Channel Random Voltage Generator

Befaco's first collaboration with their m8 Mylar Melodies. It is born of his desire to better improvise music on modular systems, and is the module he has often wished he had in his live performance cases. 

It is a pitch sequencer, a CV animator, an invisible pair of hands, and an LFO.

RANDOM8 is designed to bring any sized eurorack system to life, to squeeze the most out of users other modules, and help people perform and jam music more easily. It can provide subtle yet essential per-step CV modulation to an entire system, allowing phrases to play for longer without the ear tiring of them. It can also be configured to provide up to 8 quantised pitch generators (or any combination of pitch and modulation at the same time) and so drive a bank of oscillators and provide the melodies for a whole system.

The module provides 8 independent stepped (or smooth) random voltage generators packed into as compact size as possible. Feed the inputs triggers, and with every trigger, you get random voltages at the red output sockets on that channel and below it. Users can insert additional triggers into lower-down channels to break the normalisation and create groups of voltages. There is an output attenuator for each channel controlled with a trim pot. By pressing a button, channels will toggle between looping – it will repeat the last 1-32 steps indefinitely – and evolving, where voltages in memory change slowly over time. If users like what they hear they can press again, and now that phrase is locked, till they press again. This makes capturing voltage loops into a single action that can be performed in a split second. To return to full randomness, double tap the channel button.

Additional features are contained in 8 menus which are all one layer deep. We have taken great care to keep it simple and consistent to understand and use despite having no screen. Hold a labeled button for 1 second, let go. Lights confirm you are in the menu that corresponds to that label. Now turn any of the 8 dials to edit that menu setting for any or all 8 channels at once. Only the controls you interact with will change. Push any button to immediately exit the menu and return to looping and evolving. Users can, for example, add slide per-channel to turn these stepped voltages into complex smooth LFO shapes.

Presets can also be saved and recalled for quick access to different configurations.

Firmware can be updated in seconds with a USB-C cable & computer.

The RANDOM8 has the power to inject fun and surprise into even a massive eurorack system. It can act like a ‘cheat code’ to perform live more easily, by keeping settings animated and ever-changing so you focus on other parts of your system. It can also fit into the smallest cases, too.

The idea for RANDOM8 was originally conceived when experimenting with native random and attenuator devices in VCV Rack. A software version of RANDOM8 will also be available as a free VCV Rack device at launch, for anyone to download and use as they see fit.

FEATURE DETAILS

• 8 channels which produce random, looping, or partially looping voltages that evolve over time. You tap the button to cycle between looping or slowly evolving, then double tap to return a channel to producing randomness.
• A pitch quantizer can be enabled on each channel, turning any channel into a source of endless riffs. 16 scale options (including unquantised) are included, including an 1V stepped ‘Octaves’ scale, the output of which can be precision-added to 1V/Oct sequences for pleasing ‘acidic’ octave jumps.
• Slide lets a user smooth out the hard steps between voltages, allowing for the creation of acid lines (slide is post-scale quantisation), complex LFO shapes, and with low probability or infrequent triggers, lets slow evolving smooth voltages to be generated like an invisible hand turning the controls.
• 8 different styles of random voltages are available at launch, selectable per channel. 5 different distributions of random voltages, one alternating ‘high-then-low’ voltage, two ‘wandering’ voltages (like invisible hands turning controls).
• Per channel probability lets a user make it less likely that a channel will create a voltage on a step adding temporary randomness back in to locked loops, and making voltage changes less regular.
• Input divider means it takes from 1-8 input steps to create a new voltage at the output, allowing for voltage phrases where the same voltage is repeated multiple times, without requiring an external clock divider.
• Offset lets users raise up voltages to ‘clip’ them to the ceiling, useful for placing voltages in satisfying ranges, and controlling VCAs to add per-step volume variations to sonic elements such as drums and basslines, which may not have an accent input.
• Users can easily reset individual channels or whole module with long presses. Hold a channel button for 5 seconds to reset to default settings. You can reset multiple channels at once, or all 8 channels by holding the top and bottom buttons.
• Loop length can be varied from 1-32 steps per channel.