Description

This device is inspired from the sequencer section of the MOOG SUBHARMONICON, that borrows itself its concept from the infamous RHYTMICON, co-designed in the early 1930’s by the avant-garde American composer Henry Cowel and the Russian inventor Leon Theremin. Their invention was capable of playing simultaneously multiple periodic rhythm patterns in arithmetic relationship based on pitch overtone series (x2, x3, ... up to x16). Moog reuses the same principle for the Subharmonicon sequencer except it replaces the overtone series by a subharmonic succession (÷2, ÷3, ... until ÷16).

PYTHAGORAS is the Greek philosopher to whom is attributed the discovery of the mathematical proportion between note intervals that defines today the arithmetic principle behind harmonic series. Since this harmonic relationship is at the root of the rhythmic behavior of the sequencer, it would make sense to describe this kind of rhythms as “PYTHAGOREAN RYTHMS”, compared to this other rhythm family named “Euclidean Rhythms” (based on the Euclid’s greatest common divisor algorithm). This is why I dubbed the device “Pythagoras”.

What’s new in version 2:

• Accent Feature

• Note Quantizer

• Parameter Mapping

Big thanks to Dominik Von Grüppe and Pierre Duchesne for their help on device debugging