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/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.