Mocante IFM Keyboard

Ieaskul F. Mobenthey Mocante

Mocante is Ieaskul F. Mobenthey's touch controller and instrument, taking cues from the territory explored in the Ciat-Lonbarde Tocante series to provide a critical junction for interfacing with Eurorack synthesizer systems. Like the Tocante instruments, Mocante offers an array of twenty-four phase locked loop oscillators tuned by capacitor series. Interacting physically with different areas of the panel-circuit, you can commune with Mocante to produce not only control voltages for other modules, but also to make audible the sounds of the touch-capacitive circuits themselves. This reversal of common touch-control logic is central to the Mocante, an "interrogajoke" which simultaneously critiques and lightheartedly plays with conventional relationships between humans and electronic instruments.

Within the triangular spiral elements at Mocante's outer edges, touches provide typical controller response, resulting in activity at the CV and Gate outputs. Left alone, the CV output sends an undefined voltage, and Gate remains low. Upon interaction, CV produces a voltage related to the frequency of the chosen operator, and sends a Gate between four and seven volts. Moving centrally, the square patterns provide access to the ultrasonic circuits which make touch control possible, shifting them into audible and even subaudible ranges. These tones can be accessed at the Square Drones output, which may also be used as an input for injecting external signals into the touch traces. At the very center of Mocante's touchable plane, circular touch traces interlock the ultrasonic signals, heterodyning together to create whistling tones and using phase-lock pulses to create saw-like noises, which appear respectively at the soft and hard Witch Tone outputs.

In keeping with the spirit of Ieaskul F. Mobenthy and Ciat-Lonbarde's other devices, Mocante provides a territory for intuitive physical interaction with sonic circuits. As such, touch exploration is best approached intuitively, as seeking specificity in response will quickly prove unrewarding. Rather than offering a tool with which to effect well defined goals, IFM's Mocante revels in the momentary sense-making that occurs post-touch, making manifest its musical surprises to beget iterative cycles of sonic interrogation and play.

Mocante Features

• Touch controller and synthesizer compatible with Eurorack modular systems
• Utilizes 24 PLL oscillators tuned to the Tocante series capacitor scale to produce control voltages and audible tones
• Triangle touch traces send Tocante scale CV values and Gates from 4-7 Volts to CV/Gate outputs
• Square touch traces amplify ultrasonic signals and shift them down to produce Square Drones
• Square Drone output is unbuffered, can be used as input to inject external signals into traces
• Circular touch traces combine create sine-like or sawtooth sounds at soft and hard Witch Tone outputs