[@OmriCohen-Music]

Thank you! I will see what I can do :)

[@BenGaudi]

I was talking about the two other videos you made about this plugin.

[@OmriCohen-Music]

OOpppssss :) Let me know if you have any questions!

[@paultyrrell8060]

Thanks Omri for you brilliant tutorials. Do you know of any sequencers on VCV rack that have an “accent” capability I.e. if you wanted to accent the first note of a group of semiquavers? Cheers

[@OmriCohen-Music]

Thank you! Well, I guess that it all depends on what you want to do, to where you want to send this accent. There are a few sequencers that have another cv output you can use for accents like SNS from Southpole, the Euclidean Sequencer from Frozen Wasteland, bordL from bidoo, Foundry from Impromptu, and more, but it all depends what you want to do with this accent. Since VCV is a modular environment, you can use it in many different ways like changing volume, pitch, filter cutoff, and so on. Let me know what you want to achieve and we will find a solution :) Cheers!

[@mosstet]

THANK YOU!!! They've had a recent update to include gates too now.

[@OmriCohen-Music]

I'm glad it was helpful :) And yes, the gate modes are great. Have a look here - kzbin.info/www/bejne/eGPaYZKeatSBbK8

[@mosstet]

@@OmriCohen-Music

[@Kevinschart]

it's a lot fun using these hardware inspired modules. what I can't decide is would my life be easier if i just did my sequencing in ableton instead.

[@OmriCohen-Music]

Well, I believe that it's all about the result, all about the music, the sound, so if you feel inspired writing in Ableton, I say go for it. But, don't forget that different tools can very much lead to different sonic experiences so I also think that you should give it a try working with the PS sequencers and see what happens. Most importantly, have fun :)

[@BeniRoseMusic]

Thanks for this helpful video! What reverb are you using on that output, sounds tasty!

[@OmriCohen-Music]

Hey, thanks so much! I'm using Plateau from Valley, an amazing sounding reverb, and a really interesting instrument by it self...

[@BeniRoseMusic]

Awesome! I'm making my way down the plugins list and installing ones that look good. Made it to M so far! Looking forward to V for both that reverb and the VULT stuff. That steiner-parker also sounds great!

[@OmriCohen-Music]

Oh man, I envy you! The first time I listened to this filter was one of the best experiences ever... By the way, if you're in M, don't forget to install the MSM plugins because the Dual Delay works really good with Plateau!

[@BeniRoseMusic]

I saw that you were using that! I installed the AS modules which has a dual delay similar, but I might get both. I'm trying not to install big libraries that I only want one or two modules from to keep clutter down, but I might take another look at MSM. I'm gonna take a look at your Geodesics video too cause I love the Impromptu stuff but the Geodesics stuff freaked me out! Thanks for the great videos, I've subscribed!

[@OmriCohen-Music]

Thanks so much! Yeah, I can totally understand the clutter thing, and I think you're doing it right. Don't install many plugins, and try to learn the ones you have, and just then move to another set. Cheers!

[@tzahilavi3295]

סאונד מטורף..

[@dbajpeyi]

How do you make the ADSR work with the seqnuencer? How do you send longer sustained signals?

[@OmriCohen-Music]

Well, there was a new addition a while ago to these sequencers, where you can choose different gate types for each step. Have a look here, and if you have some questions don't hesitate to write :) kzbin.info/www/bejne/eGPaYZKeatSBbK8

[@lissyssil]

Hi Omri. First of all, thank you for putting all this great information on youtube. I've just started with VCV, and have no other synth experience. Your videos are fantastic, because I can follow along and attempt to mimic what you've done on the rack, while learning how all this works. So, I've been recreating the patch you used for the "short demo" starting at 15:15, and now I'm stuck. I've got everything put together to the best of my capabilities, and the only thing that sounds "broken" is the Dual Delay. First, I can't get the time display to show /1.5 and /3 like you did, but this could be because of an MSM update, but that's not the key issue. Second, my key issue is that any time I turn the swing CV from my MIDI controller above 0, it introduces a repeating "crackly pop," that sounds like a clip, into the output of the delay, synced with the clock-in trigger/gate to the dual delay unit. I know this stuff is difficult to diagnose over the interwebs, but I'd love your opinion. I've posted a copy of the patch on google drive: drive.google.com/file/d/1asvwXFsHBNUCkXhjtnnWc2hXQfaffp1n/view?usp=sharing If you're not too busy, I'd love some feedback for a complete newbie.

