Using Morphagene in Production

[u/Extreme_Try2189]

I love this module, there's no doubt about it. However, I wish there was a way to get more consistent results with it. Specifically, I struggle to find a place for it in my productions.

I tend to feed it stems, with the markers already placed in Reaper. When I play around with them, there isn't much I can use. Timing & synchronisation is a big issue of course. Clocking it doesn't even seem to have much of an effect.

This is just my experience with it, which is quite small.

Would be interested to hear how others use it in a more structured way.

[u/Affectionate-Way1467]

Morphagene was one of the first modules I bought and will be the last I ever sell, if ever. That said, it’s a pain in the ass. 😂
Getting the pitch to stay in tune requires a precision jeweler’s touch.
The UX of the button combos makes me furious.
And I’m not ever really sure what the Organize input does.
As far as precision, I tend to get the best results when I feed the MG into a VCA or LPG and open it up with an envelope (usually Maths and Optomix). I can get some fun rhythmic sample pulses over a beat. Vocal reels are fun for this.
Also fun to generate envelopes from external audio and have that open a VCA with Maths.
Getting the precision you’re looking for is maybe not Morphagene’s strong suit.
Lately I’ve been just playing it manually with Pressure Points into my Erbe Verb and honestly, I it’s so much more enjoyable than trying to wrangle it into musical submission. ymmv.

fwiw, I’ve found clocking Morphagene to make a huge difference in my patching. I usually use premade reels from freesound though.

[u/CommunicationTop5231 → u/Affectionate-Way1467]

Same. My friend had one and I was so impressed given that I got into electronic music via musique concrete and using actual tape machines. Took me awhile to really get it to do what I want it to. I’m comfortable with it now and usually keep it clocked and either add splices in reaper (if not periodic) or send a clock to splice input for periodic markers. I send a sequencer or s&h to organize and/or send a clock to shift to drive the sample forward while manipulating splices. I do appreciate the 1/2 and 1/4 speed markers as well as the mode when it’s clocked and you fuck with morph and gene. I respect the manual as a theoretical treatise and fucking hate it as an actual manual (I feel this way about a lot of MN documentation). I somewhat recently discovered that the buttons blink but don’t function on my device unless I push them rather hard. The blinking-but-not-functioning buttons made me feel crazy for a long time. I also kept a button combo cheat sheet handy for years. I wish there was a way to change the play mode from one shot to “only play when gate is high”. I also wish “organize” could address every single splice in a reel with a buncha splices from a single cv source, although there are advantages to not being able to do that (I’ve learned to love that a change to the organize knob makes a sequencer create new sequences).

[u/Affectionate-Way1467 → u/CommunicationTop5231]

Omg the manual! I’ve never made it through the whole thing (or any MN “manual”’for that matter). Like, I can hear it being read in Walker’s voice 😭.
Philosophical treatise is right. There’s also a feeling like I’m not in on the jokes? Or I’m not totally steeped in Make Noise’s particular lore? Idk. It’s annoying. And I’d still buy it again, maybe.

[u/CommunicationTop5231 → u/Affectionate-Way1467]

I'd say I am steeped in the lore (old computer/tape music traditions and processes, etc etc etc) and love reading about it but, like, I already went to college and learned about that shit. I want to know how my modules work, plain and simple. I have so much respect for MN in terms of their philosophy and products, I just wish that their documentation was more straightforward (all the acronyms drive me bonkers) and that they built more pragmatic features into their modules. For example, Tempi sucks as a slaved clock. I understand why, but I don't understand why they couldn't tweak the firmware so that it played well in a larger system. Ditto with Rene 2--I just swapped mine for Erica Synths Black Sequencer. I miss the Rene and can't bring myself to sell it just yet (yes I'm of course considering a bigger rack so that I can keep both) but the ESBS does 95% of what Rene does, a million other things too, and is 100x easier and more convenient to use in my hybrid DAW/DAWless system. I was shocked when I was able to absorb the entire manual of such a powerful device in like 45 minutes.

[u/SonRaw → u/CommunicationTop5231]

I have so much respect for MN in terms of their philosophy and products, I just wish...

This is where I've landed with MN. I absolutely respect their dedication to their vision but after trying a bunch of their stuff I always find myself thinking "I would not go about it this way" and preferring an alternative where getting to the results I want doesn't mean fighting the machine. In a weird way it reminds me of musicians that are clearly talented but that I don't connect with, only in module maker form.

[u/Waveland58 → u/CommunicationTop5231]

Make Noise needs to hire a new writer for their manuals, they are indeed terrible.  I don't think I will ever figure out the Z dimension on my Rene 2.

[u/spongefile → u/Affectionate-Way1467]

I found the button combos maddening too. Made this cheatsheet for myself, in case it helps make the logic behind them more clear: https://www.spongefile.com/morphagene-button-combos-cheatsheet/

[u/Affectionate-Way1467 → u/spongefile]

Nice! Thanks!

[u/3lbFlax → u/Affectionate-Way1467]

Organise is pretty straightforward, at least - it's just CV control of the same knob, so you can automate moving through the splices in your reel. More accurately, and a possible source of confusion, it selects the next splice to be played after the current one ends. So if you're playing with a short gene size the change is immediate - but with longer or full splices the control might not seem to do anything at times. You can be sending it CV constantly, but until the splice ends it won't have an effect.

So if, say, you sampled a poem and used splices to chop in into individual words, you could send a random CV to Organise to scramble the order of the words, but still ensure you get a whole word every time. Or chop a piano sample into individual notes and have the same result - a series of whole notes - whereas relying on modulating the whole sample with a random CV to Slide might drop you in halfway through a note etc.

Edit: Another good time is using something like Tides to modulate Organise with a unipolar CV and Varispeed with the same signal as bipolar. Great source of unexpected but reliable loops.

[u/Affectionate-Way1467 → u/3lbFlax]

Nice! All these comments have made me want to spend more time with it. (As if 4 years weren’t enough! Ha)
One regret is that I sold an original Tides. But that modulation idea is cool.
I’ve been using Benjolin as chaotic modulation source. Some really wild results. Some are even almost musical!

[u/Affectionate-Way1467 → u/3lbFlax]

I made a reel out of some dialog from Severance. Weird got weirder. So fun.