Saturday, January 19, 2008

Livewire Chaos Computer


Ok I was pretty much sold on this thing from the first time I saw it last year, but after listening to a few short seconds I am completely smitten.

The Chaos Computer is the perfect blend between random and sequenced. The patterns it creates are random, but they tend to repeat and evolve slowly into different patterns. It's very musical.

The outputs were not what I expected either. The Gate output on each side is the straight clock signal (speed set by frequency knob) whereas the Binary out is a gate signal which occurs depending on the periocity of the shift registers...the random clock basically.

Also, I thought the Uniform/Gaussian outputs meant Stepped and Smoothed, but that's not the case at all. Both outputs are stepped; Uniform and Gaussian refer to the weighting of the voltage levels (or "notes" as Mike put it). So for example, using the Wide output under Uniform would be a large range of possible notes with an even weighting for all notes (meaning each note had the same probability of occuring). Fucking rad! This one is defintely a can't miss module for the eurorack crowd. Oh yeah, and the 8x8 LED matrix is cool as shit to watch in action! :)

7 comments:

Muff Wiggler said...

awesome man, great pics.

I so with the Chaos Computer would come out, i've been lusting for that thing for too long!!

thanks for the cool updates, have fun!!

Zerosum Inertia said...

Another reason to get a Euro rack!

Unknown said...

any ideas on release dates?

Livewire Electronics said...

hey ross...

keep watching my yahoo group... I will be posting info on plans for 2008 including changes to our manufacturing process that will greatly improve our ability to keep units in stock and release new products.

as far as displaying unreleased modules in my racks at namm & musikmesse... the truth is, I bring these so the people who attend the shows can see them, hear them and actually play with them... they seem to enjoy that.

Mike Brown
Livewire Electronics

Unknown said...

cheers Mike

you know you have my orders the minute I hear the words i have been wanting to hear

Unknown said...

cheers Mike

you know you have my orders the minute I hear the words i have been wanting to hear

Unknown said...

shit if i had enough money i would buy 20 of the chaos computers just to watch the leds :-)