PATCHWAX

Braden Kirk

Braden is a graphic designer, creative technologist, and multimedia artist based in the New York City Metropolitan Area.

He graduated from The College of New Jersey with a B.A. in Interactive Multimedia, and a minor in Graphic Design.

He is a versatile designer with extensive experience in a wide range of creative software, with his skills spanning from visual arts and branding design, to audio production.

bradenkirk@gmail.com

Welcome To ARPEGGI + WAVE HOUSE

This is a project centered around the idea of serendipity. A phenomenon that is encountered everywhere, but one that appears more often in some places than others.

It’s a phenomenon that can be essential to the music production process, and it’s what Arpeggi and Wave House seek to exploit.

Arpeggi and Wave House are a set of patches developed in Max8, a visual programming platform, that function as VSTs, or plug-ins, for any Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) that provides access to software instruments.

With designs influenced by music equipment of the 1970s, they aim to emulate the mood and feeling of using physical hardware as closely as possible, while still acknowledging the limitations of being confined to software.

PATCHWAX doesn’t intend to replace hardware, but rather provide a portable source of inspiration to kick-start an idea, taking advantage of the fact that DAWs provide a fully equipped, professional studios worth of equipment within devices that we travel nearly everywhere with.

While hardware such as a MIDI keyboard may not always be within a hands reach, PATCHWAX is.

Say Hi To ARPEGGI

At its surface, the PATCHWAX Arpeggi is simply, well, an arpeggiator.

What makes Arpeggi unique however, is that it functions as a virtual MIDI keyboard, and is designed in a way to fully support and complement its digital environment.

Pointing-and-clicking with a mouse isn’t necessarily the most inspiring way to create music, and Arpeggi accommodates for that by only requiring a root note to be selected to generate the rest of a chord. (As an added bonus, this provides a great way for beginner musicians to begin to understand chords and chord progressions!)

Selecting a root note will automatically hold the arpeggio, which then provides space for users to manipulate the parameters of both Arpeggi and the software instrument being used, in real time.

Arpeggi is designed around that idea of serendipity, it encourages experimentation to evoke those unique chord progressions, and it makes users rely on their intuition to find those moments that are worth holding on to.

Welcome To The WAVE HOUSE

The PATCHWAX Wave House is a multi-effects signal processor. I promise it’s simpler than that sounds.

Essentially, Wave House takes the audio output (signal) from your DAW, and runs it through a parallel series of effects. By using a parallel path, this means that each effect (Pitch, Dirt, etc.) uses its own channel, allowing for more control of the signal, and more variety for how the effects can be layered.

The Wave House is perfect for in-the-moment sound design, letting you quickly play around with the characteristics of a sound, and dial in that vibe you’re looking for.

Wave House works well when applied to individual tracks (it’s especially good as a drum compressor!), but it can also be used as a master mixer, to give a song that warmer, more lo-fi feel.

Thank you for making it this far :)

A public release of PATCHWAX is currently in the works, but in the mean time, feel free to contact me if you are interested in trying it, or want to know more about it!