Vult Noxious

Noxious is a digital oscillator and LFO based on Frequency and Phase modulation techniques. The idea for Noxious was to create an oscillator that captures the crazy and experimental nature of FM and PM but at the same time making easy to obtain usable results. Noxious can create from soft and cheesy sounds to very abrasive and distorted screams. In LFO mode can create quasi-chaotic signals.

The chaos section helps creating variations of the sound. these variations are specially useful for percussive sounds.

The Modulation Router makes possible to control any parameter of the module with CV.

Noxious is unpredictable but controllable.

Documentation

• Tune Switch: defines how the Tune knob behaves. It has three modes:
  • Fine: sets a tuning range one semitone up and down.
  • Coarse: sets a tuning range one octave up and down.
  • Semi: sets a tuning range one octave up and down but the tunning is quantized to every semitone.
• Tune: offsets the V/OCT input. The range is defined by the Tune Switch.
• Oct: offsets the V/OCT input three octaves up and down. Modulate this knob and you'll get some nice arpeggios.
• Wave: controls the even and odd harmonics of the main oscillator. Full left produces a square signal. Full right produces a saw wave.
• Harm: defines the number of harmonics used by the main oscillator. To the left, outputs only the fundamental. To the right produces the full waves. This control has an effect similar to a low pass filter.
• Mode Switch: selects between audio oscillator or low frequency oscillator.

FM Section

• Tune: defines how the frequency of the modulator is defined.
  • Ratio: makes the modulator select only frequencies that are a factor of the main oscillator frequency. It ranges from 1/2 to 8 times the main frequency.
  • Free: makes the modulator select any real frequency between 1/2 to 8 times the main frequency.
• Freq: defines the frequency of the modulator. The behavior is affected by the Tune parameter (see above).
• FM: sets the amount of FM applied to the main oscillator.
• Wave: defines the type of wave used by the modulator.
  • Saw: produces a more edgy result that it's interesting for aggressive sounds.
  • Sine: produces a more soft modulation but still very interesting.
• Ext.FM: controls the amount of FM applied using the external signal provided in the input jack FM.

Phase Section

All this controls affect the phase of the main oscillator. Individually, the change may seem gentle, but combining them with other modulations can alter drastically the sound.

• Overtone: applies a fold-like distortion to the phase that results in a sound that resembles adding overtones to the sound.
• Body: transforms the phase in a log/exp way resulting in a thinner or more fat sound.
• Boost: changes the amplitude of the phase producing a sound resembling to hard-clipping.
• Feed: adds positive feedback to the phase. This produces a resonating-like sound.

Mix Section

• Tone: balances the sound of the oscillator. To the left, the highs are removed and the lows are enhanced.
• Noise: controls the level of white noise. The noise is very useful when making percussive sounds with Noxious.

Chaos Section

The chaos section is used to provide random variations to the sound. In order to trigger the modulation you need to provide a Gate signal otherwise these controls will not affect at all the sound.

• Spread: defines how much the parameters could move after a gate signal. In the maximum level, the parameters could move from minimum to maximum.
• Settle: defines the time the parameters stay outside the current value. A low setting can help provide percussive sounds by making a very fast transition. Larger values will provide longer transitions. When set to the maximum the parameters will not return to the original value but will be reset to a new random state by a new gate.

Glide Section

• Glide: controls the maximum rate of change of the V/OCT signal. Glide can be used to produce a gradual change in pitch of the oscillator. For example, if the V/OCT signal changes abruptly, the glide will make the oscillator change softer to the target voltage.
• Mode (Glide section): defines when the glide is applied.
  • Skip Gate: Glide is not applied if the V/OCT signal changes at the same time as a Gate signal. This will produce an abrupt transition of the pitch when the Gate changes.
  • Always: always apply the glide no matter the signal of the Gate.

Main Jacks

• V/OCT: this is the main input of the oscillator. It defines the pitch using the 1V per octave convention. Zero volts corresponds to a C1 note.
• Gate: a typical gate signal that controls the Glide and Chaos functions of Noxious.
• Out: main output of the oscillator.

Modulation Router

The modulation router simplifies modulating any parameter in the module. To modulate an specific parameter, select a slot by pressing the slot button, this will put the module in "Learn" mode. Move the control that you want to modulate and the slot will be assigned.

Notes

Audio demo provided by Kent Williams (CHAIRCRUSHER). Thank you very much Kent for this fantastic demo.