[@OmriCohen-Music]

Hi Mark! Thanks so much for the kind words, firs of all, I appreciate it! About the delay, you're right, it has been changed and it will show other values but about the Swing. I just looked at the video again and at your patch, and it seems like you patched the CV into the main Swing input and not into Swing 1 so you modulate the swing for the delay and not the sequencer. Change it to Swing 1 and let me know if it works :)

[@lissyssil]

A perfect fix. Moving the swing to Clock1 fixed it! Thank you so much! It's always the silly, simple things, I guess. Any thoughts or wisdom you can impart into the debug process you might use in general? I would imagine that, as I gain more experience, mistakes like this will happen less and less often. I obviously haven't watched all your videos (yet), but I wonder if you've ever shared your typical build process for a patch? Maybe some tips and tricks for not messing it up like I did there? On a side note, I'm not typically a Patreon-er, but am planning to sign up just to support you. Thanks, and keep being you!

[@OmriCohen-Music]

@@lissyssil I'm happy it works :) And thank you for your support, I appreciate it! there's also a Discord channel for Patrons so you might find more info and help there as well. But basically, I looked at the video again and I realized that the swing was meant for the sequence so I directly went to see how it's connected in your patch and found the issue. That said, in this case, the result was not so attractive but there are many cases where 'mistakes' like this can lead to beautiful results that are otherwise hard to stumble upon. There are no mistakes, only happy accidents :)

[@thewookiee9511]

Very useful and informative. One thought or question would it be possible to have the sequence being played displayed in Song mode? Thanks for this look forward to more.

[@OmriCohen-Music]

Thanks! When you're in song mode be sure to enable attach, and then you could see the sequence being played. I hope that's what you meant... Cheers!

[@thewookiee9511]

Hi Omri, not quite I noticed in the video when playing in song mode that it can switch between sequences. However the little two digit display appear to show the number of the last sequence edited. What I though would be nice if that display reflected the sequence being played as each sequence steps through. i.e Start with Sequence 1 plays say four times, then it switches to sequence 3 and the display switches to reflect that.

[@OmriCohen-Music]

But it does say which sequence is playing... If I program a 4 phrases song and set the first sequence to 1, then 2 and so on, on the display you can see which sequence is being played. It has to be in song mode though...

[@thewookiee9511]

Sorry I must have missed that I will have to watch the video again, it has been unbelievable hot here and I have no A/C in the studio. The temperature got to 38 inside here too hot for machines to be running. Thanks I will watch again.

[@OmriCohen-Music]

Yeah, it's really hot also here...

[@AndresAzzolina]

anyone knows how can i midi map the sequence imput to a midi keyboard so that A = 1 B = 2 and so on? thank you!

[@OmriCohen-Music]

I'm not so sure I understand, do you mean changing the sequences with the keyboard? You can change this in the right click menu under Seq CV in level. If you need a different range, just send your keyboard through Stack from BogAudio, for example, and take it a few octaves up or down. Let me know if it works.

[@miblish5168]

You slid past an important point. How do you use the Tied button to actually tie a note, not insert a rest? WHat I really want is to keep the gate ON, just not retrigger it.

[@OmriCohen-Music]

Hi John! I mentioned it shortly in the video, but you're right, I didn't get too much into it. When you're using a gated sound, the sequencer will create a rest, because it will not output any gates, and it will depend on the envelope how long the sound will carry on after the gate has been triggered. When you're not using a gated sound, so the sound is continuous, you will get a tied note effect because the note will stay the same note as the previous step.