In this video I demonstrate how you can take one musical concept and create it using a modular synth, in this case MiRack on the iPad but you could easily do much the same thing in VCV which is available on the Mac and possibly other OSes. I am starting off with a varied hi-hat sound which isn't just the same sound repeating over and over but something a little bit more interesting. It uses a Bernoulli Gate, 3 of them to be precise, to randomly switch between different drum modules. Each of these modules is a hi-hat of some kind, taken from a dozen famous drum machines. Bernoulli Gates could be used in various different ways and I will explore this in later videos.
What is a Bernoulli Gate though?
Daniel Bernoulli was a Swiss Mathematician who was best remembered for his work with what became known as fluid mechanics, a branch of mathematics that would essentially detemine outcomes based on variable inputs. So a Bernoulli gate accepts a voltage input and randomly detemines either an A or B outcome. You can influence which of the two is more likely, hence in the application of drum patterns, you can create some more "human" performances. Which is what this little experiment sets out to explore.
▶️ 3Speak
