For the last series of the Arturia Easel V insights, we saw the incredible work Arturia had done with Easel V. This time, we are going to look at the other mind-blowing features Arturia has managed to put in together based on the Buchla Easel. Certainly, Arturia has not disappointed the music world with its creation and hardly ever does.
The Pulser section of Arturia Easel V
Previously we talked about how Arturia Easel V is capable of producing random voltage with patching, mode control from random voltage and Pulser section. Let’s get to the depth of ‘Pulser’ section.
Pulser sits right before the modulation oscillator and it can be immediately spotted because of its yellow knobs. This is one of the most remarkable design decisions Buchla has done to make it more obvious to the eye of the user for an easier visual navigation. Pulser starts with the switch for three mode at the top. Each of these modes can be set to keyboard, pulser or serquencer. These are basically the sources for triggering.
Setting the keyboard will set Pulser to the condition in which it can be controlled by pressing the key. The other section right beneath the Pulser is another mode. Here you can synchronise Pulser, run Pulser free or clock it.
You can also modulate Pulser with a voltage source.
What is clock setting?
Clock setting in this section, is where you control the random voltage based on the clock gate. This knob is located right at the left right part above the keyboards. With this knob you are able to control the rate at which the whole random voltage is run. You can do amazing stuff with the Pulser. If you connect Pulser to timbre for instance, you will get random timbre at random rate which gives you spontaneously playful sound.
Envelope generator
Let’s take a look at the envelope generator. This works and look different from a regular synthesizer. We have our usual attack, decay and sustain functions, however, they are working in a different way. The lower the slider goes, the longer the ADS become.
This section is symbolized with an orange colour. The section also has a trigger selection for switching. Here, you can control the envelope with either a keyboard, Pulser or sequencer. Right beneath this section, we have the sustained, transient or self modes. Then, comes the slider at the bottom of this envelope generator section.
Sequencer section
Now the most interesting and most wanted part, Easel also do come with a sequencer section. It has a 3- to 5-step sequencer. You will find a little blue arrow going down for the sequencer section to various other sections of Easel. You can route it to the envelope, modulation, pitch of the oscillator, timbre, whatever you prefer.
Just press the key and play around with the pitch of the sequencer by adjusting the slider form sequential voltage source. This is the name of this sequencer. You can do a lot of fancy things with this section alone. You then have at the top, two sections. One will trigger the selection section, where you will able to set the trigger to keyboard, pulse and clock. For the sequencer stage, you can set it to 3, 4 and 5. Right beneath this, there is a 5-step sequence. Do not worry if you feel limited to this sequencer. Arturia took care of that and added a 32-step sequencer for you under the hood. What is on the board is the generic Easel features.